Extermination

CHAPTER TWO

Chicago’s late-afternoon weather was just perfect for Carl Lyons. It was neither too warm for the loose gun-concealing leather jacket he wore, nor was it so cold that he would risk being seen as out of place by leaving the jacket unzipped, thus making it quicker for him to reach for his defensive weapons.

Lyons was a former LAPD officer, and he generally wore a spine-numbing scowl that could unnerve even the toughest enemy. In a shoulder holster, Lyons wore the replacement for his old Colt Python, a Smith Wesson Model 686 Plus. It was a 7-shot .357 Magnum revolver with a six-inch barrel, giving the Able Team commander the option to engage enemies at up to 200 yards. The weapon had been refined in the Stony Man Farm armory, given a matte, nonreflective finish, Pachmayer Compact grips and a trigger job that made double-action shooting swift and instinctive. His backup for the mighty Mag-Plus was another Smith & Wesson, this time the polymer-framed MP-45, a sleek weapon that carried ten fat .45-caliber rounds in the magazine and another in the pipe. Lyons and the rest of the team had gone with the version that had the same thumb safety levers as on their single-action Colt 1911 autos, a lifesaving option if it came time to wrestle for the big .45, but not a hindrance to a locked and cocked .45 user as the levers worked identically to their Colt counterparts.

Kissinger, their armorer, had wanted to see how the same company’s 1911 version would work, but Able Team had grown spoiled with high-capacity magazines, and the MP-45 had one that fit flush instead of sticking out, making concealment difficult. Kissinger modified these with extended, threaded barrels for suppressed work and a knurled knob that protected the threads when not wearing a silencer. Lyons’s belt carried not only the .45, but also spare ammunition pouches for both pistols, a flashlight holder, a folding knife and his PDA/communicator, as well as a flat package of cable ties that could be deployed either as handcuffs, improvised door locks or tourniquets to prevent massive bleeding.

As a former beat cop, Lyons didn’t mind the weight that hung around his hips, especially since it would give him an edge toward survival. Schwarz and Blancanales had often teased him about being a big Boy Scout, always being prepared. Lyons had never been in the Scouts, and he doubted that there was a merit badge for busting up bar fights or dropping a hostage taker with a single gunshot from across a parking lot. However, that preparedness was what had elevated the burly, blond ex-cop to become one of America’s top nine fighting men, the people called upon when every other option was either used up or any other law enforcement or military response was simply too slow to save the day. Lyons’s entire existence now was lived day-to-day, looking out for worst-case scenarios and maintaining the mental agility to solve those problems as they came to him.

Lyons slid into a tenement building and slipped his flashlight into his hand, palmed to conceal it. It was a four-inch-long, squat, fat pipe of knurled steel with a rubber cap at one end for the toggle switch. The lens at the other end was surrounded by an octagonal collar that had the density and strength to shatter glass or lay open a cheek down to the bone. Lyons hadn’t needed the nine powerful LED bulbs for illumination, his eyes quickly adjusting to the shadows of the lobby, but the flashlight would prove to be an effective impact weapon against an attacker, and those LED lights would sear the vision of someone trying to attack him with a gun in the close quarters of the lobby.

That kind of thinking was how the man called Ironman had become Able Team’s leader, commanding two Special Forces veterans when Lyons hadn’t had traditional military or paramilitary experience. The big blond ex-cop had survived the rough streets of Los Angeles and had also survived for years working undercover against the mob, quite often teaming with Mack Bolan, the Executioner. It was surviving against mob hits and backing up Bolan in his one-man war that had earned Lyons the nickname Ironman, a legacy that had been forged even deeper in hell zones from the jungles of South America to the deserts of the Middle East.

