Promise To Defend

“U.S. Border Patrol,” a female voice said. “We saw the vehicles out front. I want you to step out here and show yourselves. Now.”

Salih felt fear and anger roiling within. Their contact had told them that he’d leave a pair of vans at the house for transportation. The Border Patrol agents had spotted them and decided to investigate. Had they called for backup? And, if so, when would it arrive? The notion that they’d come this far only to fail was intolerable to Salih. That a woman—a woman—had interfered and was shouting orders only increased the sting. They needed to act, to go down fighting, if necessary. But go down as men.

Apparently, Hejazi felt the same way.

The small man rounded the corner, his weapon rising as the flashlight beams illuminated his chest and face. The officers, their voices taut with fear, shouted for him to halt his advance. But he didn’t. The pistol cracked twice and Salih saw one of the shadows fall. A microsecond later bullets hammered into Hejazi’s chest and stomach, launching him into a backward march that ended when he collided with a wall. Unable to take another step, his limbs became rubbery and he crumpled to the floor.

Salih, Glock held high, his heartbeat thundering in his ears, approached his old friend.

“Officer down, damn it,” he heard the Border Patrol agent saying from the other room. The agent’s shadow loomed larger as he approached Hejazi’s corpse. “Where the hell’s my backup?”

Despite the vengeful rage boiling within, Salih forced himself to think clearly. They needed to get out of here before more agents arrived and they ended up making a last stand here in the desert.

The officer came into view, his handgun leveled in front of him. His eyes widened as he saw Salih. The muzzle tracked toward Salih, but he already had the American in his sights. The Glock’s report echoed throughout the corridor as a pair of 9 mm slugs caught the Border Patrol agent’s head, killing him instantly.

By the time the American folded to the ground, Salih’s fellow warriors had flocked to his side or gathered around Hejazi, checking in vain for signs of life. He didn’t wait for them to pronounce what he already knew in his heart.

“Take his body to the van,” Salih ordered. “We have no time to waste. For today, we must go, hide. But tomorrow the Americans will pay for his death and many others a thousand times over.”

CHAPTER TWO

Stony Man Farm, Virginia

With Stony Man Mountain situated to his left, Rosario “The Politician” Blancanales stood outside the farmhouse, black eyes peering over a coffee cup’s rim, drinking in the milky orange-red line of predawn light cresting the Blue Ridge Mountains’ peaks.

Awake since 3:00 a.m., the Able Team warrior finally had surrendered to his insomnia, showering, dressing and adjourning outside to watch the sunrise, beating it by a good fifteen minutes. Sleep rarely eluded Blancanales. A trained soldier, he usually could will himself to doze, if only for a few minutes, despite time zone shifts, adrenaline rushes or anticipated danger. In the field, sleeping, like staying alert, was a survival skill one mastered as part of a larger repertoire of skills, both practical and deadly.

But between missions, burdened with time to think and remember, Blancanales occasionally found himself in his present circumstances: wide awake, mind littered with bits of wreckage from his past. Sometimes the ghosts just wouldn’t go away.

Scowling, he watched a smoky-gray blanket of fog rise above the acres of hardwoods and conifers that surrounded Stony Man Farm, the nation’s ultrasecret intelligence and counterterrorism operation. Pressing the coffee cup to his lips, he slurped it, trying at once to cool and consume it.

A voice sounded from behind. “Didn’t realize you were into sunrises.”

Blancanales turned to see Hermann “Gadgets” Schwarz, Able Team’s electronics genius. Schwarz, a man of medium height and build, leaned against the farmhouse, arms crossed over his chest. Blancanales flashed his most disarming grin. “If you’d gotten here a minute later, I might have started writing poetry,” he said.

“Or yodeling.”

“God forbid. I leave the loud, unearthly sounds to Ironman,” Blancanales said, referencing Carl Lyons, Able Team’s third and final member.

“Good choice.”

“How’d you find me?”

Schwarz held up the coffee, made a face. “I figured either you or a hog farmer cooked up this swill. I didn’t see you in the house, so I figured you might be outside.”

“You need something?”

Schwarz shook his head. “Nah, just nosing around. I was already up. Up all night, in fact. I got caught up in hotrodding my laptop. I added more memory, upgraded the wireless fidelity capabilities, added some dandy new encryption software.”

“Have my eyes glazed over yet?” Blancanales asked, grinning.

