Unconventional Warfare

Face frozen in a look of sheepish innocence, Blancanales settled back in his chair. He blinked his eyes several times. “Well, er, I guess…yeah.”

Face red, Garcia spun on a heel and tossed the blue passport on the table in disgust. He left the room and slammed the door behind him so hard it rattled in its frame. Blancanales called after him, “Actually, I am kind of thirsty, amigo.”

OUT IN THE HALLWAY Garcia marched up to his superior, who stood waiting next to the thin man in civilian clothes. “Sir, their paperwork checks out. Everything checks out perfectly. They’ve obviously rehearsed their story—or it’s the truth. Should I toss them in a holding cell?”

“That won’t be necessary,” the thin man said. “Let them go. Apologize for the mistake, wish them well.”

Garcia slid his gaze over to his commanding officer, who glanced over at the man next to him, then nodded. “Yes, we have enough. Let them go.”

Brazzaville, Republic of the Congo

THE ROTORS OF THE Blackhawk helicopter were still turning slowly as the side door to the cargo bay opened and the men Colonel Kabila had been sent to greet emerged. He surveyed them with a critical eye, noting the athletic physiques, flat affects and nonregulation weaponry hanging off their ballistic armor and black fatigues.

Kabila had seen enough special operations soldiers in his life to recognize the type, French, American, British. As much as they might have liked to think otherwise, nationality mattered little—the elite always had more in common with each other than even with others of their own country or military. Kabila was wise and realistic enough to know he himself did not belong among their ranks. It was no matter of ego for him; his interests lay in other directions.

At the moment it remained focused on gaining these mysterious commandos’ trust, leading them into hostile terrain beyond the reach of help, and then betraying them—making himself a little wealthier in the process.

The first man to reach Kabila was tall and broad with fox-faced features and brown eyes and hair. Having spent the past five years operating alongside British forces in Brazzaville the rebel police officer recognized an Englishman even before he spoke and revealed his accent.

“You Kabila?” David McCarter asked.

Kabila nodded, noting the man did not identify either himself or his unit. Behind the Briton his team paused: a tall black man with cold eyes, a stocky Hispanic with a fireplug build and scarred forearms standing next to a truly massive individual with shoulders like barn doors and an M-60E cut-down machine gun.

Behind the tight little group another individual, as tall and muscular as the rest, turned and surveyed the windows and rooftops of the buildings overlooking the secured helipad. There was a sniper-scoped Mk-11 with a paratrooper skeletal folding stock in his hands. The eyepieces on the telescopic sight popped up to reveal an oval peep sight glowing a dim green.

“We were briefed on the flight in,” McCarter continued. “You get us past the Congolese security checkpoints and militia crossings until we’re within striking distance, then fall back with the reserve force should we need backup.”

“Just so.” Kabila nodded. “I’m surprised you agreed to having only Congolese forces as overwatch. Did you work with us in Brazzaville before?” The question was casually voiced but still constituted a breach of etiquette in such situations.

“Has there been a change in the situation since our initial briefing?” the black man asked, cutting in.

Kabila turned to face Calvin James, noting the H&K MP-7 submachine gun dangling from a sling off his shoulders down the front of his black fatigue shirt. In his big, scarred hands the man casually cradled a SPAS-15 dual-mode combat shotgun. Its stock was folded down so that he held it by the pistol grip and forestock just beyond the detachable drum-style magazine.

Just as with the rest of them, Kabila saw the man’s black fatigues bore no unit insignia, name tag or rank designation. His voice was flatly American, however, the accent bearing just a trace, perhaps of the Midwest, but he couldn’t be sure.

The Congolese pretended not to notice the pointed disregarding of his own indelicate question. Behind the team the Blackhawk’s engines suddenly changed pitch and began to whine as the helicopter lifted off.

Kabila shook his head to indicate no to the black man’s questions, then waved his hand toward the APC parked on the edge of the helipad’s concrete apron. The Dzik-3 was a multipurpose armored car made in Poland and used by Congolese army and police units throughout the country.

The 4.5-ton wheeled vehicle boasted bulletproof windows, body armor able to withstand 7.62 mm rounds, puncture-proof tires and smoke launchers. T. J. Hawkins, covering the unit’s six as they made for the APC, thought it looked like a dun-colored Brink’s truck and doubted it could withstand the new special penetration charges currently being used as roadside improvised explosive devices. He would have felt a lot safer in an American Stryker or the Cougar Armored Fighting Vehicle.

He was used to stark pragmatism, however, and made no comment as he scrambled inside the vehicle, carefully protecting his sniper scope. Despite the rotation of special operations soldiers through Stony Man, the exact nature of the Farm and its teams remained clandestine in the covert community. There were enough special-access programs floating around the intelligence and military establishments performing overlapping and complementary missions that the true carte blanche under which Hal Brognola’s Sensitive Operations Group conducted business was greatly obfuscated.

