Capital Offensive (Stony Man) Read online

  Circling the isolated landing strip a few times to get the feel of the wind, McCarter feathered the propellers, dropped the airfoils and headed in for a landing. The tires touched once and bounced, squealing in protest. Then he tried again, and the DC-3 lightly touched down without any protest and rapidly rolled along the runway, until McCarter angled the airplane off the macadam and onto a grassy field. A tan Hummer was parked near some laurel bushes, a white cloth tied to a wiper blade showing it was for them.

  “Bear doesn’t miss a trick,” Hawkins noted, threading a sound suppressor to the barrel of his 9 mm Beretta pistol. Then the man scowled and reached out fast to adjust the gain on the radio headphones. “Say again?” he demanded.

  Suddenly alert, McCarter said nothing as he set the brakes, but kept the twin engines gently turning over in case they needed a quick departure.

  “Get hard, people!” Hawkins called, yanking off the headphones and turning toward the causeway. “The Federal Police are on the way!”

  In the cargo hold, the rest of the team moved fast, acquiring weapons and looking out the small windows. Nobody was in sight yet.

  “How did they make us?” McCarter demanded angrily, drawing his own 9 mm Browning Hi-Power pistol. “Our papers should have fooled anybody.”

  “They did,” Hawkins retorted, casting off the seat belt. “But airport security says that because of the recent rash of international incidents, all planes must be searched.”

  “And they tell us after we landed?” James demanded from the hatchway leading to the cockpit. The lanky man filled the causeway, an MP-5 submachine expertly balanced in his hands, the bolt thrown back and the safety off.

  “Which makes it a tad bit harder for us to leave, my old china,” McCarter said gruffly, temporarily lapsing into Cockney rhyming slang.

  That took James a second to decipher. Old china, china plate, mate, as in friend.

  “I gather our diplomatic immunity means nothing?” Encizo added, pressing a U.S. Army monocular to his face. There were some vehicles moving along an access road about a thousand yards away, but if they were coming this way he couldn’t tell yet.

  “They couldn’t care less,” Hawkins stated. “They say it’s a case of national security.”

  “Now where have we heard that phrase before?” James muttered under his breath. “Sounds more like Calvano wants to make sure nobody is coming after his ass.”

  Adjusting the focus on the monocular, Encizo started to speak when he caught a glimpse of the people inside the four…no, six camouflage-colored Jeeps heading their way. The men were all wearing the same uniform, grenades festooning their military webbing, and they carried FN-2000 assault rifles. One Jeep had an M-246 mounted atop a universal symbol, a bald man loading the 7.62 mm machine gun expertly swaying to the motion of the speeding vehicle.

  “Federal Police my ass. Those are soldiers,” Encizo announced, slinging the monocular over a stanchion and swinging around his own MP-5 to work the arming bolt. “These boys are packing some serious heat, and look ready to rock.”

  For a split second McCarter debated taking off into the air again, but then realized the futility of the move. On the ground, they stood a fighting chance. Up in the air, the slow DC-3 would be an easy target for the Argentine jetfighters. No choice, then.

  “T.J., Rafe and Cal, load the Hummer!” McCarter barked, grabbing a coil of nylon rope hanging on the wall. “Gary and I will rig a diversion. We leave in sixty seconds. Now move!”

  Everybody lurched into action.

  By the time the three men had the Hummer packed with everything it could hold, the engines of the DC-3 were roaring with power, the entire airplane shaking as it struggled to take off, held to the earth only by the locked wheels.

  “Here they come,” Hawkins said calmly, unwrapping the safety tape from a grenade.

  Jumping out the side hatch of the Gooney Bird, Manning raced to a position behind the shuddering airplane and unlimbered the deadly Barrett. As if in reply to the action, a lieutenant in the lead Jeep lifted a bullhorn to his face and shouted something in Spanish, the words booming across the grassy field.

  In reply, Manning leveled the Barrett and stroked the trigger. The colossal rifle boomed and the windshield on the Jeep shattered. Instantly, the six Jeeps took evasive maneuvers. Working the bolt to chamber another round, Manning waited until he had a clear shot, then fired again. The windshield on a second Jeep was annihilated, along with the windshield on the vehicle traveling close behind. The Jeeps braked to a halt, and the soldiers started to shoot back, the FN-2000 assault rifles spraying bullets in a ragged barrage.