Schwarz arched his upper lip in mock disdain. “Savage. My great genius cannot be appreciated by one such as you.”

“Right.” Blancanales swallowed more coffee.

“So you dodged me long enough. What the hell are you doing out here?”

“Not sleeping.”

“And not answering my questions.”

Blancanales opened his mouth to reply, but a vibration on his left hip cut him off. In almost synchronized movements, he and Gadgets unhooked their pagers from their belts, brought them closer to their faces and studied the liquid-crystal displays.

“War Room,” Blancanales said.

“Not good,” Schwarz replied. “Not at this hour.”

Blancanales nodded his agreement. A tickle of excitement passed through his stomach, followed by a sense of relief. Just what he needed—a little action to distract him. He gestured toward the house. With a nod, Schwarz pivoted on his heel and started for the front door. Blancanales fell into step behind him.

ENTERING THE WAR ROOM, Blancanales swept his gaze over its occupants, smiled at them. Barbara Price, Stony Man Farm’s mission controller, Aaron “The Bear” Kurtzman, chief of Stony Man’s cybernetics team and Lyons were seated at the oval-shaped table. Price, her honey-blond hair pulled back in a ponytail, skin bare of makeup, and Kurtzman, thick body settled in his wheelchair, big hands wrapped around a steaming mug of coffee, returned Blancanales’s smile. Lyons looked up from his coffee long enough to nod at his teammates before returning his attention to the mug’s swirling contents.

Hal Brognola stood at the head of the table, arms crossed over his chest. His white cotton dress shirt was open at the collar, the sleeves rolled up to the middle of his forearms. An unlit cigar jutted from between the big Fed’s lips.

“Nice breakfast, Chief,” Blancanales said as he dropped into a chair.

“Beats your coffee,” Brognola shot back.

“Oh, Lord,” Blancanales said. “Hal’s tossing out jokes. Isn’t that a sign of the apacolypse?”

“Could be in this case,” Brognola said.

“Okay, you’ve got our attention,” Lyons said. “Elaborate.”

Plucking the cigar from his mouth, Brognola studied it for a moment as he collected his thoughts. When he spoke, his voice sounded weary. “Within the past few hours, the country took a double-barreled gut shot. Both home and abroad. I have Phoenix Force working things overseas. I need you folks to defuse the homeland threat.”

“Which is?” Schwarz asked.

“Nothing short of mass murder,” Brognola said. He turned and looked at Price. “Barb?” She pressed a button on her laptop and an image of middle-aged man with black hair and a dark complexion came into view on the wall screen.

“Name’s Abdul Rashid,” Brognola said. “He heads a lovefest called Arm of God. As far as terror groups go, it’s fairly new, surfacing a year ago. But it seems well connected and well funded. And, as of this morning, it moved to the top of our must-hit list.”

“How so?” Blancanales said.

“Some of Rashid’s men seized our embassy in Liberia this morning,” Brognola said. “They have a couple dozen hostages, including a handful of Marines working security at the facility. From what we’ve gathered, Rashid’s not there.”

“Casualties?” Blancanales asked.

“Six dead. All Marines. They went down defending the place.”

“How could this happen?” Schwarz asked, his face flushing with anger. “I mean, a dozen Marines in a walled compound ought to be able to kick serious ass. I take it these guys didn’t just scale the walls and storm the building.”

Brognola nodded. “Right. Initial reports indicate that someone lobbed a live hand grenade over the wall. When it exploded, some of the Marines went to investigate, while the rest tried to secure the embassy.”

“Divide and conquer,” Schwarz stated.

“Precisely,” Brognola said. “At least two Marines were shot inside the embassy, even as the others were going outside to investigate the blast. And the terrorists didn’t need to scale the wall. The gate was open, a dead guard lying next to it. The smart money says that someone inside the embassy either opened the door or at least left a key under the mat, so to speak. The State Department security guys are checking the staffers again, looking for possible traitors. But if they didn’t find them during the initial screening, they probably won’t now, either. Our cyberteam is doing likewise, but again, I’m not too hopeful.”

“I beg your pardon?” Kurtzman asked.

“Sorry, Bear, but my guess is that, if it was an inside job, then that person covered his or her tracks pretty well. Embassy security hasn’t exactly been lax since the World Trade Center attacks. These creeps probably coerced someone into helping, someone without previous ties to the group, making them harder to trace.”

