The Chameleon Factor Read online

  “Canada here, Texas,” Manning replied.

  “Time to call for the cavalry.”

  “Way ahead of you, Texas. Now that the fight is over, I’ve already done the sentry. Just say when.”

  “Now would be good,” Hawkins said.

  Looking to the east, a streak of light shot up into the sky and blossomed into a blazing nimbus of light. Slowly, the flare began to drift back down to the earth when another streaked into heavens, followed by another and another.

  “Okay, Captain Su, Russian air rescue will be here in five minutes,” McCarter stated. “But we have to go right now. Will you be okay?”

  “I can survive,” Su muttered, casting a glance at the men sprawled lifeless on the ground. “I tell that special army unit kill these men, but chase more of them…” She made a vague gesture with her hand and paused, waiting.

  “West,” McCarter said, grinning in spite of himself. “Due west.”

  Respectfully, Su gave a slight bow. “West. Of course. That is what tell.”

  With unspoken sentiment, McCarter placed a gloved hand on the woman’s shoulder and gave a gentle squeeze. She raised her chin defiantly.

  “Death to our enemies,” she said proudly in Chinese.

  McCarter didn’t know what she had said, but could make an educated guess from her expression and tone.

  “Long life to our friends,” he replied in English, “and Godspeed.”

  Standing guard in the doorway of the hut, Su watched as the masked soldiers moved silently across the ground to vanish into the trees. Sitting on the front step, she tried to make herself comfortable in spite of her many aches and pains. But less than a minute later, a bright light rose above the hills in the east and she could heard the muffled thumps of helicopter blades.

  At the sight, her long denied tears finally came, and she released all of the pent-up emotions into hysterical sobbing. Su lost track of time, and the next thing she knew doctors and nurses were all around her, asking questions in Russian and halting Chinese. Su shook her head at the people as if too weary to speak but let herself be placed on a gurney and carried into the medical helicopter.

  As it lifted into the sky, Su felt as if the pain in her heart became too heavy to be airborne and slipped through her body to fall upon the base below. She sighed in relief at the sensation, feeling clean and alive once more. At last, it was over. She was safe, and the ordeal was finished. But somehow the battered woman had a feeling that for the soldiers who had rescued her from the jaws of death, this long night was only beginning. A devout Communist, she couldn’t pray for them, but Su asked the universe to help guide their way.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Stony Man Farm, Virginia

  “Okay, we have an ID,” Akira Tokaido said, pulling out his earbuds.

  Pausing in typing on his computer keyboard, Aaron Kurtzman swung around in his wheelchair. “You know who the thief is?” he demanded. “Did that French thing Politician suggest work?”

  “Well, not quite,” Tokaido admitted. “But from the digital pictures of that license sent in by Able Team, I know how to find him.”

  Kurtzman made a gesture. “Start talking.”

  The young man tapped a few keys on his console, and a submonitor at Kurtzman’s station came to life with a picture of the driver’s license. “Just as Carl reported,” Tokaido said. “It’s too good. In fact, it’s top notch. Some of the best work I’ve ever seen.”

  “CIA good?”

  “Better,” he stated firmly.

  “Svenson in Oslo is the best at forgery of fake identification,” Carmen Delahunt said, masked by her VR helmet. “But he is way out of the price range of some amateur gunner. Only governments and major corporations can afford him.”

  “Tucholka is just as talented,” Kurtzman muttered, thinking aloud. “But Uncle Richard retired a few years ago.”

  “Where did he go, South America or Australia?”

  Kurtzman had to chuckle at that. Poor Australia had more retired spies and forgers than they would ever want to know about. Twenty years ago Brazil had been the place to go, but after the creation of the brutal secret police called the S2, another location had quickly needed to be found, and Australia won. Or lost—it all depended on how you looked at the situation.

  “Actually, no,” Kurtzman said, scratching the back of his neck. “He went back home to Michigan. Detroit, I believe.”

  Starting to slide a CD into the slot on his player, Tokaido looked up sharply at that statement. “And Able Team is on the way to Chicago following the trail of their attacker.”