  Without comment, Hawkins threw the grenade, which landed between the two groups and began to leak dark smoke. Now, the rest of Phoenix Force started to throw smoke grenades in every direction, along with a few stun grenades, the harmless flash-bangs sounding infinitely louder than the real thing.

  When the billowing smoke was thick enough, McCarter jumped from the DC-3, the end of a rope in his hands. Partially closing the hatch, the former SAS officer yanked hard on the nylon length, then slammed the hatch shut. The rope caught in the jamb, holding it in place even as the brakes were released and the straining DC-3 surged forward, rapidly building speed as it moved across the neatly mowed field.

  The soldiers immediately began to shoot at the escaping plane, the 5.56 mm hardball ammo peppering the aluminum fuselage of the runaway plane. Then the M-274 machine gun cut loose, armor-piercing rounds punching a line of holes through the DC-3 with contemptuous ease.

  As the rest of the team continued to toss smoke grenades, McCarter pressed the contact on a radio detonator and a dozen Willie Peter charges flared inside the Gooney Bird, illuminating the craft like a Halloween pumpkin, tongues of flame licking out the broken windows.

  The soldiers stopped shooting as the burning airplane rolled past them trailing thick smoke. Dripping flames, the DC-3 smashed through the wire fence edging the airport field, and crashed into the trees. A wing buckled, and engine cowling came off. But the two propellers kept spinning, sending a wave of chopped greenery high into the sky.

  Climbing into the crowded Hummer, James tossed away the last of the smoke grenades as McCarter pressed the second switch on the radio detonator.

  Buried in the foliage, the burning Gooney Bird flared with blinding light as a dozen thermite grenades cut loose, the waves of explosions making the craft begin to sag as the metal started to melt.

  Shouting curses, the soldiers dived for cover and a moment later, the fuel tanks of the DC-3 erupted, closely followed by the ample stores of ammunition. The irregular crackling of discharges sounding like rattling leaves for a hundred yards in every direction. An alarm began to howl from the airport.

  Slipping the Hummer into gear, Hawkins started to drive toward the city, the military vehicle easing through into the roiling clouds of dark smoke to disappear like a ghost in the night.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Firebase Omega

  His eyes closed to mere slits, Hasuraya “Mongoose” Metudas closely studied the bank of sixteen video monitors forming a curved wall on the wide console. Each screen had text crawling across the bottom, detailing troops’ movements and replaying the top news reports from around the world.

  A skinny, rat-faced man, Mongoose was wearing a heavy sweater and a knit cap against the cold. The computer room he nicknamed the North Pole, for obvious reasons, was sealed airtight to help the laboring air conditioners keep the temperature just below freezing. Located at the back of the room, the massive Cray SVG supercomputer worked faster in the cold. However, regularly buying liquid nitrogen was a telltale giveaway to anybody searching for an enemy hacker. And somewhere along the east coast of the Untied States was a group of fellow computer experts, probably CIA or NSA, the government electron-riders almost as good as he was. They had helped direct the destruction of the former employer, Mohad Malavade in Calcutta. But the clever bastards weren’t going to stop Forge. There was too much at sta
ke.

  And as soon as I learn their location, Mongoose added grimly. I’ll drop enough burning jetliners on them to flatten Mt. Everest!

  On the run from Interpol and Indian Intelligence, Mongoose had started off working for Calvano just for the paycheck, but over time the general had convinced the hacker this was the only way to save humanity. Now he worked free of charge, bringing about the end of the old world, to help create a new world order of sanity and peace.

  But like any radical surgery removing cancer, Mongoose sagely mused, using fingertips to up the rheostat of the electric jumpsuit situated under his bulky turtleneck sweater, there’s going to be some blood and pain. That couldn’t be helped. Aside from getting the nuclear war over as soon as possible.

  Softly murmuring headphones dangling around his neck, Mongoose listened with an unfocused mind, absorbing the torrent of data and deciding where to have the GPS network malfunction next.

