The Chameleon Factor Read online

“Roger, Firebird,” Kurtzman replied. “Will send details in thirty, repeat, three zero, minutes.”

  “Confirm.”

  “Anything else?”

  The sky rumbled just then, and lightning flashed briefly, casting the landscape into stark relief. McCarter scowled. Was that a leftover from the big squall, or some new storm front moving in?

  “Yeah,” he muttered. “More time, some luck, and bit of fair weather.”

  “I’ll see what we can arrange, Firebird. Stone House, over and out.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Chicago

  The black sedan moved through the southbound traffic on Interstate 55 as if it owned the world. Other cars got out of the way, or were tailgated to the point of collision. The driver of the sedan was unseen behind the tinted glass, but the other drivers still flashed him the middle finger, along with a chorus of colorful profanity.

  Staying a good distance away, the rented Cadillac containing Able Team drove at a steady pace and maintained contact by the use of binoculars.

  “The crazy bastard couldn’t make himself any more noticeable,” Blancanales said, working the bolt of the M-16/M-203 assault rifle combo lying across his lap. “He wants to be followed. This is a trap.”

  “Good,” Lyons said, accelerating slightly.

  Busy with his radio, Schwarz said nothing as he adjusted the scrambler to a new code to get in touch with the Farm. This close to two major airports, O’Hare and Midway, the TSA and Homeland Security would be monitoring the airwaves very carefully. One slip on the radio, and Able Team would be surrounded by armed troops with a shoot-first-ask-questions-later attitude. That would mean an end to the mission until Hal Brognola could get the team sprung, and by then the Chameleon would be long gone.

  The glistening towers of Chicago were falling behind the rented Cadillac, as Lyons drove steadily along the concrete highway. Traffic was light, mostly taxicabs heading for Midway airport and semitrailers heading for St. Louis and beyond. Plus, one black sedan with tinted windows.

  Glancing out the side window, Lyons noted a few jetliners moving across the empty sky. O’Hare and Midway carefully coordinated their arrivals and departures in a complex ballet. Personally, he didn’t know how the air-traffic controllers stayed sane doing their impossible job. First as a cop, and now as a covert operative for Stony Man, Carl Lyons had faced death a thousand times in combat, making split-second decisions that risked innocent lives. But he couldn’t imagine doing it for eight hours a day, nine to five, five days a week, for years on end.

  “And they call me an Ironman,” Carl Lyons muttered softly, flipping a salute to the unseen guardians of the skyways.

  “Hello, Stone House? This is Trinity,” Schwarz said into the compact radio. Trinity was that week’s code name for the three-man team. Schwarz started to add something, then frowned and touched the receiver tucked into his ear.

  “Say again?” he muttered, arching an eyebrow in surprise. “Well, I’ll be…Yes, continue, please.”

  Hearing a familiar deep throb, Blancanales tucked the M-16/M-203 out of sight as a sleek police helicopter rose into view from below the elevated highway and swung across to head into the east. Grimaldi had been surprised, then suspicious, when the car that raced out of O’Hare had suddenly done a U-turn on Route 94 and started heading south. Kurtzman had registered that the cell phone call made from O’Hare had been to an abandoned automobile-manufacturing plant in the heart of Gary, owned by a company that was owned by Peter Woods.

  Now the reasonable thing for the observer at the airport to do would have been to inform his boss and then to drive away from Gary to confuse anybody trying to tail him. But by the time Able Team had gotten their rented car and headed onto the highway, Grimaldi reported that the black sedan was heading toward Gary. It didn’t take a great leap of logic to figure out that Peter Woods had ordered an ambush for anybody following the car.

  Able Team and Grimaldi had briefly discussed the matter, and arranged for a fast rendezvous with Grimaldi at a deserted weigh station to acquire weapons and supplies. Afterward, the pilot returned to O’Hare to get the big C-130 Hercules ready for takeoff while Able Team continued to follow the sedan. How they would handle the coming ambush was undecided yet, so the team members were preparing for all contingencies as best they could.

  “Okay, I have good news, and bad news,” Schwarz said, removing the earphone. “Bear has a positive ID on our ape. His name is Davis Lovejoy Harrison. He’s a freelance spy, merc, assassin, you name it, and a former member of the Royal British Special Air Service.”