Kurtzman nodded. “Makes sense. Just the same, we’ll keep bird-dogging this thing, in case someone else missed something.”

“I’d expect no less. I sent Phoenix Force to handle the embassy seizure. The group was already in Africa, fresh off another mission, and I could have them there within a matter of hours. And, according to our intel, Rashid is hanging his hat somewhere in Africa. So we’ll likely send Phoenix in to take him out, once they free the embassy.”

“So you got us out of bed why? To tell us that Phoenix Force will be late for dinner?” Lyons said.

Brognola gave Lyons and the others a weary smile. “I wish. Unfortunately we have trouble here on the home front, too. That’s why I’m depriving all of you—especially you, Carl—of your much-needed beauty sleep. From your standpoints, the African situation is necessary background for what needs handled in the United States. Barb will explain.”

“The point, finally,” Lyons muttered. Draining his mug, he stalked over to the coffee machine to refill it.

In the meantime Brognola fell into his chair, chomped on his cigar while Price got to her feet. Price hit a button on her laptop and a new picture flashed on the projection screen on the far wall. As everyone took a moment to study the image, she wordlessly handed out mission packets to Able Team.

Flipping through the file folder, Blancanales came across a photo of a man sprawled on his back, his uniform shirt darkened by blood. Most of his head had been torn away, apparently by a bullet. Blancanales recognized a U.S. Border Patrol insignia on the guy’s shoulder patch. In a second photo, he saw a woman patrol agent, her throat savaged by a bullet, curled up on a floor. Her pistol lay several inches from her fingers.

Blancanales held up the pictures. “Where did this happen?”

“California-Mexico border,” Price said. “Near Tijuana, Mexico. The exact location is listed in the mission packet. The woman’s name was Jennifer Drew. She was thirty-two and been with the patrol for six years. Single mother, two little girls. Going to law school in the evenings. According to her records, she wanted to be a prosecutor when she got out of law school.”

“Damn,” Blancanales said. “What about the guy?”

“Jon Copper. Joined the patrol three months before. No immediate family. He’d just been discharged, honorably, of course, from the Marine Corps. Served one tour in Iraq where he earned commendations for bravery and a purple heart. The bad news is that the killers were gone before backup arrived.”

“The good news?” Gadgets asked.

“Apparently either Drew or Copper nailed one of these bastards before they could escape. Investigators found blood at the scene, splattered on a wall, pooled on the floor. They were able to collect that, some hair samples and other forensic evidence. Not to mention shell casings from the killers’ guns.”

“That stuff tell us anything?”

“Surprisingly, yes. The shell casings had been wiped clean of any prints. But the blood and hair yielded some DNA evidence that helped us identify one of the shooters. His name is Jamal Hejazi.”

“Or was,” Schwarz replied. “Hopefully, anyway.”

“Most likely. Judging by the amount of blood, bone fragments and other physical evidence at the scene, this guy should be riding a horse through Sleepy Hollow, carrying a pumpkin under his arm. We’re still waiting on the rest of the forensics reports to come in, but we’re guessing that Hejazi was wounded by the Border Patrol agents and one of his own people ‘retired’ him with a bullet to the head.”

“Why do that?”

Price shrugged. “Probably didn’t want to risk taking him to a doctor or hospital.”

“Makes sense.”

“What do we know about Hejazi?” Blancanales interjected.

Price leafed through the file’s contents until she found what she was looking for. “He was a Saudi national. About ten years ago, he lived in the United States on a student visa. He was studying medicine. During that time, he came up on rape charges.”

“Charges he hotly denied, I’m sure,” Lyons said.

“Of course. The court forced him to submit DNA evidence. They swabbed him for saliva and matched the DNA with stuff collected at the hospital’s E.R.”

“Surprise,” Lyons said, his voice indicating anything but.

“Once that information went to the grand jury, Hejazi decided to leave the country. Without the court’s permission, of course. He went to Sudan.”

“Double surprise,” Lyons said wearily. As a police officer, he’d seen the same script played out to the letter too many times.

“I guess the victim’s family had some money, too. They hired a bounty hunter to chase after him and drag him back to the United States. He went underground until the family’s money ran out. Once he learned he was off the bull’s-eye, he crawled out from under his rock and decided he wanted to fight the Great Satan. Judging by his record, he’s otherwise pretty unremarkable.”

“Hey, give the guy his props,” Blancanales said. “He is an international fugitive, after all.”

