The Chameleon Factor Read online

  As was standard in the Coast Guard, the cutter came with a 76 mm cannon in a small pillbox at the bow, designed to put a whistling warning shot across the deck of other vessels to make them come about for inspection. However, if the warning failed, the Mellon also boasted two 25 mm Bofors Autocannons, four .50-caliber machine guns and side-launching Mk49 torpedoes.

  OUTSIDE AT THE RAILING, McCarter noted the addition of Harpoon missiles to the cutter’s impressive arsenal. Back in 1992 the torpedoes and the missiles had been removed because of budget cuts. After 9/11, the Coast Guard got a massive boost in spending and quickly reinstalled the heavy weapon systems. Basically, it was a pocket battleship. More accurately, the cutter was a PT boat for the twenty-first century.

  “David, how many of these does the Coast Guard have?” Manning asked, his face into the wind, hair slicked back from the wash so that he resembled a tango instructor or Mafia capo.

  “Twelve!” McCarter shouted in reply. “But they should have a bloody hundred!”

  “Preaching to the choir, friend!”

  “Rocks!” Encizo shouted, pointing at black shapes looming in the storm. Jagged peaks of stone, the broken cliffs stood defiant in the crashing waves, the pinnacles rising higher than the radio antenna of the listing Mellon.

  McCarter grunted, “About damn time.”

  “HALF SPEED!” Captain Tyson barked. “Hard to port, two degrees!”

  “Aye, sir!”

  Shapes rose from the squall, black and imposing.

  “Quarter speed! Hard to starboard!” Damnation, the rocks were everywhere! He glanced at the instruments, but they were useless. Too much conflicting data from the storm, rocks and muddy surf.

  “Half speed! Hard to port!” More rocks appeared from the rain. “Quarter speed!” A wave crashed across the bow of the turning cutter, and there appeared a wall of black rock straight ahead of them.

  “Full speed ahead!” Captain Tyson commanded, his hands clenched white behind his back, but his expression was cool and calm.

  “Aye, sir!” the helmsman cried, fighting the joystick. A wave slammed them on the port side, then there came a metallic shriek as something under the water scraped along their hull. The mountain of stone seemed to expand before the cutter as the ship fought the waves. A crash seemed imminent, and then the Mellon entered a calm in the storm, the sections of tumbled-down cliffs forming the imposing breakers soon in their wake.

  On this side of the barrier, the force of the storm was noticeably less and visibility was greatly increased. The shoreline of mother Russia was barely visible about four miles ahead. No lights showed along the shore, or in the wooded hills beyond. But that was why this section of the coast had been chosen. Near total isolation. Not even smugglers used the deserted cover because of the deadly breakers and underwater boulders that could rip open the keel of a ship like a soda can being crushed in your fist. And if not for his special passengers, Captain Tyson would never have come to this special little slice of Russian hell.

  Breathing a sigh of relief, the captain checked the GPS and the navigational chart, and then the compass just to make sure. Okay, the Mellon was now in the national waters of Russia and most certainly on their radar screens. The storm should kill visual, but at the first sign of anything suspicious, the Russian navy would hit the Coast Guard cutter with infrared, UV and anything else the local boys had. And if those were indeed MiG fighters in the sky…

  “Okay, son, full stop. We now have engine trouble,” the captain announced, checking his wristwatch. “Shut her down, and drop the main anchor.”

  “Aye, aye, sir,” the helmsman acknowledged crisply, and worked the controls on the joystick, slowing the huge craft with surprising ease until it was relatively still in the choppy North Pacific waters. Overriding the automatics, he gunned the gasoline engines a few times, making them turn over but refuse to catch.

  “Keep doing that until further notice,” Captain Tyson said, turning to leave. “But keep the diesels hot in case we have to leave in a hurry.”

  “Sir?” the helmsman asked hesitantly. “Do you think that this might be a good time to run a gun drill with the crew?”

  The captain nodded at that in appreciation. He liked sailors who thought fast. Smugglers were tough and clever, and only touch and clever CGs could do the job of guarding the shores of America.

