The Chameleon Factor Read online

  “Mustard gas!” the Stony Man commando cried out, raising an arm to cover his face as he backed into the control room.

  Wasting no time, the rest of Able Team moved quickly away from the wide-open door, seeking refuge among the humming computers and slapping handkerchiefs over their noses and mouths as crude protection. Mustard gas was one of the few deadly military gases outlawed by the United Nations as too inhumane for warfare. One good whiff, and the victims writhed in agony, coughing out chunks of their dissolving lungs until merciful death came. There was no cure, or antidote.

  The killer gas was also not going to be stopped by a damp piece of cloth like the sleep gas used in Alaska. As the tendrils of yellow gas started wafting past the vault door, the Stony Man commandos frantically looked around for any sort of gas mask, but there was nothing in sight on the walls.

  “The arms cabinet!” Lyons said, from behind the cloth. But rushing back into the office, he returned a few seconds later to grimly shake his head in the negative.

  Grabbing an empty chair, Schwarz moved it into the middle of the room and climbed on top. Pulling out a butane lighter, he held the flame to a water sprinkler set into the ceiling, but there was no result.

  “Son of a bitch Woods knew that water dissolves mustard gas,” he muttered, “rendering it nonlethal.”

  “There must be another way out!” Lyons growled, feeling sweat trickle down his back. “Woods is too smart to let himself be trapped like this! Start searching!”

  “There’s no time!” Blancanales shouted, patting his chest.

  Finding nothing there, the man stepped over and yanked a hand grenade off Schwarz’s web harness. Pulling the pin, he whipped the bomb hard and low into the next room. The grenade went out the door and through the swirling yellow fumes to hit the far wall and bounce back to roll behind the heavy steel door.

  “Fire in the hole!” he shouted in warning, covering his ears.

  Still moving away from the vault, Lyons and Schwarz did the same just as the grenade detonated. The force of the blast shoved the multiton steel door forward to slam shut with a deafening metallic clang. The men of Able team were still reeling from the concussion when they saw tiny snakes of yellow rising from around the vault. The door was closed, but without any pressure from the hydraulic lines, it wasn’t sealed. All the grenade had done was buy them a few minutes of life, nothing more.

  “Start searching for the exit!” Lyons commanded, grabbing a corpse off the floor and starting to heave it toward the door. But he released the body and backed away. The dead man would help to slow the gas, but only if Lyons could get near enough to place it carefully in position. If he risked a throw, he might hit the door and only jar it farther open and hasten their deaths. Damned if they do, and damned if they don’t. Was this it? After a hundred battles, his team was going to snuff it trapped in a computer room?

  “Like hell we will,” Lyons growled, moving away from the misty yellow door.

  Leaving the area, he found the others already busy, throwing open cabinets and kicking over supply boxes. A wealth of illegal weaponry was unearthed, but no disguised exits or gas masks. Working their way along the walls of humming servers that composed the million-dollar Cray, the three men pounded the brick walls and stomped on the terrazzo floor, soon discovering that the computer room took a sharp turn to the left, and then a left again after a short distance. As the men started to take the third left, they slowed to a halt as it was now painfully obvious that the refrigerator-sized units of the Cray went completely around the central office. There was no back room, or even a supply closet.

  Retreating to the farthest corner, the men of Able Team caught their breath.

  “This is not how I wanted to die,” Blancanales snarled, “gassed like a bug in a kid’s collection jar!”

  Lyons’s reply was to rake the ceiling with a long burst from the Atchisson. The foam panels were blown to pieces, revealing only the battered framework sectioning the seamless concrete roof. The former cop said nothing as he reloaded, possibly for the last time.

  “Hey, wait a goddamn second,” Schwarz said, slinging his assault rifle and walking over to a server different from the others. The unit was the same size and color was the rest, but this one had a glass window in the front that showed a set of spinning reels inside, feeding a strip of magnetic tape past an I/O header.

  As a tiny streamer of yellow started snaking around the corner, Schwarz tapped the glass with a knuckle.

  “This is a mag reel,” he said suspiciously. “What in the world would Cascade want with an antique piece of junk like this when they own a freaking Cray?”