  Hacking into the GPS network had been relatively simple in comparison to overriding the security codes of sixteen nations to use their own spy satellites against them. And Mongoose needed the spy satellites to orchestrate the cresting waves of destruction. Even a nuclear warhead was useless without some way to aim the thing.

  And the fools constantly tell me where to strike all by themselves. The little man called “Snake Eater” by the soldiers of Forge smirked in pleasure. Keep broadcasting live news reports, and soon I will level the world!

  Typing away on a silent keyboard, Mongoose transferred the last payment to a group of mercenaries in Nebraska, crashed a Cessna jet and sent French artillery shells into Germany, blowing up a fuel depot and setting a factory complex on fire.

  Tulsa, Oklahoma

  RIPPING OPEN HER SEQUINED vest, Darla Crane cast it aside, exposing her full jiggling breasts. Wearing only a flimsy G-string, every inch of the nearly nude woman was either covered with tattoos or pierced. Immediately, the crowd of men in the strip club went wild, whistling and applauding.

  On the second lighted ramp of the Kit Kat Club, Lorna Morgan moved sensuously to the heavy beat of the pounding music, then bent over to yank off her white-satin hot pants, revealing that she wasn’t wearing a thong and had recently been to the beauty salon for a Brazilian wax. Once again, the crowd roared its frank approval.

  Sitting quietly in a dim corner, Caramico and Mendoza forced themselves to cheer at the naked dancers on the stage as they waited for the FBI to arrive.

  After getting the sergeant patched up, the Forge operatives had been on the run nonstop since Texas, sleeping in ditches, hijacking random cars and stealing the lunch bags of construction workers at a building site. And every moment they were braced for the American secret police to attack and try to haul them off to an interrogation cell where they would be slowly taken apart by the CIA until betraying General Calvano. But the Forge soldiers had decided to kill themselves before allowing that to occur. But that was the contingency plan. Hopefully, the mercs that Snake Eater had arranged to meet with them at this club were as good as they claimed.

  Strangers in a strange land, the Forge soldiers had chosen the establishment more for its notoriety than anything else. Even halfway across the globe in Argentina, the soldiers had heard about the infamous Kit Kat Club. Framed posters of past performers adorned the walls, all the way back to the legendary Betty Paige and Gypsy Rose Lee.

  Moving through the crowd like an eel, a slim man sat opposite the Forge soldiers in the booth. Without a comment, the newcomer poured himself a glass of warm beer from a pitcher. He took a sip, grimaced in disgust, then put the glass aside and wiped his mouth clean with a pressed white handkerchief. His initials were embroidered on a corner.

  “The cost is five grand, per man, per day,” Warner Bronson said, straightening the cuffs of his lavender shirt. The middle-aged man was nattily dressed in a Hugo Boss suit and Italian loafers. His nails were manicured, shiny with clear polish, and there was a definite aroma of lilacs wafting about the man.

  “That is acceptable,” Caramico replied, easing down the hammer of the Bersa pistol hidden below the table. With a deft movement, she tucked the deadly pistol into the shoulder holster under her windbreaker. After the wholesale slaughter of her team in Texas, the lieutenant didn’t give a damn how much the mercenaries cost. Just as long as they were the best.

  “How soon can they be here?” Caramico added, running a hand along her cropped hair. It was strange to touch her neck, and she felt oddly vulnerable, more naked and exposed than the girl dancing on stage.

  “They’re already on the way, dear lady,” Bronson boasted, smiling widely. “I anticipated your needs and arranged for them to come here post haste.”

  “Excellent.”

  Dismissing the matter with a cavalier smile, Bronson waved for the waitress, his other hand clicking back on the safety of the silenced Remington .32 pistol in his pocket.

  Staying alert, Mendoza said nothing, his hand still out of sight under the table. There were a lot of people in the world that the soldier didn’t like—lawyers, Communists, Americans—but at the top of the list were middlemen: pimps, union negotiators, fences and black marketeers. He hated them all. The leeches made nothing, and did nothing, except buy and sell other people’s property for a hefty profit. Somehow, it seemed cowardly, almost unclean, like robbing a friend. The soldier tried not to grimace at the smeary fellow sitting across from him, but could only manage a sneer of disdain.