  “This close to the Bear,” Tyson said, meaning Russia, “that is generally a good idea, but not tonight. We have engine trouble, the crew will all be down in the hold banging on hatchways and pipes with hammers to make as much noise as possible. So that for the Russian sonar can hear us doing, ahem, repairs.”

  “Understood, Skipper,” the helmsman said, setting his shoulders as he gunned the flooded engines again. “We’re dead in the water, but in spite of the storm, we don’t need any assistance yet.”

  “That’s what the radio operator will be reporting to Ketchikan base right at this moment,” Tyson said, pulling out a cell phone and tapping in a memorized number. “Carry on.”

  “Aye, aye, skipper!”

  THE PAGER in McCarter’s breast pocket vibrated, and he hit the pager to turn it off. That was the signal. If they were in the vicinity, the Russians would be monitoring the military channels for transmission, and not be paying much attention to the civilian bands. Unless there was a lot of traffic. So all messages were being sent over pagers and cell phones, and consisted of a yes or no.

  “Let’s move,” McCarter said, starting along the railing toward the stern of the huge cutter.

  The deck was wet, but the rubberized covering made their footing secure, and Phoenix Force easily reached the aft helipad.

  Two crafts were there, lashed down tight under sheets of canvas by a web of ropes. Pulling knives, the men slashed the ropes free and hauled off the canvas to reveal two rather lumpy-looking rubber dinghies. Each was equipped with a set of tandem motors and filled with bags of supplies.

  Going to the first craft, McCarter, Encizo and Hawkins climbed inside and started the engines. They came to life with a muted purr. Manning and James took the other, as the crew of the cutter appeared to pile in additional watertight bags, along with an assortment of flotation boxes—waterproof, cushioned containers designed for hauling delicate electronic equipment through the worst of storms.

  “Wait for it,” McCarter said, adjusting the radio transponder around his neck, tucking the receiver into an ear.

  A hatch opened on the tower, and the captain walked into view on the aft gun deck, flanked by a pair of Remington .50-caliber machine guns, still strapped down against the squall. Dressed in a bright yellow slicker, Captain Tyson stood with his hands folded behind his back, the very ideal of a Coast Guard officer.

  Taking a seat between the two tandem engines, David McCarter gave the man a salute. Nodding for a moment, the captain returned the gesture and then spoke into a radio mike hanging over his left shoulder.

  Listening to a response over his earphone, the captain raised a splayed hand and folded one finger down. Then another, a third, a fourth…

  Right on cue, the engines of both of the strange rubber crafts roared into full power exactly as the huge rumbling diesel power plants of the massive Hamilton-class cutter started working.

  As the rubber skirting of the crafts billowed outward, the vessels rose about a foot off the wet helipad. Moving effortlessly, the hovercrafts sailed off the end of the cutter and skimmed onto the choppy waves of the cove. Bouncing a few times, they settled down into a smooth run and rapidly built speed until the men and machines both vanished.

  “Helmsman, our engine trouble is fixed now,” the captain said into the radio handset at his shoulder. “Take us back to Alaska.”

  “Aye, aye, sir!” came the response in his earphone.

  Just then, something rumbled in the sky overhead, a different noise than anything previously made by the squall. Looking up quickly, the captain caught a brief glimpse of three MiG fighters streaking through the clouds, and
then they were gone.

  “Timing,” Tyson said softly, grinning to himself, “is everything.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Kobuk Valley, Alaska

  The drive from Nome to the Kobuk River had been accomplished with a minimum of fuss. The state took great pride in maintaining its roadways, and what damage the November quake had done was mostly minor this far north of the epicenter.

  On the way, Schwarz and Kurtzman had coordinated an effort to sweep the most likely spots in the state for a hidden government computer dump, starting with every existing off-site backup computer. As expected, nothing was found that gave the slightest indication of where the Chameleon files were located, even the locked and encoded files.