That kind of edge and awareness had been born in the streets, though. The team had been on the hunt for a shipment of modules that were capable of turning unguided bombs packed with hundreds of pounds of high explosives into precision killing machines. The most dramatic instance of such a tool utilized in a city was when the Israeli Defense Force had fired one at a terrorist leader who had taken up residence in an apartment building ringed with bodyguards and the added “protection” of innocent Palestinian civilians living in the building. The whole complex had been taken out by a single one-ton bomb that killed fourteen and wounded fifty others. The building had been turned into a crater, and had the warhead been launched at any other time, the death toll would have been even greater. It wasn’t the kind of move that Lyons would have preferred, but to only kill fifteen people with two thousand pounds of high explosives, launched from a supersonic strike fighter, was a sign of how deadly those modules could be.

That was the kind of firepower that a terrorist group, no matter how disciplined, could hardly keep secret. There would be bragging, an increase in veiled threats, something that broke loose into the whisper stream, rumors flying through the underground that someone would trade in on. Hundreds of the high-tech units could be combined with weapons no more refined than steel pipes stuffed with plastic explosives and rolled out of the back of a cargo plane. One of these could easily be dropped into a meeting of Congress, or an airport crowded with innocent travelers, causing death and devastation in a manner that terrorists loved.

The arms-dealer trail was their only lead. It was what had gotten them to Chicago, but nothing had gone further. The Farm’s cybernetic crew had worked hard, pulling out the stops on suspected foreign and domestic terrorist groups who would have the money and coordination for such a theft under the opinion that perhaps one cell had been disciplined enough to hold their tongues.

But that wasn’t how it appeared. From radical Islamic fundamentalists—the scourge who gave the Arab world a bad reputation—to Illinois neo-Nazis—a scourge who gave all humanity a worse reputation—no one seemed to be primed with confidence or assigning extra security to protect their illicit firepower.

The laser modules had moved on somewhere, and they had most likely gone to be stored with the bombs that they were destined to steer toward death and destruction.

Lyons knew that the trail had gone cold, and with that sudden chill came the realization that the next chance they’d have would be when fire fell from the sky upon American citizens.

The lobby was empty except for the cage where a security guard leaned back in his chair, idly watching black-and-white screens. Lyons only got a glimpse of the man as he’d passed, but the ex-cop had his senses tuned to suck in as much data as possible.

The guard was all wrong. Instead of a bored, inattentive washout with a slight roll, or an exhausted beat cop working a second job to feed his kids, this guy was fit and he was focused. He’d given Lyons the same eyeball treatment that he’d received, and his attention returned to the security screens. The gun in his holster was a customized Colt-style 1911 autopistol, carried locked and cocked in quality leather. Modern cops were the kind of people who preferred different arms, and in a city and environs like Chicago, the single-action sidearm was not approved, nor as inexpensive as the Glocks and other polymer-framed pistols that had risen in popularity. While the guy might have been SWAT, thus having the standard of training to have a police rig for the 1911, he still wasn’t in “second job” mode. No radio played in the silence of the lobby, nor did the guy wear earbuds attached to a digital music player.

The laid-back approach was faked. That level of security awareness, plus the high-profile, skill-intensive sidearm, added up to the sum that Lyons sought. This was the place he was looking for, and he strolled with renewed confidence and energy. He didn’t believe that he’d need Schwarz or Blancanales for this leg of the investigation. After all, this was only an organized crime transportation service, and while there would be a need for armed guards around the storehouse and loading docks, this was too much of a residential building to serve as either, though Lyons wouldn’t put anything past the mob. Chicago had a significant Italian-American organized community still, much like New York and New Jersey, and the Mafia had remained resilient enough to resist being put to pasture by groups who had risen to power in other major metropolises. These low-income tenements were nothing like the monolithic, soul-draining prisons like Cabrini Green, which had been demolished after they’d become cesspools controlled by powerful drug gangs.

Still, this particular tenement was big enough to prove to be a good fortress while still being low profile.

“Hey, Blondie.” The guard’s voice rose. “I gotta buzz you in. Who’re you here to see?”

