Capital Offensive (Stony Man) Read online

  DON PENDLETON’S

  STONY MAN®

  CAPITAL OFFENSIVE

  AMERICA’S ULTRA-COVERT INTELLIGENCE AGENCY

  TORONTO • NEW YORK • LONDON

  AMSTERDAM • PARIS • SYDNEY • HAMBURG

  STOCKHOLM • ATHENS • TOKYO • MILAN

  MADRID • WARSAW • BUDAPEST • AUCKLAND

  Special thanks and acknowledgment to

  Nick Pollotta for his contribution to this work.

  CONTENTS

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  EPILOGUE

  PROLOGUE

  Sonora, Texas

  Loose gravel crunched under the tanker truck’s tires as it slowly rolled out of the darkness.

  “Hold it right there!” the guard called out, raising a palm. With a stern expression, the big man stood at the entrance to the brick kiosk. “Right there, I said!”

  With hissing air brakes, the massive vehicle rocked slightly as it came to a complete stop directly in front of the locked gate of the electrified fence. Coiled lengths of razor-sharp concertina wire along its top glistened in the reflected glow of the headlights.

  On the side of the tanker was the name and logo of a famous fuel company, but the guard knew that was probably false. Everything short of an ice-cream truck had delivered materials to the desert warehouse. After working there for a year, nothing surprised the man anymore. Although dressed in civilian clothing, the U.S. Marine corporal was wearing a canvas military gun belt with a .45 Desert Eagle pistol at his hip.

  Keeping a hand near his weapon, the Marine could see there were two people inside the cab, a big man sitting behind the wheel and a woman resting her head against the passenger-side window. The raven-haired beauty appeared to be sound asleep; he could hear her softly snoring.

  Cautiously loosening the Desert Eagle, the corporal cast a wary glance at the delivery schedule tacked to a corkboard inside the brick kiosk and saw there wasn’t a shipment due to the government warehouse for another couple of days. That wasn’t unprecedented. Set behind the electrified fence, the massive Quonset hut that served as a warehouse was little more than a junkyard for spare parts and obsolete equipment. Whenever anything got upgraded, or outright replaced, the old equipment was sent here, to be labeled, numbered, indexed, stacked, listed and forgotten. There wasn’t anything inside the warehouse worth stealing unless a person was looking for antiques. Everybody in his platoon considered standing guard here a punishment detail. Death by boredom. Although exactly who it was the soldier had annoyed he honestly had no idea.

  “You folks lost?” the corporal asked, smiling politely. His relief had told him how a bunch of folks with cameras had stopped by once foolishly thinking this was the entrance to the famous Sonora Crystal Caves. It took him a full hour to convince the civilians that this was just a warehouse and not a tourist attraction. Civilians, he thought, were just about as useless as lips on a brick.

  “Nope, not lost. Got a priority delivery,” the driver said, flipping down the visor and pulling loose a sheath of papers held in place by a rubber band.

  The corporal tensed at the action. But the driver stayed inside the cab and held the papers outside the window.

  “A delivery at this hour?” the corporal asked suspiciously, slightly easing his stance.

  The driver shrugged. “Hey, I just work here, brother.”

  A fellow Marine, eh? The corporal smiled. “I hear that.” Accepting the papers, he quickly checked the documents and everything seemed to be in order. Just another load of miscellaneous equipment for the junkyard.

  Tucking the papers into the pocket of his shirt, the corporal grabbed the stanchions supporting the sideview mirror and pulled himself onto the corrugated steel step and looked inside the cab. He didn’t want to, but regulations were regulations, even out here in the middle of nowhere.

  The driver raised both hands to show he was unarmed, and the corporal gasped at the sight of the sleeping female passenger. The buttons on her blouse were undone, the full breasts naked and exposed. One of the nipples was pierced, the steel ring glistening in the amber dashboard lights like gold.

  “Okay, you’re going on report, asshole,” the corporal growled unhappily. “Bringing a goddamn hooker on a delivery run—” Suddenly he stopped talking and grabbed his throat with both hands, red blood gushing between his fingers.

  Falling away from the truck, the Marine hit the ground hard, his head cracking against the pavement. Everything whirled for a moment, then he heard the door to the truck open. The corporal clawed for the Desert Eagle at his hip. As the gun cleared the holster, it was kicked from his grip and skittered away into the darkness. Then the driver knelt to stab him in the chest with what appeared to be a long sliver of glass wrapped in thick cloth.

  The pain triggered adrenaline and the corporal savagely swung up an elbow to knock the makeshift knife aside, then he rolled over to frantically scramble for the kiosk. Gotta make it…only a few yards, he thought. There were more weapons inside a locked cabinet near the minifridge along with a full medical kit. But more importantly, there was the alarm button on the desk. The telephone was useless; talking would be impossible with his vocal cords cut. With that realization, a wave of cold flooded the corporal, and he knew this wasn’t some thrill-crazy lunatic, but a planned attack on a military site. Suddenly getting another pistol was replaced by the grim determination to hit the alarm button.