  “Only one reason I can think of,” Lyons growled, slinging his bulky weapon over a shoulder.

  Ignoring the rising chemical stink in the air, the two men took opposite sides of the server and expertly ran their hands over the whirring and clicking machine. Blancanales sharply inhaled as he removed a small blob of C-4 from behind the latch of the window, and Lyons found another rigged to the back access hatch. Then Schwarz slid back a service panel to reveal a simple lever. Grasping the lever, he paused for a moment. This could be another trap, but the mustard gas was almost upon them, so what did the men have to lose?

  He yanked the lever.

  There was a hard click, and then a ratcheting sound as of protesting gears as the entire refrigerator-sized computer rolled aside on greased tracks to reveal concrete stairs leading into a dark tunnel. Without hesitation, Able Team raced into the blackness as the computer room began to fill with the billowing yellow cloud of toxic death.

  Matua Island

  STAYING OFF THE FOOTPATH to avoid traps, Phoenix Force raced quickly through the bushy undergrowth and colorful wildflowers. Once away from the beach, the ground became covered with thick grass that stretched ahead of the group for hundreds of yards going up a hillock and heading for the sleeping Sarychev. Checking his Kalashnikov, McCarter frowned slightly as the volcano rumbled, sending up a brief plume of dark smoke to mingle with the white steam.

  “What do you think?” Encizo asked, scrutinizing the jagged peak.

  “I think if she blows, we die.”

  “Can the chatter,” McCarter subvocalized over his radio, slowing down as he studied the ground. What was this? For no apparent reason, the path across the smooth grass abruptly shifted direction and swung widely around to go through a grove of tall bamboo. A break had been cut through the bamboo, but bare dirt was stubbly with green bamboo shoots as the plants fought to reclaim the missing swatch.

  “This makes no sense,” James said, scowling. “Bamboo can grow an inch an hour in this kind of climate. They must trim it every day to keep this path clear.”

  “Which means they have a good reason not to walk on the grass,” Hawkins said, checking a compact EM scanner. “Son of a bitch, the meter is going off the scale!”

  “More land mines?” Manning asked, instinctively bringing up his weapon.

  “Bigger than that,” Hawkins said, putting the scanner away. “A hell of a lot bigger. I think we just found their back door.”

  “Good,” McCarter said. “Remember, we want the Chameleon back, so watch for Fukoka…” McCarter’s voice trailed away, as he realized that nobody seemed to be listening. They were all frowning and adjusting their radios transponders.

  “Check. One, two, check,” McCarter said loud and clear into his mike, a hand touching his earplug. But there was only silence; he didn’t even hear the soft hiss of static caused by the solar winds of the sun.

  “It must be the jamming field,” James stated, checking the power supply on his radio. “They turned it on full force.”

  “Then it’s happening,” Encizo growled, twisting his hands on the Kalashnikov as he glanced about the tropical island. “Whatever Fukoka is planning is happening right goddamn now!”

  And that grassy field ahead of them had something to do with it.

  “Calvin, keep trying to get through,” McCarter directed as he stepped off
the path and onto the green field. “If they turn the field off, we might get a message through to the Farm.”

  “Air strike?” Hawkins asked, frowning, staying abreast of the man. “I think the Kitty Hawk aircraft carrier is at Tokyo Harbor.”

  “A recon at the very least,” McCarter agreed, narrowing his eyes as he listened hard to the world around them. “Something is very wrong, and I do not like it one little bit.” Everything had gone unnaturally still around them. There were no more birds singing in the nearby trees, no insects chirping, just dead silence.

  “Got you covered, D-D-David,” James replied, his face registering surprise as the ground started to shake with growing violence directly under their boots. “What the hell is going on here?” the man demanded, clutching his weapon.

  Fighting to stay standing, Encizo cast a fast appraisal at the volcano. But the peak of Sarychev was still misty white, with no telltale displays of ash or smoke.

  “Is this an earthquake? No, look there!” Manning declared, watching the grass ahead of them start to swell upward into a low dome.