  “The SAS?” Lyons asked, frowning.

  Schwarz nodded. “Yeah.”

  Lyons shrugged. “Everybody has traitors.”

  “Ain’t it the truth, brother,” Schwarz agreed, remembering a particularly dark incident in the past of Stony Man.

  “What’s the bad news?” Blancanales asked, turning slightly in his seat.

  “Phoenix Force has lost Harrison in Russia. They think he’s heading for the…Kreel Islands?” Schwarz said the name as a question.

  “Kuril,” Lyons corrected. “Damn, that’s a common jumping-off point for Japan, North Korea and Red China. If Harrison disappears in there, he’s gone for good.”

  Once past Midway, the apartment buildings alongside 55 were taking on a pronounced disreputable appearance, with many of the windows boarded shut, the roofs obviously sagging from fire and damage. Dotting the dirty landscape were billboards empty of advertising, but covered with gang symbols.

  “How solid is this ident?” Blancanales asked, gazing thoughtfully out a window.

  “David got a confirm on his SAS tattoo from a Chinese airline pilot, and then Tucholka rolled over on the guy,” Schwarz said with a grin.

  “Ricky the Stone dropped a dime on a client?”

  “Had to. Akira held his retirement fund ransom.”

  “Clever,” Blancanales acknowledged. “Always hit ’em where it hurts.”

  “Agreed. Also, his description matches that of a known ape that assassinated a French minister. No fingerprints on file, but his general build matches that of Professor Johnson, and according to MI-5, Harrison was trained to be a chameleon, a master of disguise. This is our boy, all right.”

  Swinging around a flatbed truck full of pressurized gas containers, Lyons couldn’t help but notice the irony. A chameleon was after the Chameleon. Not good.

  “Okay, Harrison steals the Chameleon, and Cascade sends a hitter to take it from him,” Lyons said slowly, flexing his hands on the steering wheel. “But how did they know?”

  “Harrison must have agreed to sell them the device, and let something about the location slip,” Blancanales said, hazarding a guess.

  “Then Woods got greedy and decided on a double-cross,” Schwarz added. “Only, Harrison was already long gone to Russia.”

  Passing a section of the highway under construction, Lyons waited until the Cadillac was past the heavy steel plating covering the exposed guts of the road. “Sounds like Harrison is doing a double-dip,” the Able Team leader growled.

  “Selling the Chameleon to two people at once?” Blancanales said, rolling the idea around for a moment. “Yeah, makes sense. He’s delivering the Chameleon to somebody in the Kuril Islands, and to Peter Woods.”

  “Well, he’s not going to fly halfway around the world to meet them in person,” Schwarz said, leaning forward to rest both forearms on the top of the front seat. “Must be planning on faxing them the blueprints and schematics…” The man stopped and shook his head. “No, no way. He wouldn’t risk sending anything that sensitive openly. The NSA might stop it in midtransmission. Harrison must plan on using an encoded e-mail file, something like that.”

  “Then Cascade transfers half the funds to his numbered Swiss bank account,” Blancanales said, frowning. “And Harrison e-mails them the key to open the file, and they send the other half of the money. Nice and safe, and everybody wins.”

  “Until the bombs start fal
ling,” Lyons stated, glancing at the clear blue sky. “Okay, new plan. Screw the ambush. We need to find the other end of that incoming telephone call. We’re going to accept the transmission of the coded file from Harrison.”

  “That could be anywhere,” Schwarz said, sitting back. “But we only have one place to start looking.”

  “The automobile plant,” Lyons agreed, accelerating the Cadillac. “We’re going to need to visit a hardware store before going into downtown Gary.”

  “Way ahead of you there, Carl. I’m already checking for the location of one near an exit,” Blancanales said, tapping buttons on his cell phone. The tiny plasma screen began scrolling with pictures of street maps. “Okay, take the next exit and make a left.”

  “What kind of resources does Cascade have?” Schwarz asked, pulling out a 9 mm Beretta and checking the sound suppressor. “Any contacts in Russia or along the Pacific Rim?”

