The Chameleon Factor Read online

  Crossing the room, Woods went past the plastic trunk filled with spare clothing, weapons and money and broke a wax seal on a bolt to throw open the one door. All of the others had been bricked shut by his own hands. Just a little added insurance in case of federal intervention.

  Shoving the heavy door open, Woods blinked as he stepped into bright sunlight. He was in a small courtyard enclosed with tall fencing that was topped with concertina wire. There were a few scraps of stained cloth fluttering from the military razor wire showing that some fool had tried to get over and failed in the attempt. Briskly crossing the yard, Woods kicked open a locked metal box marked High Voltage and then smashed a glass insulator knob. Removing a small key from inside, he went to the only gate in the fencing, undid all three of the locks with the same key and threw open the gate.

  Proceeding down the alley, Woods ignored the looks he got from the homeless people and exited onto the city sidewalk. There were some teenagers lounging by a liquor store, and a pair of old men playing checkers on a stone bench near what once had been a city park. Nobody paid the millionaire terrorist any attention at all as he started toward the nearby highway, the folder of schematics still safely tucked under his arm.

  Firebase One

  STAGGERING OUT of the choppy bay, the gasping men of Phoenix Force walked onto the war-torn beach.

  Pausing to catch their breath, the team found unidentifiable wreckage strewed everywhere, bits of charred machinery and general debris mixing with chunks of smoking turf and the occasional human remains. Looking inland, McCarter saw with some satisfaction that plumes of black smoke were rising from the ruins of the grassy field, tongues of wild orange flame licking upward from the charred remains of the four silos.

  “Mess with the best,” McCarter muttered, lurching forward.

  “Die like the rest,” Hawkins agreed under his breath, reclaiming his dropped assault rifle.

  Brushing off the damp sand, Hawkins grimaced at the sight of a bend in the barrel. Tossing the broken weapon aside, he drew a 9 mm Beretta from his hip holster and racked the slide. One of the benefits of the 9 mm weapon was that a brief soak in the ocean wouldn’t bother it in the least. Searching along the path, McCarter and Encizo found their own assault rifles in similar unusable condition, so each pulled out his personal side arm. Manning discovered his Barrett undamaged, although the barrel and breech were choked solid with wet sand.

  “Hey,” James spoke over the radio, “I’m glad to see you all alive.”

  “Calvin?” McCarter said, touching his throat mike as he looked about. “Where the hell are you?”

  “Behind the lava ridge,” James said, rising into view down the shoreline. He waved and said something else, but the words were garbled by a brief crackle of static precisely as something exploded below the grassy field, throwing fresh material skyward.

  “And there go the diesel generators,” Manning said, trying to work the bolt. The action was stiff, and there was a nasty grinding sound of sand in the works. Slinging the weapon across his back, he drew a .357 Magnum Desert Eagle and dropped the clip to check the load, before slapping it back into the grip once more.

  “Firebird Three, this is Firebird One. Repeat, please,” McCarter ordered.

  “Roger,” James replied. “I said I went behind the ridge hoping it might help with the jamming field.” There was another underground explosion. “Well, it didn’t,” he continued. “But the lava served as a pretty good buffer from the shock wave when the missiles blew.”

  “Glad to hear it. Get the backup weapons from the hovercraft.”

  James turned, showing a cluster of Heckler & Koch MP-5 submachine guns hanging over his back.

  “Spare ammo, too,” he said, smiling widely.

  Rendezvousing with James near the lava cave, the Stony Man commandos rearmed with their standard weaponry, and distributed the extra ammunition.

  “Grenades?” Hawkins asked, stuffing magazines into a pouch on his web harness.

  “Sure,” James replied, tossing him one. “But do you really think we’re going to need any more?”

  Just then, a fiery detonation ripped open a section of the bamboo grove, throwing a shotgun blast of bodies and machinery into the smoky air.

  “Not a chance,” Manning answered honestly, shouldering the weapon as he brushed back his soaked hair.

  “Now comes the fun part,” McCarter said, eyeing the lava cave. “We confirm the Chameleon is destroyed.”