Lyons was halfway to the elevators and stopped, looking over his shoulder. If this guard was as sharp as he’d assumed, there was no way that the security man would miss the arsenal he wore, no matter how loosely the leather jacket draped over it. “I’m here on business. Didn’t Scalia tell you?”

It was a bluff. Lyons had spent a few moments on the phone with Chicago’s org-crime unit, making use of his old contacts from when he was an undercover Fed, and he’d picked up a few names from the police that he could drop. Scalia was high enough that security wouldn’t want to be caught questioning his orders, but not so important that he would seem out of the loop giving such orders.

“Scalia?” the uniformed guard asked. “Don’t matter. You’re walking in here armed. I wouldn’t be surprised if you had a 25 mm turret in there.”

Lyons smirked, then pulled his lapel aside. “Nah. Just a six-inch .357 Magnum.”

“Damn, son,” the guard said. “Not far from it.”

“So what? I have to leave my heat here at the desk?” Lyons asked.

The guard shook his head. “I do have to pat you for wires, and I’d like to see your cell.”

Lyons nodded, doffing his jacket. The guard made note of Lyons’s body armor, and kept feeling. He was a professional, not minding having to mess with another man’s junk to look for concealed electronics. A signal sweep might not work in case the device had remote activation.

The guard took Lyons’s Combat PDA, the only phone he’d had with him. Luckily, the Able Team leader had switched it over to a new identity, locking off any history of calls to law enforcement, replacing it with a series of random names and numbers produced by an logarithm devised by Hermann Schwarz and Aaron “the Bear” Kurtzman to provide a clean identity. Only Lyons’s thumbprint could return the device to its normal contact list and background data. Stony Man Farm was nothing if not efficient and well-prepared when providing its members with secure communications.

“You kinda Nordic-looking to be muscle for the outfit,” the rent-a-cop said.

Lyons chuckled. “And you bleed marinara sauce?”

The guard smiled. “Welcome to the new thing. Diversity in operation.”

“My phone?” Lyons asked.

“Stays here,” the sentry returned. “Someone clones your signal and dials in, it’s like you’re wearing a mike anyway. The only phones past this lobby are landline.”

Lyons nodded. “Scalia don’t fuck around when it comes to OPSEC.”

The guard’s interest was piqued now. “Military?”

“Private contractor,” Lyons answered with just enough disappointment to let the real veteran know that he was someone who hadn’t been tolerated in a war zone by military brass, but had been in action and carried the same battle confidence that someone in the Sandbox would have.

“Well, just keep things private, Mr. Contractor,” the guard replied. “I’m not the only one here you’re gonna mess with. Two pistols and lightweight undercover Kevlar isn’t going to mean much if you do decide to get nasty.”

Lyons gave the guard a small salute, then got on the elevator. He’d have to get the CPDA back from the front desk on his way out. Hopefully, he wouldn’t have to pick it out of rubble if that was the case.

CALVIN JAMES LIKED Paris, a truly multicultural center that had accepted and nurtured some of the finest black American expatriates into global superstars on the music, writing and acting scenes. On these streets resided a history of great artists who’d come here in self-imposed exile rather than buckle under to an age of racism that did its best to snuff out their creativity simply because of the color of their skin. James often wondered how he would have dealt with those times, and knew that any chance a black doctor would have had would have been thin and as ghettoized as every other segment of American society back in those days.

James loved America; there would never be any doubt about that. He had bled for her even before he had been recruited to Phoenix Force. And part of his love stemmed from how America could heal, improve and right the wrongs of the past.

The infiltration of a country’s leadership by clever, predatory scum was not the country’s or the government’s fault. The greedy and corrupt would always find a way to positions of power, and nothing short of complete martial law and the revocation of liberty could ever quell such ambitions. As a soldier of freedom, he would never let that happen.