  Maneuvering around a pothole, Lyons slipped into the right lane. “They’re strictly Chicago based. Brognola listed them as having about two hundred guys. Rumor has it they run a local street gang called the Bloodhawks to shake down the local merchants, jack cars and deal drugs.”

  “Size?”

  “Unknown.”

  “Swell,” he muttered. “Anybody undercover we should stay alert for and try not to shoot, DEA, FBI?”

  “No,” Blancanales stated coldly, tucking away his cell phone. “Or rather, nobody who’s still alive.”

  A minute of silence filled the luxury car as the men absorbed that dire information.

  “Nice folks,” Schwarz said, holstering the piece. “Why haven’t we paid them a visit before this?”

  “Couldn’t. Nobody knew where their headquarters was hidden until today,” Lyons said, watching his rearview mirror.

  A station wagon and a delivery van were coming hard and fast up 55, the two staying dangerously close. As the vehicles passed the Cadillac, he could see the station wagon was filled with grim-faced teenagers, openly holding machine pistols. Their clothing all bore the names of major corporations, their hair was a rainbow of different colors, some had earrings and others had silver studs in their lips or nostrils. The grim young faces glistened with jewelry. But the weapons in their hands were held correctly and shone with fresh oil.

  The windows of the van were tinted a silvery sheen and impossible to see through.

  “Heads up,” Lyons warned, pulling his Atchisson autoshotgun onto the front seat. “Looks like reinforcements have arrived.”

  As the vehicles got closer to the black sedan, it slowed to match the pace. Then a window was rolled down and the driver waved them back. Slowly, the station wagon and van moved into flanking positions behind the sedan and spread out to give combat room.

  “Crew wagons,” Schwarz stated, starting to remove the sticky tape from around an HE grenade. There was a canvas satchel on the floor mats filled with high explosives. “Think those are the Bloodhawks?”

  “From their apparent age, I’d say yes,” Blancanales said, hunching his shoulders to adjust the holster under his arm. “Gadgets, call Barbara and see if the state police have any info on rival gangs in the Gary area.”

  “Looking for somebody who doesn’t like the Bloodhawks?” he asked with a half smile. “The enemy of my enemy is my friend, and all that?”

  “Along with a hell of a diversion,” Lyons answered tersely. “Get hard, people. The shit is about to hit the fan.”

  “And which one are we again?” Schwarz asked, inserting the earplug for his compact radio.

  “Ask me later,” Blancanales grunted, thumbing a 40 mm shell into the M-203 grenade launcher.

  The White Pearl

  “HE SAID that he was a meteorologist?”

  “Yes.”

  “Was he carrying any electronic equipment?”

  “No, sir. Just a suitcase.” The first mate of the White Pearl paused, and then hurriedly added, “And a thermos of hot coffee from the galley. We sell them to the staff of the weather stations along the Kuril Islands.”

  From behind the thick scarf masking his face, David McCarter grunted in acknowledgment at that. Swinging out to sea, the single hovercraft had made good time going around the mountains, in spite of its double load of crew. Kurtzman had arranged for a fuel drop at an isolated pier of a fishing village. There had been nobody in sight, just drums of high-octane aviation fuel, spare ammunition, some new civilian clothing and several thousand dollars in worn notes of various denominations.

  Catching the White Pearl at sea had been easy with Carmen Delahunt guiding them via a real-time picture relayed from an orbital spy satellite. At the sight of the heavily armed men wearing the uniforms of Russian special forces and riding in a hovercraft, the crew of the passenger liner quickly dropped the aft ramp.

  The White Pearl was designed to carry cars and trucks like a common ferry. Phoenix Force easily sailed onto the vessel and immediately spread out to search for Harrison while McCarter went to talk to the first officer. The young sailor was visibly shaken from the recent deaths; after all, his vessel was basically an oceangoing bus. The remaining officers were armed with pistols to handle smugglers, or the occasional bad drunk, but there had never been trouble like this before on the Pearl. Civilians, military and criminals both Japanese and Russian wanted and needed the ship in constant operation. Violence against the crew had always been absolutely out of the question.

  Until today.

  Walking around a corner, Hawkins came into view holding his AK-105 assault rifle. He also had a scarf wrapped around the lower half of his face as if it were bitterly cold, even though the temperature was a balmy sixty-five degrees.