It had been easier to coordinate a blacked-out operation through local Congolese forces than to bring international authorities operating in the Brazzaville theater in on the loop because the deployment had been so frenzied. Hawkins accepted the situation without complaint.

Inside the armored vehicle the team sat crammed together, muzzles up toward the ceiling. Rafael Encizo sat behind the driver’s seat holding a Hawk MM-1 multiround 40 mm grenade launcher. As Kabila settled in the front passenger seat beside his driver, he looked back at the heavily armed crew with a frown.

“I am in charge of my vehicle during transport and thus am commanding officer for this phase of the operation,” he said, voice grave. “I’m afraid I’m going to have to insist that you put your weapon safeties on.”

McCarter leaned forward, shifting his M-4/M-203 combo to one side as he did, the barrel passing inches from Kabila’s face. He held up his trigger finger in front of the Congolese colonel’s face and smiled coldly.

“Sorry, mate,” he said. “I know you’ve heard this before but—” he wiggled his trigger finger back in forth in front of Kabila’s eyes “—this is my safety.” He settled back into his seat. “End of story.”

Kabila turned around, face gray with fury. He slapped the dash of the vehicle and curtly ordered his driver to pull away from the tarmac of the helipad. As the vehicle rolled out into traffic he forced himself to calm. It was as the old African proverb, claimed by the English as their own, said: who laughs last laughs best, and Colonel Kabila planned to be laughing very hard indeed at the end of the next few hours.

PHOENIX FORCE REMAINED alert as the Dzik-3 left the main traffic thoroughfares surrounding the airport and pushed deeper into the city. They rolled through Congolese national army and police checkpoints without a problem, but as the buildings grew more congested and run-down and the signs of the recent civil conflicts became more prolific—in the form of bullet-riddled walls, the charred hulks of burned-out vehicles, gaping window frames and missing doors—so did flags and graffiti proclaiming rebel slogans and allegiance.

Now the checkpoints were manned by local force police officers who all wore subtle indicators of tribal allegiance in conjunction with their official uniforms. Phoenix Force was entering a section of the city where centralized authority had lost its influence and clan leaders and tribal warlords were the de facto power structures.

The checkpoint stops became longer and the night grew deeper. In the backseat Gary Manning used a GPS-program-enhanced PDA to plot their course as they moved through the city. After a moment he froze the screen and leaned forward to tap McCarter on the shoulder. “We’re here,” he said.

McCarter nodded and looked out a side window. They had entered an era of urban blight forming a squalid industrial bridge between two more heavily populated sections of the city. The dull brown waters of the Niger River cut through concrete banks lined with empty and burned-out factories, manufacturing plants and abandoned electrical substations. A rusting crane sat in a weed-choked parking lot like a forgotten Jurassic beast of steel and iron.

“Pull over,” McCarter told Kabila.

The man looked back in confusion. “What—we still have two more checkpoints to go before the rendezvous point,” he protested.

“Pull over. We have our own ops plan.” McCarter repeated. “When we give the signal, you and the chase vehicle can meet us at the RP. We’ll insert on foot from here.”

“This isn’t what I was told—” Kabila sputtered.

“Pull over.”

Kabila scowled, then barked an order to his driver, who immediately guided the big 4.5-ton vehicle over to the side of the road. They rolled to a stop and Phoenix Force wasted little time scurrying out of the vehicle, weapons up.

Before he slammed the door shut, McCarter repeated his instructions to the Congolese police officer. “Get to the RP. Link up with the chase vehicle and hold position as instructed. When I come across the radio we’ll be shaking ass out of the AO so expect hot. Understood?”

Kabila nodded. His face was impassive as he replied, “I understand perfectly, Englishman.”

“Good,” McCarter answered, and slammed the Dzik-3’s door closed.

As soon as the man was gone Kabila had his cell phone out. He could feel his laughter forming in his belly and he bit it down. He’d save it for when he was looking at the bloody corpses of the Western commandos.

Managua, Nicaragua

ABLE TEAM STEPPED OUT into the equatorial sunlight from the cramped depths of the customs station on the far side of the international airport. Hermann Schwarz’s eye was swollen slightly and he had a bemused look as he used a free hand to rub at his sore ribs.

He turned toward Lyons, who was squinting momentarily against the hard yellow light of the sun. “Next time you play the asshole,” he said.

Blancanales chuckled to himself. “It does come more natural to you,” he pointed out.

Lyons shrugged and slid on his shades. He stood in the doorway of the customs station and smiled. “Quick, use your cell phone to take a picture of me.”

Pretending to laugh along with the joke like ugly American tourists, Blancanales quickly opened his Samsung cell phone and thumbed on the video function. He started rolling, capturing the scene.