Here and now on the streets of Paris, the flight was not from injustice, but from those seeking to bring evildoers to justice. The target was Aasim Bezoar, a Syrian biochemist who had been traveling through Europe. Bezoar’s schooling had been in Moscow, back in the era of the Cold War, and he had been one of the top men in Syria’s chemical and biological weapons programming, helping to build an arsenal that would give Israel pause should they ever attempt reprisal for their interference in Lebanon. Bezoar’s machinations had been part of the reason for the cold peace between Syria and Israel, but they had also been part of other, more dangerous problems that had only been barely contained thanks to the efforts of law enforcement and espionage across the world.

One of James’s first missions with Phoenix Force had been an operation in Greece where hardline Soviets had invented an enzyme that would have destroyed the stomach lining of people it was exposed to, dooming them to malnutrition. That terrifying attack had been stopped cold, and James had cemented his position as one of the five pillars of Phoenix Force.

Bezoar had been involved in the research, but not the execution of the Proteus Enzyme, and as such, he had escaped the wrath of Stony Man Farm’s operatives.

Now Bezoar had popped up on the radar in Paris. His ties with the Syrian government had been dissolved for some reason. The Syrians had claimed he’d died a year ago, but here he was, alive and well.

James and his comrades hadn’t been the first ones to take notice of Bezoar. A team of operatives from Damascus had made the attempt to retrieve him. It was their corpses, floating in the Seine, that had alerted Interpol, and by extension, Stony Man, that the chemist was alive and in the City of Lights. When a supposedly dead biochemist attracted a force of assassins, Barbara Price knew Phoenix Force was meant to be involved.

David McCarter, the leader of Phoenix Force, walked beside James. A fox-faced man with hard, glinty eyes, McCarter was a British citizen, and more importantly, a veteran of Britain’s storied Special Air Service before being recruited to the Sensitive Operations Group. His mastery of counterterrorist tactics was second to none, backed up by a wild man’s energy disciplined by years of experience. Throwing in his knowledge of Arabic, German and French—as well as his ability to fly anything with wings or propellers—was the icing on a hardcase cake.

The members of Phoenix Force were picked because they could fight, but none of them was just pure brawn. Each of them knew at least three languages fluently, as well as possessing a gamut of knowledge ranging from deep sea diving, archaeology, structural engineering, medicine and chemistry.

Hundreds of lives were at risk, and Phoenix Force had the Syrian assassins to thank for it. Damascus was hardly a friend of the United States and the rest of the Western world, but when the Syrian government reacted to one of their own going rogue, the globe had to sit up and take notice.

“Anything, Cal?” McCarter asked.

James shook his head. “Still nothing. How much longer are we going to watch that hole in the wall?”

McCarter took a deep breath. James knew that before he’d been given leadership of the team, his impetuous and impulsive nature had him chomping at the bit to get into action. Anything that hinted of hesitation crawled under McCarter’s skin like a burr. Since his promotion, however, even the appearance sitting idly was misleading. The Briton’s mind was buzzing, a gleaming light shining behind his eyes indicating thoughts racing along as he plotted angles and strategies.

Being the boss didn’t make things easier, but it alleviated any boredom he used to have.

“Until we’re ready,” McCarter said.

James shook his head again. “A few years ago, I’d ask who the hell you are and what you’d done with the real David.”

McCarter looked at James and winked. “The real David’s having fun working out the probabilities of my plans a dozen times over, looking for every single outcome. Before, I had to twiddle my thumbs, waiting to do my thing. Now I’m rolling plans in my head to make sure all you little chickadees return home to roost, not just because you’re all my mates, but because Mama Hen Barb would turn me into a fryer if I fucked up.”

“I’m so glad that our friendship is more important than your fear of reprisals, David,” James said.

McCarter chuckled, then brought his radio to his lips. “Gary, luv. Still warm up there?”

“A Paris evening in November?” Gary Manning asked. “In Canada, this is T-shirt weather.”

“Any change of security?” McCarter returned.

“Same patrol patterns. Bezoar has some tightly wound people watching him, and they’re not fucking around,” Manning answered. “They haven’t noticed you two yet, but then, it takes me a minute to locate you.”