  Suddenly, the swell broke part into sections, triangular pieces flipping backward on thick metal hinges and throwing out a spray of loose soil. Now a large circular hole was exposed in the ground, its sides lined with ferruled sheets of unpainted metal and brick support columns. Streamers of white clouds rose out of the pit and vanished instantly in the sunlight.

  Harboring a horrible suspicion as to what was happening, McCarter rushed to the edge of the opening and boldly looked down with his Kalashnikov at the ready. The swirling mists were thick, but not dense enough to hide some flashing red lights far below. Then the mists parted to reveal the all too familiar nose cone of a huge missile. It was a North Korean ICBM!

  As a breath of arctic cold rose from the hole, McCarter realized that the white stuff wasn’t mist or smoke, but evaporating fuel from the titanic engines of the missile! A combination of liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen, the same as NASA used for the space shuttle. He started to shout a warning to the others when he spotted some Japanese pictographs neatly painted across the tip, along with a single crude word in English—Washington.

  “They’re launching at D.C.!” Encizo snarled, craning his neck to see into the frigid pit. “Sons of bitches painted a hello on it.”

  Bringing up his AK-105, Encizo aimed, but withheld firing. ICBMs were built to withstand the awful pressures of flying at Mach speed, two, maybe three times the speed of sound. Could the rounds from the Kalashnikov even dent this Korean colossus?

  “Heads up!” Hawkins shouted as three more ground swells formed, and broke apart across the grassy field. “A goddamn flight of birds is being launched!”

  James reached for his radio, then stopped. The transmission couldn’t be heard ten feet away by the other members of Phoenix Force, so what was the chance it might reach halfway around the world? Whirling, James took off at a full sprint. Then again, the Chameleon had to have some sort of a range limitation. If he could just get far enough away from the jamming unit…

  “Come in, Stone House!” James shouted into his silent radio, boosting the power to maximum. “Birds are flying for D.C.! Repeat, birds aimed at D.C.!” Then on gut instinct, he changed the settings to the international channel. “CQ calling CX!” he yelled into the throat mike, using the code to demand a response from anybody who could hear. “CQ calling CX! Mayday! Mayday! This is an emergency!”

  “Grenades and C-4!” McCarter ordered, yanking two grenades off his web harness. The fuel lines would stay attached to the rockets until the very last second, constantly pumping in fuel to keep their tanks absolutely full. There were safety valves and automatic cutoffs, but those wouldn’t do a thing if they got enough thermite and willy peter down those launch tubes.

  Deep in his heart, the Phoenix Force leader didn’t think the plan would work, but he refused to just stand still and do nothing as millions of people were murdered. North Korean missiles hitting Washington, D.C.? Christ almighty, that could be the start of World War III!

  Just then, a low rumble sounded from below, the sound repeating from every silo as the entire field began to tremble slightly. A blast-furnace rush of hot air dispelled the icy mists, leaving the missiles in stark clarity.

  “They’ve gone to prelaunch!” Manning cursed, casting away the Kalashnikov. “These babies are going to fly at any second!” Which meant there was no time to even try to disable the colossal ICBM! Manning ignored the powerful Barrett and ripped open the flap on a satchel charge of C-4, rushing to set the detonator for impact instead of time delayed.

  Pulling out their own grenades, Claymore mines and another satchel charge, the other Phoenix Force commandos joined the two men at the edge of the silo. Then, tilting his head, McCarter raised a closed fist. The team went motionless at the silent command, and the Briton strained to hear the new noise over the building rumble of the missiles. For a second, he thought maybe it had just been a trick of wind, but then it came again, screaming Japanese voices from another silo. Civilians?

  Debating for a full second, McCarter rushed over to the next hole and looked down inside to just barely see a small group of people in lab coats pounding on a closed door at the end of a catwalk. Far below them, writhing fire washed around the base of the ICBM as the engines rapidly increased the tempo of its fuel pumps to avoid deadly pooling as it built to full thrust.