  “In there?” Encizo asked incredulously, jerking a thumb at the burning field. “David, do you really think there’s a chance in hell that device is still recoverable?”

  “Only one way to find out,” McCarter answered resolutely, reaching into a pocket for a cigarette. He found the sodden pack, crumpled it into a wad and threw it away. Maybe it was time to quit smoking.

  The other men looked hard at the mouth of the cave as if it were the barrel of a loaded cannon. In the background, explosions racked the distant field.

  “Bring the Chameleon back intact, or confirm it has been destroyed,” James said grimly, shifting his boots on the sand. “Those were the orders.”

  “Well, shoot,” Hawkins drawled in a pronounced Texas accent, working the arming bolt on his MP-5, “who wants to live forever?”

  Brief smiles appeared at the ancient battlefield joke, and readying their weapons, Phoenix Force started forward together.

  Splashing along the shoals, the warriors walked into the dim cave, the cracked walls of the interior dancing with reflected sunlight off the choppy water. The earlier fire was out, the barrels only blackened metal by now, but the steel doors were still closed tight.

  Even as Encizo pulled out a block of C-4, the doors parted with a screeching noise, and volumes of thick smoke poured out, heralding the advance of a score of coughing people. Many of them were badly burned or dripping blood. Several were limping badly, Japanese assault rifles being used in lieu of crutches.

  One of the terrorists shouted something in Japanese, and in spite of their serious wounds, the surviving members of Nucleus fumbled to pull out weapons. In unison, Phoenix Force knelt and returned fire, the barrage of incoming rounds tearing the Japanese criminals apart.

  “You speak Japanese,” Encizo said to Manning, climbing onto the dock. “What did he say?”

  “He thought we were Russian special forces,” Manning answered, covering the doorway until it was his turn to climb out of the water. “And that it was better to die in battle than under the questioning knife.”

  Questioning knife…military torture? Encizo arched an eyebrow at that in disgust, but said nothing.

  Now with nobody living to block their way, the Stony Man commandos walked through the tilting doorway and into the enemy base. The belly of the beast.

  Waves of hot air were rushing outward, carrying the reek of chemicals and hot metal. The ceiling crawled with smoke, and alarms sounded constantly. After only a few yards, Hawkins started blowing away the speakers with well-placed shots from his sidearm just to kill the annoying noise.

  Broken and smoldering bodies lay scattered about, the floor itself sagging in spots as it partially melted from the tremendous heat below. Most of the doors lining the corridor were wide open, showing only death and destruction. A few of the rooms were dark, and the team broke cold-light sticks and tossed them in to ascertain the condition. Apparently very few of the members of Nucleus had survived the backblast of the underground missiles, in spite of the fact that launch silos were supposed to be able to contain just this sort an explosion, and for obvious reasons.

  “Must have been short on funds,” Manning said, aiming his MP-5 at the chest of a gurgling terrorist slumped over in a corner.

  The man’s shirt was slashed to ribbons, his belly yawning wide and trembling hands tried to hold in his ropy intestines. A long crimson trail stretched behind the vivisected man, showing his pitiful struggle to escape the depths of the destroyed base. But even if a medevac unit were on-site it would ha
ve made no difference; the terrorist was a dead man and nothing could save him.

  In brutal mercy, Manning ripped a burst into the chest of the dying terrorist.

  “Agreed,” McCarter said, over the radio. “Anything near the launch bays will be destroyed, which means less for us to search. A liquid-oxygen–liquid-hydrogen fire burns as hot as thermite and doesn’t leave much behind.” He paused to fire at a movement in the murky shadows. A Japanese man cried out and fell into the light, dropping a pistol. “But we need to check the control room, offices and their repair bay, service dock, whatever,” McCarter finished, moving onward.

  “And blow the computers,” Encizo added, sending a burst from his MP-5 into a room. There was an answering scream that abruptly stopped. “Just in case.”

  Suddenly, a terrorist rushed from an open doorway, holding an assault rifle with a bayonet. Hawkins killed him on sight.