  Stopping at the side of a deserted road, Lyons and Blancanales stood guard while Schwarz opened the multiple locked doors of what appeared to be an electrical substation. Inside the brick-and-concrete bunker, Schwarz pressed his hand to a palm plate set into the wall and nervously waited while the machine checked his fingerprints against his fake file in the DOD system. Ceiling-mounted Auto-Sentry machine guns kept their deadly barrels aimed at him in a cross-fire pattern that could literally cut him in two at the first sign of suspicious behavior. An expert in electronics, Schwarz disliked being at the mercy of a machine, knowing how easy it was for even the best computer in the world to make a mistake. No matter how much knowledge they contained, it was still impossible to give them even an ounce of human common sense.

  With a dull beep the wall plate glowed green, the Auto-Sentries disengaged and the Able Team commando quickly checked over the info dump for any sign of hacking, physical invasion, bugs or any other kind of illicit monitoring. But the site was clean.

  Evening had fallen by the time Able Team reached the target range in the Kobuk Valley. As their SUV swung around a huge outcropping, Lyons eased to a gentle halt. The side road they wanted was closed off with orange barrels full of sand, a construction crew working on the berm while a portable concrete mixer chattered alongside. A lone foreman was checking items off a clipboard and talking to somebody on a radio headset, the silvery mike jutting stiffly near his mouth.

  “They’re Feds,” Blancanales said in disapproval. “There’s no cars. A work crew drives to the construction site, so there should be cars here. These folks were dropped off in a batch.”

  “Pretty advanced com link for some gravel jockeys,” Schwarz said, checking the EM scanner in his palm. “Okay, it’s bullshit. They’re using a military frequency.”

  “Ankles and hips,” Lyons grunted, nodding at the assortment of hidden guns carried by the state work crew. “I’d say Military intelligence, or maybe Homeland.”

  “Up here?”

  “Alaska, Texas, Florida, those are the main entry points for illegals into America.”

  “Wonder if they made us yet?” Schwarz asked.

  “Let’s find out.” Lyons tapped the horn twice.

  A nearby workman glance up from raking loose gravel and spoke briefly into his cuff. Instantly, the foreman turned and walked their way wearing a tired expression.

  “Hi, folks,” he said, as if doing this a hundred times a day. “Sorry, but the road’s closed. Some secondary damage from the quake.” He pointed to the east. “You’ll have to take the main highway just a few miles to get around.”

  “Get out of my way, cop,” Lyons said. “I work for Quiller Geo-Medical.”

  “What did you say, cousin?” the foreman asked, tilting his head and smiling.

  Able Team noticed that at those words, everyone stopped working and started adjusting their clothing or scratching, getting a hand closer to their weapons.

  “Or rather, I used to,” Lyons continued. “Until everybody went home with the flu.”

  Lowering his clipboard, the foreman stepped closer, “Yeah, there’s a lot of that going around,” he said slowly, “ever since the big snow last year.”

  “Hell, boy, it was a blizzard.”

  “Acknowledged. ID, please,” the foreman said, holding out a hand. Now that the passwords had been exchanged his demeanor was completely different, and several of the workers unzipped their grimy worksuits to place a hand inside.

  The team passed over their Department of Defense identification booklets. The foreman checked their photos, then waved the booklets over his clipboard. It beeped as it scanned the bar codes, and then beeped again.

  There was no chance of them being detected as fake, because they weren’t. The identification booklets were part of the support supplied to Stony Man by the White House, and were as real as any issued to a special investigation agent of Military intelligence.

  “Pass,” the foreman said, giving the booklets back. “Give ’em a door, people.”

  Four of the workers placed their shovels aside and rolled the heavy orange barrels out of the way to make a path for the SUV.

  Lyons drove through slowly, the tires crunching on the loose gravel scattered over the road to give the illusion of work being done.

  Once past the construction, Lyons started to accelerate, and by the time the SUV had reached the top of hill, the orange barrels were back in place, the road closed again.

  Following a curve in the road, the Able Team leader turned off the paved road and started down a gravel track toward the target zone. The forest grew to the edge of the road, and the branches closed off at the sky at several spots, the dappled light of the setting sun giving the landscape a ghostly feeling.