  If Bronson noticed, he made no comment.

  As the performance onstage ended, the crowd applauded loudly, and Caramico leaned across the table to pour the sergeant a beer, even though his glass was almost full.

  “Try to smile more,” she whispered to him. “And try to act like you’re enjoying the show. I’ve seen fresh corpses with bigger grins.”

  “I am a soldier, not a spy,” Mendoza retorted, trying not to bend from the waist. He was covered with bruises from the brief fight with the sheriff, cheek slashed, bullet hole in his shoulder, but the soldier didn’t want anybody to know how difficult it had been to take the old man. And having a suicide dynamite pack strapped there wasn’t helping matters.

  “Besides, this is not entertainment,” the sergeant added, looking at the new group of busty dancers taking the stage. “These woman look like cows waving their big udders about. Big, fat, ugly cows.”

  “Prefer young girls, eh?” Bronson chuckled. “Well, to each his own.”

  “I like an honest whore,” the big sergeant said stiffly. “Which is infinitely better than mounting little boys, maticone.”

  Pretending to be puzzled by the Spanish word, Bronson tilted his head in a questioning manner, but there came a subdued click from under the table.

  “Do you really need this man?” he asked. “I can easily find you a trained monkey with twice his intelligence. It would probably smell better, too.”

  Clearly annoyed, the lieutenant started to reply when the waitress arrived.

  “Hi, I’m Sheryl. What can I get you?” the young girl asked, the question punctuated by the snap of her chewing gum. Barely out of her teens, she was dressed in fish-net stockings and spiked heels that had to have been agony on her feet. Black hot pants seemed to have been sprayed on her trim body, and a silver-striped vest pushed up her small breasts until they appeared several times their original size. Her hair was teased into a beehive and streaked with several different colors, none of them natural. A small tattoo of a flowery vine encircled her left ankle, a butterfly was on her stomach and a coil of barbed wire went around her left arm.

  “Chivas, on the rocks,” Bronson said with a smooth smile, folding his hands in his lap to hide the gun.

  “More beer,” Mendoza snapped, stroking the cut on his cheek, which had been expertly repaired with a form of surgical glue. It itched like crazy, but there were no stitches to come loose in a fight. He considered that a fair trade-off.

  “Cancel both of those orders, please,” Caramico corrected. “Take away the pitcher and brin
g us cold bottles of beer. Cold, mind you. And they’d better still be sealed.”

  “Oh yeah, sure, no prob there,” Sheryl said, chewing away contentedly. “We run a class joint here, ya know? No hookers in the shitter, let me tell ya. The boss likes class.” She touched her beehive of hair with fingernails the color of a freshly slaughtered pig.

  “Class,” Sheryl repeated proudly.

  “That’s why we came,” Caramico said, stuffing a fifty-dollar bill into the teen’s garter. Her fingers lingered on the smooth nylon, savoring the warmth for a long moment before letting go reluctantly.

  The large denomination of the bill allowed such intimacy, and Sheryl giggled in response, then turned and headed for the bar, her petite hips swaying in time to the loud music.

  “Too young,” the sergeant scoffed.

  “Too dirty,” Bronson countered.

  “No time,” the lieutenant stated, fondling her fake wedding ring. “There’s just never enough time.”

  Suddenly the soldiers became alert as several large men walked into the strip club. The newcomers paused, allowing their eyes to become adjusted to the darkness.

  “That’s them,” Bronson said, raising a finger.

  “Yes, we know,” Caramico replied.

  One of the strangers at the door, a tall bald man, caught the gesture and nodded in return. A burly man paid the entrance fee to a muscular bouncer nearly bursting from a tuxedo, while the third stood back, almost as if he were standing guard. Offering their hands to be stamped, the grim trio entered the club and brushed aside a couple of off-duty dancers trying to cage drinks from the new arrivals. The girls accepted the rebuff and moved on to find fresh victims.

  Moving with the ease of panthers, the men of Trinity started across the crowded room. The three hard cases had the look of professional killers, their expressionless eyes as hard and cold as Christmas in jail. Their gaze swept the crowd of drunk patrons once, then ignored them completely. The nude dancers onstage never got a glance.