  “Fair enough,” he growled, dropping the spent clip and reloading while walking.

  Coming out a cloud of smoke, a coughing terrorist stumbled into the corridor clutching his bloody arm. McCarter was instantly alert. The man’s face was badly blistered, but his uniform jacket was oddly clean, as if it came from somebody else.

  James stepped in front of the terrorist and raised his MP-5.

  “Eai! Eai!” the fellow cried out, crouching low as if bracing for a death blow. Tears started running down his cheeks.

  Inhaling sharply, James stepped aside and waved the wounded man past.

  But as the fellow hurried by, McCarter noticed that the usual tattoo of three blue circles was on the back of the man’s right hand. His right, not the left like everybody else.

  “It’s Major Fukoka!” McCarter snarled, whirling and aiming from the hip.

  At the sound of his name, the leader of Nucleus pulled a .40-caliber pistol from under his bleeding arm. McCarter and Fukoka fired at the exact same instant.

  In an explosion of pain, white-hot light filled the universe and McCarter began to fall into a stygian blackness that seemed to stretch on forever.

  Main Street, Gary

  BURSTING OUT OF the dark tunnel, Able Team charged into the empty warehouse, weapons looking for danger. There was nobody in sight.

  “Floor!” Blancanales said, pointing downward.

  His teammates grunted in acknowledgment. In the thick dust there was a single set of footprints heading to an open door across the building.

  Wary of traps and snipers, the team moved out of the building and into a small fenced courtyard with an open gate that led to an alley.

  HURRYING DOWN Main Street, Woods saw that traffic was busy at the intersection as usual. Boldly walking into the middle of the street, the man suddenly staggered and clutched at his chest, then fell to his knees on the hard asphalt. Several cars just zoomed past the reeling man until a car with Ohio license plates braked to halt and a young woman rushed out.

  “Oh, my God, are you all right?” she asked in concern. “Do you need an ambulance?”

  Calmly, Peter Woods pulled the Colt from under his jacket and shot her in the throat. Bright red blood pumped out of her neck in long arcs from the ghastly wound. Gurgling horribly, the woman fell to the street, trying to block the flow of her life with both hands to no avail.

  Whistling softly, Woods took her car keys from the street alongside her, got in her car and drove away. So far, his escape plan had worked perfectly. By now the factory was filled with poison gas, and there wasn’t a living member of Cascade remaining to tell the FBI about him, or identify Woods in court. Had the Feds really thought that they could stop him with a surprise raid? Pitiful. It was just another example of how weak America had become. Nobody would go the distance anymore; nobody cared enough to do whatever was necessary to save their nation. All he needed now was a computer store so that he could get on-line and start sending the files out across the Internet.

  At the corner, Woods started to drive through a red light, but then saw a police car idling at the curb near a coffee shop. Forcing his expression into neutral, Woods impatiently waited for the blasted light to change. He briefly looked at the assortment of stores lining Main Street, then dismissed them. A computer store in Gary? Not likely. Such luxuries weren’t sold in this town, but they would be closer to Midway Airport. In just a few more minutes this would be all over, and then nothing could stop the long-awaited genesis of a new America. A strong, clean, white America. Oh, God, it would be so glorious when the rioting started in the streets.

  In the distance, somebody was screaming for the police, and it took everything Woods had not to glance in the rearview mirror. Even in downtown Gary, eventually somebody would call for the cops after finding a body in the road. The police hurried out of the coffee shop holding steaming foam cups and jumped into their vehicle to race away with the lights flashing. The moment the police turned the corner and were out of sight, Woods drove through the intersection and headed for Interstate 55. He wondered if the fight between the Bloodhawks and the Comanches was over.

  As the entrance ramp came into sight, Woods noticed three men running down the street. A big blonde with a bloody leg, a beefy guy and a stocky fellow with a mustache. All of them were wearing military web harness and carrying automatic weapons.

  The Feds had found him! Stomping on the accelerator, Woods cut off another car and swerved around a pothole trying to reach the ramp.