  Stumbling into the kiosk, the corporal could see the alarm. But a heavy feeling was filling his body, and breathing was impossible, his chest aching from the need to pull in one more sip of air. Releasing the hand from his throat, the soldier saw crimson blood arch into the kiosk and instantly knew that a major artery had been cut with the first expert slash. Death was close. He had only a few seconds remaining. Summoning his last vestiges of strength, the corporal staggered toward the alarm button…but something pulled on his collar, hauling him back into the deadly night.

  Tumbling to the hard ground, the dying soldier vaguely saw the grinning truck driver standing over him for a single moment, then the glass knife came down, stabbing into him again and again. Searing agony filled his universe, to be replaced with a soothing blackness that engulfed the Marine forever.

  Standing erect, the frowning driver cast aside the glass knife and it shattered on the concrete steps to the small kiosk. “Sorry, brother,” the big man muttered in guttural Spanish.

  “Was he alone?” Lieutenant Henrietta Caramico demanded, leaning out of the cab of the truck, a silenced 9 mm Bersa pistol held expertly in her hand. The woman’s shirt was still undone, her breasts swaying to the subtle vibrations of the big diesel engine.

  “Yes, Lieutenant. There’s nobody else listed on the duty roster,” Sergeant Roberto Mendoza replied, squinting at the papers tacked to the corkboard above the desk.

  “Good,” Caramico muttered, her weapon sweeping the darkness for any video cameras. But the area was clean. Once again, she thought, Snake Eater had been right. Security here had been a joke. Bu
t then, the Americans didn’t consider this isolated warehouse a chink in their national defense. Major mistake.

  “Okay, let’s finish this,” the lieutenant snapped, swinging back into the cab. Holstering the gun, she began to hurriedly button her shirt closed.

  Climbing behind the wheel, the sergeant revved the engine to build power and then shifted gears and charged for the wire gate. Sparks flew as the hinges were ripped away from the supporting steel posts and the gate crashed loudly to the pavement. Buckling the metal framework under its massive rubber tires, the heavy tanker rolled over the ruined gate and across the empty parking lot, steadily building speed.

  “Zigzag a little,” Caramico ordered, tucking the shirt into her pants. “Remember, we’re supposed to be a runaway truck.”

  Nodding, the big sergeant did as requested and began to move erratically. He sideswiped a battered old VW Beetle, probably the car of the dead guard, then stomped the gas pedal to the floor and shifted gears. The speedometer just managed to reach forty miles per hour when the truck violently slammed into the Quonset hut. A headlight shattered and the tanker severely dented the corrugated steel siding. Braced for the collision, the man and woman were still almost thrown from their seats.

  Allowing the engine to sputter and stall, the sergeant clamored out of the cab and went around to the rear of the tanker. The lieutenant was already there, smiling widely. Gasoline was rushing out of a break in the main feeder pipe, exactly where they had weakened the metal with acid only a few minutes earlier.

  “Take care of our guest,” Caramico said, walking briskly into the darkness.

  Hunching his shoulder, Mendoza grunted. “Yes, ma’am.” Climbing into the sleeper compartment situated behind the cab, the sergeant dragged out a corpse and stuffed the owner of the tanker carefully behind the steering wheel. When the position looked natural, Mendoza liberally poured whiskey over the body and tossed the empty bottle to the floor mat. It had been easy enough for the pretty lieutenant to strike up a conversation with the driver at the truck stop on the main road, then convince him to have a couple of sips of whiskey to put a trace of alcohol into his bloodstream. Caramico was a cast-iron bitch, but even Mendoza had to admit that his lieutenant was a real looker. The two had had sex in the sleeper compartment, and when the man was snoring afterward, she’d used a hypodermic needle to inject a bubble of air into his bloodstream. Death was almost instantaneous, but would be totally untraceable to modern-day forensics.

  “All clear,” Caramico reported, walking out of the gloom. “I dropped a few clues for the FBI to find tomorrow. Help them discover the identity of the terrorists, eh?”

  “I dislike that word.” Mendoza stepped away from the expanding puddle of fuel on the cracked ground. The rising fumes were starting to blur the air, and the reek was becoming intolerable. “We’re soldiers, not criminals.”

  “And this is war,” Caramico replied, retreating a few yards herself. “So shut the fuck up, and just do your job.”

  Biting back a response, the big sergeant opened and closed his scarred hands, but said nothing.

  Lighting a cigarette, the lieutenant drew in the smoke with obvious satisfaction. Then she slowly exhaled and tossed the cigarette onto a crack in the dry pavement. The glowing tip resembled the eye of a demon in the shadow of the crashed truck. Splashing from the broken pip, the dark pool of gasoline was rapidly spreading across the parking lot, following the sandy cracks to head directly for the burning cigarette.

  “How long do we have?” Mendoza asked nervously, licking dry lips. The man preferred timing pencils and fuses. Solid, reliable military hardware, not this makeshift nonsense. But subterfuge was what the general wanted. And orders were orders.