  McCarter frowned at the plight of the trapped missile technicians. Fukoka was killing some of his own people to do a fast and dirty launch. The bastard! It had to be because Phoenix Force was there. Uncaring about the fate of the trapped terrorists, McCarter started to turn away when he caught sight of the side of the missile. His entire universe seemed to focus in on the single brief glimpse. Open. The service panel was still wide open, the vulnerable internal machinery and circuits of the North Korean missile fully exposed!

  “This one!” McCarter bellowed over a shoulder, preparing to throw the two grenades. “Aim for the catwalk!”

  The noise and heat were steadily increasing from the silo as the screams of the technicians rose to raw-throated shrieks of blind panic.

  As the others rushed to join their commander at the second silo, Hawkins cast a furtive glance at the missile marked for D.C. before joining them. As he arrived, he gave McCarter a hard stare that demanded an explanation. Still holding his grenades, McCarter jerked his chin downward. Hawkins followed the gesture and broke into a feral grin. Hell, yes!

  A rush of billowing smoke and searing fumes started rushing from the underground silos.

  “Now!” McCarter roared as he threw the grenades, even though he knew nobody could possibly hear him.

  Their faces grimly intent, the rest of the team cast down their explosives. Then they did it again with the rest of the grenades.

  Grabbing Hawkins and Manning by the shoulders, McCarter pulled them away from the silo and started running for the bay in the caldera. Wasting precious seconds, Encizo threw down a belt of 40 mm shells before joining the others. He knew that if the warheads were nuclear, they were all dead men from the fallout, if not from the initial thermonuclear reaction. But if the payloads in the warheads were conventional ordnance, then the team still had to make sure these death machines never reached American soil. There would be no second chance at this. It was all or nothing the first time.

  Sprinting at full speed down the footpath, the men of Phoenix Force could only guess when the grenades went off, the explosions lost in the earthshaking power of the lifting North Korean missiles.

  Then twin thunder announced the detonation of the satchel charges, the double load of C-4 sharply punching through the strident rumblings. The fiery noise of one missile took on a new and different aspect, deeper in tone, less controlled. There came the gut-wrenching scream of tortured metal, closely followed by a blinding flash of hellish light that seemed to fill the sky and turned the landscape black and white.

  Knowing what to expect next, the running men droppe
d their rifles and covered their ears. A split second later, the shock wave arrived with triphammer force, the monstrous concussion slamming the men off the ground and sending them airborne.

  Horrible searing heat hit the tumbling Stony Man warriors just before they splashed into the blessed relief of the cool saltwater bay. Instantly, years of training took hold and the members of Phoenix Force knifed away from the surface, diving fast for the imagined safety of the sandy bottom. They were halfway there when the entire bay shook to a massive detonation even more powerful than the first. Churning sand blinded them as there came worse heat and brighter flashes. Savage concussions pummeled them as they fought to ride out the underwater maelstrom, and retain their precious single breath of air amid total and absolute chaos.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Gary, Illinois

  Racing along the brick-lined tunnel, Peter Woods reached a sheet of plywood blocking the end. He kicked out hard, and the wood broke free with the sound of splintering wood.

  Shoving his way through the splintery material, Woods entered a vast warehouse. The floor was empty aside from a thick coat of dust, and the air was dry and tasted stale. Good. This close to the river, the reek of the polluted water would have clung on for weeks before dissipating. Nobody had been in here for quite a while.

  This warehouse was his private domain. The loading dock was the logical place for people to breech the factory defenses, which meant his beloved Rolls-Royce was now in the hands of the police. So be it. Just another sacrifice in the name of America. But that was why he had a second escape tunnel built without informing the rest of Cascade. What they didn’t know couldn’t be forced from them by any amount of torture.

  Tucking the pouch tighter under his arm, Woods stood for a moment listening for any sounds coming down the tunnel. There had only been silence so far, but he expected to hear the sounds of the self-destruct charges going off at any moment. He had told Mannix only a piece of the truth. The charges would go off once set, but only after sixty seconds, not fifteen minutes. Just enough time for Mannix to close the vault door before everything was obliterated by the blast. Two tons of TNT was no atomic explosion, but it would certainly blow the entire factory to hell and back.