  Then Lyons took a curve and braked fast at the sight of black Hummers blocking the road. U.S. Army soldiers swung big M-60 machine guns about on the vertical mounts and worked the arming bolts as a dozen more troopers in camouflage fatigues stepped out of the woods on both sides, the men armed with M-16/M-203 combo assault rifles.

  “They’re ready to repel an invasion,” Schwarz muttered, keeping his hands in plain sight.

  “Can you blame them?” Blancanales replied softly, doing the same.

  “Password!” a colonel barked, resting a hand on the holstered Desert Eagle pistol slung low on his hip. The checkered grip was exactly where his fingers would reach with his arms hanging natural and easy at his side.

  Lyons grunted at that. It was a fast-draw holster. This was Military intelligence, not regular Army.

  “Call your watch commander,” Lyons stated. “The password is Trinity.”

  “That’s a goddamn lie,” the colonel snarled, drawing the massive weapon.

  “Then shoot me twice,” the Able Team leader said calmly, hands on the steering wheel.

  Now the shoulders of the colonel relaxed slightly and he holstered the Desert Eagle. “Password confirmed,” he said with a nod. “You can pass.”

  As Lyons shifted back into gear and drove the SUV past the soldiers, the men kept their weapons pointed at the civilian vehicle as if just waiting for any excuse to cut loose.

  “They know something is up,” Blancanales muttered.

  “Be fools not to,” Lyons agreed grimly, turning on the halogen headlights.

  The bright lights flooded the woods ahead of the SUV to nearly daylight level. The gravel road curved into tattered trees, the bark missing from one side, and many of the branches missing leaves. With a clatter, the heavy SUV rolled onto a wooden bridge spanning a rocky stream, the roadway made of railroad ties bolted together. The beams should have been strong enough to support an armored personnel carrier, but the wood was badly cracked in spots, and there was the familiar acne-effect of shrapnel along the surface. It looked like an aerial explosion from the pattern.

  Past the splintery ruins of what might have been a guard kiosk, Lyons drove the SUV down a sloped embankment, the ground uneven and full of potholes. A vast field spread before the team, and only their maps showed it as a parking lot for the target range.

  The area was a disaster, wrecks scattered about as if hit by a wing of bombers. Soon, Lyons had to stop the SUV as driving was becoming impossible through a maze of debris on the ground: smashed windshields,
burned shoes, charred lumber, a woman’s purse, broken bricks, a single tooth. The sad remains of life, reduced to the effluvia of death.

  Braking the SUV in a clear patch of cracked asphalt, Able Team got out and studied the tattered landscape in the beams of the headlights. They were trying to get the feel for the battle zone. Minutes passed in hard silence, with the only noise coming from the ticking engine. Thankfully, the bodies were long gone, taken away in ambulance airships to the nearest military hospital under full security. Only the chalk outlines remained. Hundreds of them. Not one complete, only bits and pieces of the corpses were shown.

  “Any sign of a dump?” Lyons asked, frowning. Something was hinky here. The former street cop could feel it in his bones. As if they were under observation.

  “Nothing yet,” Schwarz said, operating the EM scanner once more. “But all of this metal is making things…”

  A shot rang out, and something ricocheted off a half-melted engine block.

  Diving for cover, the team hit the ground with weapons drawn. Their senses heightened by adrenaline, the men listened for any movements, but the field of destruction seemed clear.

  Sliding on a pair of Starlite goggles from his pocket, Blancanales scanned the surrounding hillside, boosting the magnification to maximum.

  “Looks clean,” he said reluctantly. “If there’s a sniper, he’s very well hidden.”

  Another shot was heard, but this time Lyons caught a brief motion out of the corner of his eye.

  “Goddamn, it’s the ammunition in the belts of the dead guards,” he said angrily. “The rounds near the fire are cooking off from the heat.”

  “Great,” Blancanales muttered, using a thumb to ease down the hammer on his .380 Colt pistol. “Let’s finish our EM swept and get the hell out of here.”

  “I’m with you, Pol,” Schwarz agreed, slowly rising to his feet. Checking the scanner, he boosted the range to maximum and started meandering through the rubbish and wreckage, swinging the device back and forth as if probing the ground for mines.