  In truth, the scarf was there to hide the stumbling efforts of the team members trying to speak Russian. Their radios were set for wide-open, two-way communications, and Tokaido was translating what people said to Phoenix Force, then quickly telling the Stony Man commandos how to respond. The scarves also helped hide their throat mikes, and the thick wool hats completely covered their earplugs. It was a cumbersome matter, but interrogating civilians hadn’t originally been part of the mission plan. Once before this three-way kind of conversation had been used in a mission in Norway. But it had failed miserably then. Hopefully, they would have better luck with it this time.

  “Well?” McCarter softly subvocalized into his throat mike.

  Delahunt whispered into his ear.

  “Davai otshyot!” he barked out loud in Russian.

  Hawkins slowly saluted. “Sir, the passenger was dropped off at Simushir Island,” he said, mumbling slightly. “The purser says his suitcase was checked for contraband…” Hawkins paused to jerk his head out to sea as if something had caught his attention. In truth, he was buying time for Tokaido to tell him the next sentence to speak aloud. It was a dangerous game the team was playing, and if the crew got wise, they would instantly stop talking. There was no danger of violence against the five Stony Man commandos—they were far too well armed—but the flow of vital information would stop abruptly, and there was no race on Earth who could refuse to talk better than a suspicious Russian.

  “And?” McCarter demanded impatiently.

  The first mate cast a furtive glance at the man, but said nothing.

  “The pursuer says his suitcase was checked for contraband,” Hawkins repeated, “but we found this hidden in the man’s pockets.” Putting a hand into his pocket, Hawkins pulled out a wad of bills.

  Accepting the cash, McCarter inspected it, then shook it wordlessly at the first mate. The sailor curled a lip in disgust.

  “Criminal swine,” the first mate growled. “So it’s smugglers again, eh? I shall have him placed in handcuffs and delivered to the authorities the moment we return to the peninsula!”

  Standing behind McCarter, Encizo worked the arming bolt on his AK-105, and the eyes of the first mate went wide.

  “Or do you wish to take him with you…for questioning?” he said slowly.

  Listening to the transla
tion in his ear, McCarter waved the trifling matter aside, and the first mate visibly relaxed at not being ordered to turn one of his own men over to the military for a summary execution.

  “David,” James whispered over the radio, “we also found the silent KGB gun stored with the dead people in the hold. And one of them was the missing flight attendant, Gwen Tyson.”

  Giving another nonverbal grunt, McCarter walked to the gunwale and looked at the expanse of ocean behind the White Pearl. The ice-blue water stretched to the horizon in every direction, with only a scattered few rocky islands rising from its shimmering surface. There were six of the volcanic mounds in sight, and two of them were live with steam and dark smoke rising from the ragged peaks.

  Simushir Island was a medium-sized landmass, almost fifty miles long, and it had three volcanoes, two live and one dead. The place had been a secret Soviet submarine base in the cold war, but that was long abandoned. Now the main volcano, Urataman, was being used a dump for spent rods from nuclear reactors by Russia, and Minatom, the Russian Ministry for Nuclear Energy, was arranging to accept toxic rods from other countries, as well. Anything to make a profit for the cash-poor nation. The Russian economy was recovering fast, but it was a long way from being stable yet, and every ruble counted. Even if it meant permanently polluting an island with hard radiation.

  No, McCarter realized, Harrison wouldn’t have arranged for a rendezvous there. It was merely another relay point. He either had a boat waiting for him, or his customers picked him up personally. The radar on the hovercraft had shown no sign of a plane in the sky, but a seaplane could have hopped the waves and stayed low enough to keep off the screen. Or was it a submarine? If Cascade was the first customer, then who was the second? Iran? North Korea? Unity? The list was endless.

  In a burst of anger, McCarter slammed a fist onto the polished mahogany railing. They were so bloody close! But catching Harrison was like trying to grab a fistful of quicksilver. Every move that brought them closer, only made him squirt free in some and unexpected direction. Goddamn, the fellow was good! Fucking traitor. A member of the SAS gone bad. McCarter couldn’t wait to get his hands on him.