  “They’re both major cities in the Midwest,” Kurtzman admitted slowly. “But, yeah, that’s one hell of a coincidence.”

  “I’ll hack the FBI files and find out where Tucholka is,” Delahunt said, her hands already caressing the air to open programs and activate macros files. The sub-monitors flanking her main computer screen began scrolling lines of code and government ciphers.

  “Akira, you go after Tucholka,” Kurtzman ordered. “I’ll continue working on the French angle.”

  “The Justice Department and the CIA both still like to use Tucholka occasionally, so we really can’t put much pressure on him,” the young man reminded.

  “Screw the CIA,” Kurtzman barked angrily. “Get Tucholka!”

  “How?”

  “Hack his bank records, take all of his money and then make a deal. His illegal life’s savings for the name and description of one customer.”

  “Our mole.” Putting in his earbuds, Tokaido turned the music up all the way. “Now you’re talking,” he said, and started typing on the keyboard with both hands.

  Pushing away from his workstation, Kurtzman wheeled about in a circle and started for the coffee-maker to make a fresh pot of coffee.

  “Alert,” Delahunt said out of the blue. “Able Team has just landed at O’Hare Airport.”

  Kurtzman stopped in the middle of the floor “What?” he bellowed. “Impossible! They’re an hour ahead of schedule!”

  “Jack picked up a tailwind over North Dakota,” Delahunt replied, like the blind oracle of Delphi. “Hey, these things happen.”

  The big man growled a curse and rolled back to his workstation. “Did we get the codes yet from the White House?” he demanded, slamming into the edge of the station. The arms of his wheelchair slid underneath, stopping the chair at exactly the correct distance, and his hands went straight for the keyboard.

  “Hal sent them a few minutes ago,” Tokaido answered, closing programs and opening new ones at lightning speed. “We’ll be good to go in just a couple of minutes.”

  “Not fast enough! Their plane is taxiing to the main terminal right now,” Delahunt warned. “Move it or lose it, my friend!”

  “Damn it, I’m being challenged by the NSA and Homeland Security!” Tokaido raged. “I can’t handle both!”

  “No problem. I’ll block them, and you hit that power grid!” Kurtzman commanded, his computer dissolving through screen after screen of government security logos.

  “I’m slaving my console to yours…now!” Tokaido announced.

  Their controls fused into a single unit, the two men electronically charged into the fray, accessing, deleting, denying and overriding at breakneck speed.

  Casually walking into the room, Barbara Price started to speak, then caught the tension in the air. She bit her tongue. Any distraction now would only slow the cybernetic experts.

  Aside from the belief that O’Hare was the real destination of the assailant in the Alaska hills, Able Team had nothing else to go on. So with some help from Kurtzman and his team, the Stony Man commandos were going to try to shake the bushes, hopefully making the enemy reveal itself. It was a long shot to say the least, but she just had to trust to their skills, and hope this wild gamble paid off.

  O’Hare International Airport, Chicago

  WEARING CIVILIAN CLOTHES, Able Team strolled through the security checkpoint of O’Hare without any trouble. Even Schw
arz had removed all of his trick pens to facilitate an easy entrance.

  A milling throng of people moved through the busy concourse, their hushed voices combining into an indecipherable roar. Crying and laughing, a huge crowd of anxious people stood behind the new Plexiglas dividers, waving goodbye to people heading for the weapons scanners, and waving in greeting to the folks coming off a flight.

  Flight arrivals and departures were announced over a PA system of surprisingly superior quality, and the air smelled faintly of flowers and hot pretzels from a vendor by the escalator going to another level. In the crowd, a limo driver raised a placard with a corporate logo, and a small girl lifted a handpainted piece of cardboard with just the word Mom on it. A young couple was passionately kissing goodbye, or maybe it was hello, but since they didn’t stop it was impossible to tell. A baby cried shrilly someplace far away, and a man in an expensive suit was chomping an unlit cigar and glancing hatefully at a prominent No Smoking sign.

  As Able Team rode the slow conveyor belt past the weapons scanner for boarding passengers, a couple of the new armed TSA guards gave them a hard glance, as if sensing that these three weren’t typical holiday or business travelers. But as the men moved by, the TSA guards turned their attention back to the people and luggage trying to get on board the waiting commercial jetliners.