Immediately he saw a cadaverous man in a business suit watching them from beside their interrogator as he pointed the camera over Lyons’s bulky shoulder. The man frowned as he saw the Americans taking pictures, and then he turned and walked away.

“Something to remember Managua by,” Schwarz said loudly.

“Oh, that was great acting,” Lyons muttered, walking forward.

“Thank you. Thank you very much.”

“Did you get it?” Lyons asked.

“You mean, tall, skinny and corpse-looking?” Blancanales asked. “You betcha. I’ll see what Aaron’s crew can do with it.” He hit a button and fired off the short video clip to a secure server service that would eventually feed it into Stony Man.

Stony Man Farm, Virginia

THE EMAIL TRAVELED with digital speed through security links and into Carmen Delahunt’s computer. Seeing the priority message beeping an alert, she quickly raised her sensory-glove-encased hand to her left and pantomimed clicking on the link with a finger. Inside the screen of her VR uplink helmet the short cell phone video played out.

“Just got something from Pol,” she said. “They want an ID on what appears to be a civilian who’s buddy-buddy with Nicaraguan law-enforcement officials.”

From behind her in the Annex’s Computer Room Aaron Kurtzman’s gruff voice instructed, “Send it over to Hunt’s station. His link to the Roadrunner is more configured to that kind of search than your infiltration and investigation research algorithms.”

The head of the Stony Man cyberteam referred to the blade farm IBM Roadrunner supercomputer used as the primary workhorse of the Farm. The IBM Roadrunner was considered the fastest supercomputer in the world, though Kurtzman, much like the NSA, preferred using a Blue Gene/L archetype for defensive counterhacking operations. The Stony Man Roadrunner model was every bit as efficient as the one in Las Alamos Laboratories, provided them digital espionage options equal to any agency in the American government or overseas.

Tapping the stem of a briarwood pipe against his teeth, Professor Huntington Wethers froze the video image on a single shot, then transported it to a separate program designed to identify the anatomical features on the picture then translate them into a succinct binary code. He ran the program four times to include variables for age, angle and articulation, then ran a blending-sum algorithm to predict changes for bad photography, low light and resolution obscurity. He grunted softly before firing off double emails of the completed project, one back to Carmen Delahunt and the other to Akira Tokaido.

“There you go,” Wethers said. “I would suggest simultaneous phishing with a wide-base server like Interpol and something more aimed, like Nicaraguan intelligence.”

“Dibs on Nicaraguan intel,” Tokaido called out.

The youngest member of the Stony Man cyberteam slouched in his chair using only his fingertips to control the mouse pads on two separate laptops.

“That’s just crap,” Delahunt replied. “I already have a trapdoor built into Interpol. Dad, Akira’s stealing all the fun stuff!”

“Children, behave,” Kurtzman growled. “Or I’ll make you do something really boring like checking CIA open agency sources like your uncle Hunt is doing.”

“Your coffeepot is empty, Bear,” Wethers replied, voice droll.

“What?” Kurtzman sat up in his wheelchair and twisted around to look at the coffeemaker set behind his workstation. To his relief he saw the pot was still half full of the jet-black liquid some claimed flowed through his veins instead of blood.

“Every time, Bear. I get you every time,” Wethers chided.

“That’s because some things aren’t funny,” Kurtzman said. “I expect such antics from a kid like Akira, but you’re an esteemed professor, for God’s sake. I expect you to comport yourself with decorum.”

“Brother Bear,” Wethers said, his fingers flying across his keyboard, “if you ever did run out of coffee you’d just grind the beans in your mouth.”

“Bear drinks so much coffee,” Delahunt added, her hands still wildly pantomiming through her VR screen, “that Hector Valdez named his donkey after him.”

“Bear drinks so much coffee he answers the door before people knock,” Tokaido added. He appeared to be hardly moving at his station, which meant he was working at his most precise.

Stony Man mission controller Barbara Price walked into the Computer Room just in time to catch Tokaido’s comment. Without missing a beat the honey-blonde former NSA operations officer added a quip of her own.

“Bear drinks so much coffee he hasn’t blinked since the last lunar eclipse.”

Kurtzman coolly lifted a meaty hand and gave a thumbs-down gesture. Deadpan, he blew the assembled group a collective raspberry. “Get some new material—those jokes are stale, people.”

“Bear drinks so much coffee it never has a chance to get stale,” Delahunt said calmly. She tapped the air in front of her with a single finger and added; “Ortega, Dan—”

“Daniel,” Tokaido simultaneously chorused with the redheaded ex-FBI agent.

“Of the General Counterintelligence Agency,” Wethers finished for them. All humor was gone from his voice now. “The Nicaraguan military intelligence agency.”

Sensing the tension immediately, Price turned toward Kurtzman. “What does this mean for Able?”

Kurtzman pursed his lips and sighed. “Trouble.”

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