  “Less than a minute,” Caramico said slowly, estimating the expansion of the gasoline pool. The fuel seemed to be pouring out of the tanker faster than ever. Perhaps the minor crash had burst some of the internal seals.

  In unison, the two soldiers broke into a run and were moving at a full sprint when they passed through the smashed gate and raced past the bloody corpse near the kiosk. A flickering light appeared from behind. Redoubling their speed, the man and woman frantically pelted into the desert and managed to dodge behind a large sand dune a split second before the ruptured gasoline tanker violently detonated.

  Fiery light filled the night, and the very ground shook from the staggering force of the blast, the strident explosion rumbling across the flat Texas desert for countless miles. A heartbeat later, flaming debris sprayed across the desert, the sand dune shaking from the brutal impact on the other side.

  Long moments passed before the force of the detonation dissipated. Brushing loose sand from their hair and clothing, the man and woman went around another sand dune and reclaimed the motorcycles they had parked there earlier that day.

  Kicking their sleek bikes alive, Caramico and Mendoza paused for a moment to look to the north. Precisely on schedule, three bright pinpoints appeared above the mountains on the horizon.

  “And so it begins,” Mendoza remarked, his face a blank mask of control.

  “No, this is how it all ends,” Caramico corrected harshly, her eyes alive with pleasure.

  Already moving at Mach Two, twice the speed of sound, a trio of experimental missiles streaked high in the evening sky, steadily moving away from one another as the war machines headed for scattered targets halfway around the world. Then, incredibly, they seemed to pause and rotate slightly to proceed in radical new directions.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Washington, D.C.

  Dawn was just breaking over the capital city, and the White House, normally a beehive of activity at that early hour, was strangely quiet. Government aides rushed about without talking, telephone conversations were hushed and the Secret Service agents stationed at every door were grimly silent, their hard eyes constantly checking every identification badge. There were absolutely no tourists or news reporters anywhere in sight.

  To the stoic people inside the Oval Office, the atmosphere was cool in both temperature and demeanor. The anxious members of the senior staff were perched on the two couches set in front of the fireplace, looking as if they were racehorses poised at the starting gate. Across the room, the President was sitting behind a massive hardwood desk, his fist clenched around a red telephone receiver. Ten years ago that would have been the hotline to Moscow. Now the secure line went directly to Beijing.

  Openly cradling assault rifles, Secret Service agents stood in every corner, barely a ripple in their jackets from the body armor underneath. Outside the tall windows, armed helicopter gunships swept low around the capital building in a standard defensive pattern, then there came the low rumble of a full squadron of jet fighters streaking across the city. Through the glass panes of the door leading to the promenade, Marine One could be seen sitting on the manicured lawn between the Jefferson Mounds, the turbo props of the armored helicopter slowly turning as it stayed ready to fly the President to safety at a moment’s notice.

  The members of the senior staff knew that the vice president was already in the underground bunker at Camp David, and the Joint Chiefs were en route to Cheyenne Mountain, the headquarters for NORAD.

  “No, Mr. Premier, the United States of America is not, repeat, not at war with China, or with anybody else for that matter,” the President said in strained patience. The man’s hair was tousled and his necktie was askew, as if he hadn’t been to sleep in days. Yet he had only been awake for a few hours.

  “Yes, I agree,” the President continued after a short pause. “We do have to keep the incident from the general public…. Yes, rioting in the streets is a distinct possibility, I agree.”

  Frowning slightly, the President listened to the man on the other end of the receiver as he wearily poured himself a fresh cup of coffee from a steaming urn.

  “No, that is not quite correct, Mr. Premier…. Look, Lu-Chan, I have absolutely no explanation about the missile misfiring.” The President leaned back in his chai
r with a white china cup balanced in his hand. “We did help you shoot them down, after all. A dozen of our new ICBMs went wild, but we were able to self-destruct nine. Only three got away from us, and all of them were destroyed in-flight. We suspect a computer malfunction…. Yes, I agree, Lu-Chan. Machines are useful servants, but very poor masters.”

  The senior staff looked up sharply at the colossal lie, but said nothing. Nine missiles? Only three of the new ICBMs had been launched the previous night. But the careful distortion of the truth made the U.S. seem heroic and less like incompetent fools.

  “I understand that hundreds of Chinese civilians were killed when the missiles came crashing down on that factory complex,” the President stated, setting down the untouched cup. His voice was calm, but the tendons in his neck revealed the tension he was actually feeling. Red China was the last serious enemy to freedom in the world, but the gigantic nation was slowly becoming a valuable business partner with America. Soon enough, Communist China would crumble under the economic pressure to buy washing machines, DVD players and tractors, exactly as the Soviet Union had done several years ago. However, at the moment, the Chinese were still the only nation truly capable of nuking America off the map and their overly suspicious commander had to be treated with all due respect.

  “This would have been much worse if the warheads hadn’t been dummies,” the President said, then abruptly stopped. There was an awkward pause. “Nonnuclear models,” he explained patiently.

  The Premier of Red China boasted of his excellent English and considered it a mark of distinction that he didn’t need a translator like the American President. However, American slang sometimes confused the man terribly.