  “Remember when you could walk onto the tarmac and simply board a plane as if it were a cab?” Schwarz asked with a sigh as he loosened the collar of his red flannel shirt. Hiking boots and faded denims completed the ensemble, the empty knife sheath at his hip the finishing touch of believability.

  “You’re showing your age,” Blancanales said. “That was long ago, and far away.” He was dressed like an off-duty banker in a three-piece silk suit with a gold watch chain across the front. His Italian shoes gleamed with polish.

  “Yeah, guess so. But life goes on, eh?”

  “Always has, brother, always will.”

  “Come on, Bear, we’re almost at the crowd,” Lyons whispered, shifting the duffel bag draped over a shoulder. “Now would be a good time.”

  The former L.A. cop was in California casual: white deck shoes and matching pants with a Hawaiian shirt covered with multicolored orchids. The shirt alone should have set off the fire alarm, but it was a Christmas gift from his son, Tommy, and Carl wore it whenever possible.

  “He won’t fail us, Carl,” Schwarz said, then stopped as the ceiling lights flickered across the airport.

  At the ticket counters, the computer monitors scrolled madly, and the arrival-departure boards went wild, displaying only gibberish for a few moments. Then everything went back to normal.

  “Son of a bitch!” somebody gasped among the confused murmurs of the crowd. “He’s here!”

  Even as they separated, the members of Able Team spun about to lock their attention on that one man. Pushing his way through the frightened people was a big man, his shirt bulging with muscle. His black hair was buzzed in a military crew cut, and there was a rolled-up copy of Soldier Of Fortune magazine held in his left fist.

  Backing away from the incoming passengers on the conveyor belt, the large man stuffed the magazine into a hip pocket and turned to leave quickly for the nearest exit.

  Bingo. Lyons had hoped there would be somebody waiting to meet Dunbar when he returned to Chicago from his mission, to either debrief the man, or pay him off with a bullet in the back of the skull. Having Bear access the Chicago city power grid and flicker the lights in O’Hare as if the Chameleon had been activated had seemed the obvious ploy to use to make the associates of Dunbar think that he had failed and the intended victim was now coming after them. Standing guard in an airport was a shit job for a trusted but low-echelon personnel. With any luck, the man was now calling his boss to relay the bad news, and Bear was already scanning the cell phone traffic for any outgoing calls. The trap had worked, and the noose was tightening.

  Surreptitiously following their prey, Able Team converged in the parking garage, just as a black sedan raced away.

  “There goes our pigeon,” Lyons said, pulling out a cell phone.

  “Did you get the plate?” Blancanales asked, craning his neck.

  Schwarz nodded and rattled off the letters and numbers. “It was an Illinois plate, but that doesn’t mean a thing unless this guy is an idiot.”

  “He was reading Soldier of Fortune magazine.”

  “True enough. Okay, he’s an idiot.”

  “Or a rank beginner,” he amended. “Which makes him doubly dangerous, because we can’t predict what he’ll do.”

  “Hello, Birdman,” Lyons said quickly. “The quail has left the nest.”

  “Dark sedan, driving like hell? Yeah, I see him,” Jack Grimaldi replied over the steady whomp of helicopter blades in the background. “I’ve already rented a chopper and will discreetly keep track from above while you boys get some transportation.”

  “Don’t lose him,” Lyons warned, watching the weaving car disappear into traffic.

  “Not likely.” Jack laughed. “Let me know when you’re mobile.”

  Closing the phone, Lyons slipped it into a pocket as the team went back in the airport and headed for a rental agency.

  “I called ahead, so there should be a Cadillac waiting for us under the name Jason DeMille,” Blancanales said.

  “Good.” Hardware was the next priority. There was no way to smuggle their weapons through airport security; the TSA was new but good at its job. However, Grimaldi should have their stuff with him. All they had to do was rendezvous with his helicopter somewhere and they would be back in business.

  Just then, Schwarz was buzzed and he pulled out a cell phone. He listened for a moment, then grunted and tucked it away again.