  BLANCANALES AND Schwarz fired rounds from their M-203 launchers. The 40 mm shells of willy peter hit the ramp and detonated into a sea of raging fire. Spitting obscenities, Woods cut hard to avoid the flames and crashed through a wooden safety barrier. The impact crumpled the fender of his stolen car, but barely slowed its speed.

  Bracing himself with his good leg, Lyons cut loose with the Atchisson and blew the bottom off a telephone pole at the far corner. The base exploded into splinters, the spread of steel fléchettes peppering the brick wall behind. Trailing wires, the pole crashed into the street, and Woods wildly banked again to escape a collision.

  Now the millionaire terrorist was directly facing the three men. As Able Team swiftly reloaded, Woods pulled out his Colt and pressed the gas pedal to the floor. As the car surged forward, he started firing out the window.

  “Wait for it,” Lyons ordered gruffly, his aching leg dripping blood.

  The windshield of a parked car near Able Team shattered from the hot lead of the booming Colt, then the munitions bag hanging at Schwarz’s side jerked as a .45 slug tore through the material. Gritting his teeth, he tightened his hands on the assault rifle, but did nothing else.

  “Almost there…” Blancanales muttered.

  The racing car was almost upon them when the scrambling civilians on the sidewalk behind the vehicle finally got out of the line of fire.

  “Now!” Lyons shouted, triggering the Atchisson.

  Together, Blancanales and Schwarz stepped away from each other and fired, unleashing a hellstorm of antipersonnel rounds. The fléchettes from the Atchisson ripped a path of destruction along the side of the car, tearing off the side panels and removing the hand holding the booming Colt. At the same moment, the barrage of lead buckshot from the grenade launchers blew out both of the left-side tires of the oncoming car.

  Shrieking in agony, Woods tried to steer with the ragged stump, but the slippery blood got all over the steering wheel and he completely lost control. Veering wildly, he sat helpless as the stolen car went straight past Able Team to careen off an abandoned van and plow through the display window of a closed store. Glass went flying everywhere, and a burglar alarm started loudly clanging.

  Softly in the distance, police sirens were starting to cut the air. Slapping in his last clip, Lyons limped toward the store and blew open the door to enter the establishment. His teammates stayed in the street, pulled back to give cover fire if necessary. They knew what had to be done to finish this dirty job.

  Tilting slightly, the car was fully inside the store, its front end surrounded by the remains of a co
unter. The busted cash register lay on the floor, the open till empty. Everything was covered with twinkling shards of glass.

  Struggling and cursing in the front seat of the vehicle, Woods was bleeding from a dozen small cuts as he fumbled to tighten a leather belt around the ragged end of his forearm. As Lyons approached, Woods cinched the belt tight and the rush of blood slowed to a mere trickle.

  “Where are the plans?” Lyons demanded, loud and clear.

  His face distorted with pain and rage, Woods spit, “Fuck you, pig! I want my lawyer!”

  “Not this time, murderer,” Lyons said in a voice from the grave, and sent the remaining few cartridges in the Atchisson into the front of the car. Under the roaring assault, the hood was torn away and the hot engine immediately woofed into flames as the fuel lines were completely shredded.

  “What in hell are you doing?” Woods screamed in raw panic, fumbling at the door latch. “Get me out of here, you fool!”

  But as the door came open, Lyons kicked it shut again.

  “This is the last time I ask,” he growled, dropping the shotgun and pulling out his .357 Colt Python. “Where are the plans for the Chameleon?”

  Woods started in openmouthed shock at the grim warrior, then his eyes got hard. “You’ll never find them without me,” he panted, sweating dripping from his pale face. The shock of the injury was wearing off, and the real pain was starting to make itself known.

  Lyons said nothing as he leveled the barrel of the Python. To Woods the black opening loomed like the end of the world.

  “You can’t do this to me!” the millionaire screamed, staring in horror at the rising flames.

  With a grim expression, Lyons coldly clicked back the hammer.

  “Okay, okay! I surrender! Name your price! I’m rich! You can have anything you want!” the terrorist yelled, raising his gore-streaked stump as if imploring sympathy. But there was none.