“Good news,” McCarter said. “T.J., how’re you doing?”

“Aside from the hairy eyeballs I caught from security, I’m peachy,” Hawkins told him. “They noticed me just walking on the sidewalk, so Bezoar has plenty of sharp eyes and ears on the scene.”

“A visit from Damascus woke them up, likely,” Rafael Encizo commented from his vantage point.

“Not this bunch,” Hawkins countered. “This wasn’t cockroach scrambling, this was lions watching a zebra. Not a nice feeling being the prey.”

“Just about satisfied, David?” Encizo asked.

“Almost,” McCarter responded.

James noticed a sudden perk of interest rise in the Phoenix Force commander. “Spot something?”

“A truck picking up trash,” McCarter said, nodding toward the vehicle. “Gary, how many guns are on it?”

They waited for Manning for a couple of moments, then the Canadian spoke up. “Five. How’d you guess?”

“I’ve done stakeouts in this area of town before,” McCarter answered. “Rubbish isn’t picked up on this day of the week, and not two haulers off a truck at the same time.”

“Amazing the amount of crap you remember,” James muttered.

“I noticed,” McCarter replied. “The Syrians sent in reinforcements.”

“We move on them?” Encizo asked.

McCarter shook his head, then spoke up. “No. We let them start this party, then we slip around the back.”

“Worked for Striker, might as well work for us,” James said.

McCarter reached for his valise and opened it, scanning the Fabrique Nationale P-90 concealed within. The tiny chatterbox was stuffed with a 50-round magazine. “We want Bezoar alive, chickadees. Treat him with kid gloves. Anyone else, fuck ’em. Especially the party from Damascus.”

The garbage truck rolled close to Bezoar’s apartment building.

McCarter and his Phoenix Force teammates were in motion before the first pop of a submachine gun was barely audible in the distance.

CHAPTER THREE

Arno Scalia walked down the hall, mouth turned in a frown that was only amplified by the downward turn of his black mustache. The fluorescent lights shone off his shaved head as he fiddled with his key in the lock. He’d just left the most secure room in the building, a structure that had cost one hundred thousand dollars to build and had been designed to resist any manner of eavesdropping. The phone call that had come in over a shielded and encrypted landline had made him uncomfortable.

Last week he and the outfit had moved crates of military electronics. Nothing could be identified, as it was still in the packaging and the labels had been scraped off, but the order was “don’t ask, don’t tell.” For the higher-ups to actually have to repeat that to Scalia, one of the most discreet of men in the entire family, it was a sign that there was no fooling around with this shipment. Nothing falls off the back of the truck, nobody looks inside a crate and for certain no one will ever speak of it again.

That kind of double-checking was indicative of two conditions. One was that the organization had received a boatload of money to keep this well under the radar. The other was that his bosses, some of the hardest gangsters in Chicago, were frightened of the consequences of a single error.

Scalia was a professional, one who wouldn’t make such a mistake, and if his subordinates had screwed up under him, he’d take it out of their hides. The shit would continue to roll downhill, until someone paid for the amount of grief he’d caused, the level of punishment rising with each and every person the frustration had passed through. No one in the transport office would screw things up. It was just too well enforced internally.

Now, he’d just received a phone call regarding a trio of Feds who were asking questions in town. Scalia had to keep an eye out for them, and if there was anything out of the ordinary, he was to quash it at a moment’s notice.

“A trio of Feds,” he murmured, repeating the term. “Actually, they were called ‘super-Feds.’”

Scalia had been in the Mafia long enough to know what that term meant. Some government agencies didn’t have to work by a set of rules that allowed groups like his to operate in relative freedom. The mention of a trio of super-Feds had also popped up all over the country, often just preceding a blitz that was second only to the horrors inflicted upon them by a lone vigilante whose name was never spoken anymore. Scalia had been present in other towns where the local organized crime had received visits from mystery men waving around Justice Department credentials just before war exploded on the streets.