  “That was Bear.” Schwarz stopped for a moment as a group of laughing people walked by them, then he continued. “Our boy just made a frantic call to a local number.”

  “Anybody we know?” Blancanales muttered, tilting his head.

  “No. But the property is owned by Peter Woods.”

  “The leader of Cascade?” Lyons asked, a frown creasing his face.

  Stuffing his hands in his pockets, Schwarz exhaled slowly. “The one and only.”

  “Well, shit. That certainly explains the Soldier of Fortune magazine.”

  Lyons agreed. Even as a street cop in Los Angeles he had heard of Cascade, a group of fanatics who called themselves neopatriots and encouraged acts of terrorism by foreign nations in the insane belief that constant warfare made America strong. They had a slogan about being Forged In Fire And Quenched In Blood, or some nonsense like that. The possibilities of what Cascade could do with the Chameleon were endless. And all them would involve thousands of dead civilians. Maybe millions.

  “Better hope it’s a fast Cadillac,” Lyons said out of the corner of his mouth as they approached the rental counter.

  MILLIONAIRES WERE the royalty of America. In Los Angeles the top lived in Beverly Hills, in New York they preferred the Upper East Side, but in Chicago all of the rich and powerful lived in the Miracle Mile.

  Situated along Lake Shore Drive, row after row of luxury apartment buildings faced Lake Michigan. Museums and theaters were sprinkled about their bases like offerings to nobility, a sprawling marina edged the clean, sandy shore, the pristine slips filled with gigantic yachts and sleek powerboats. The toys of the ultra-rich. Every building had its own security force, and was topped with a helipad for busy executives too harried to bother with the touch of the ground among the mere mortals. Some of the apartment buildings were old and stately, with astronomical rents. Others were brand-new and trendy, utilizing all of the cutting-edge technologies, with even higher rents. Situated among the towers of power was the crown jewel known throughout the nation as the New Yorker.

  The New Yorker was a brand-new style of the oldest form of human habitat, the communal lodge. Forty stories tall, the building was a miniature city set within the city of Chicago. Designed so that the tenants never had to lea
ve the building, the rents were staggering, and the waiting list to get in was as long as the lineage on many of the superrich drooling to gain access to the ultimate downtown living experience.

  The basement was an armored fortress to store the cars of the tenants, the first floor a liveried military camp that all nonresident visitors had to pass to gain entrance, even city inspectors and police. There was a kindergarten and elementary school on the fifth floor, high school on the sixth, movie theater and shopping mall on ten, grocery store on fifteen, a wooden park on twenty-five, an indoor saltwater pool on thirty, a brothel on thirty-five and a double helipad on the roof.

  A city within a city—no, the New Yorker was more like a small nation with its own aristocracy. Its undisputed king, the only tenant who owned a whomping thirty percent of the building, was the retired billionaire, Peter Adams Woods.

  Sprawling on a chaise longue, Woods was on the thirtieth floor soaking up some sun streaming through the bulletproof glass windows and listening to gentle sounds of the artificial surf casting gentle waves upon the pristine white sand beach. Dressed only in silk trunks, Woods was clearly a large man, heavily muscled and deeply tanned, with the build of a professional weight-lifter. His face was clean shaven and handsome, but without warmth or humor, like the chiseled features of a marble statue. Expert plastic surgery had removed the scars of his youthful endeavors to reach this social pinnacle, but no amount of washing could clean the blood off his hands. Nobody wanted to do business with Peter Woods unless it was absolutely necessary, the same as nobody wanted to go swimming in the ocean with a shark in the water. And the results were often similar; the shark got fatter and the swimmer simply disappeared.

  Forming a circle about Woods were seven other men, also dressed in swimwear in case their boss went into the water. But these grim professionals also wore loose Hawaiian shirts, and when they moved right it was possible to view the butts of the massive handguns riding in shoulder holsters underneath the colorful attire. These men moved with the grace of panthers, betraying their skills in the martial arts. Several of them had discolored patches of skin on their arms where military tattoos had been expensively removed with lasers, and plain black gym bags lay on the sand nearby, the tops partially unzipped to almost expose the wealth of weapons packed inside for quick access.