Price smiled. “I won’t grace that with a response. Obviously our big concern here is that a known terrorist snuck into the United States. He’s dead. But we know for a fact that he didn’t come alone. Before they entered the house, Drew told her dispatcher that a pair of vans was parked outside the house. She also radioed in the numbers for the license plates, both of which were stolen. By the time their backup arrived, both vans were gone.”

“So we have a couple of carloads of terrorists touring the West Coast,” Blancanales stated.

“And, while we can assume they’re here to launch an attack,” Brognola said, “we have no other specifics. That’s where you guys come in. I want you to beat the bushes, find out what these bastards are up to. We’re expecting a big bang. We just don’t know when, where or how. Your mission packet contains plenty of background on these guys. And we have a couple of contacts for you to look up, including one in San Diego. There’s a plane waiting on the landing strip. While we’ve been talking, a team of black-suits has been loading it full of weapons and equipment, all your usual favorites. I want you guys in the air and ready to hit the West Coast within an hour. The Man is worried. So am I. We need you to hunt these guys down and to find out what they’re up to. He’s also been very explicit as to how you deal with them once you accomplish those tasks.”

“Exercise our full diplomatic authority?” Blancanales queried.

Brognola nodded. “Exactly. Kill them.”

CHAPTER THREE

Monrovia, Liberia

David McCarter navigated the van through the throngs of soldiers, bystanders and journalists gathered two blocks from the American embassy.

The van bore the symbol of a humanitarian organization, an effort by Phoenix Force to disguise its approach. If his opponents were smart enough to seize a well-guarded embassy, McCarter figured they also were smart enough to station observers among the crowds gathered outside the perimeter. Wheeling the panel van to the curb, he brought it within thirty yards of a rug store that had been evacuated and converted into a command center. The embassy lay straight ahead, its top floors visible over the security fence. At least one terrorist was visible from the rooftop, watching the approaching vehicle through a pair of binoculars.

“Ever get the feeling you’re being watched?” asked Gary Manning, who was riding shotgun.

“Hope the bastard gets a good look,” McCarter said. “Pretty soon, one of us is going to be the last thing he sees.”

Shifting the van into park, McCarter and Manning disembarked. Motion in a second-story window caught the Briton’s attention. Glancing up, he saw a figure fill the embassy window, watching his every movement. Two more sentries, brandishing AK-47s, faces swathed in brightly colored scarves, also were visible through the bars of the security fence surrounding the embassy compound. The brazenness didn’t surprise McCarter. He knew the terrorists assumed they’d be safe so long as they had hostages. Their threat had been clear: for every terrorist harmed, two hostages die.

He averted his gaze and proceeded to the back of the panel van.

As he moved, he took in the burned-out or bullet-pocked buildings, leftovers from a civil war that lasted nearly a decade and killed hundreds of thousands of Liberians. Rounding the rear of the van, he saw the other three members of Phoenix Force—Calvin James, Rafael Encizo and T. J. Hawkins—disembarking, carrying with them coolers and insulated boxes used for transporting food. Stony Man pilot Jack Grimaldi had remained at a nearby airfield, ready to provide air support, if necessary.

McCarter grabbed one of the boxes, lifted it. He felt a hand clap him on the shoulder as he came to his full height.

“’Bout time you decided to join the working people,” Hawkins drawled.

“I’ll be happy to do just that, mate,” McCarter said. “If I ever find them.”

Laughing, Hawkins hefted a cooler and started to walk away from the van.

A pair of U.S. Marines stepped into their path, their M-4 rifles held in easy reach. McCarter and his crew had already been through two other checkpoints, and the Briton was starting to lose his patience with all the security hoops being forced upon him.

“Halt and identify,” the first Marine ordered.

McCarter set his cooler at his feet. Fingering an ID card bearing his picture and fake credentials suspended by a small chain around his neck, McCarter held it up for the soldier to inspect. “Rick Cornett,” he said, using an alias supplied by Stony Man Farm. “Your man should have alerted you to my arrival.”

The soldier studied the ID for another moment. He nodded over his shoulder. “Mr. Colvin’s expecting you. He’ll see you immediately. I’ll show you inside.”

“Bloody decent of him,” McCarter growled.

Stepping inside the shop, the Phoenix Force warriors stripped away their white coveralls, revealing black combat suits. Opening the coolers and insulated food bags, they emptied their contents—weapons and equipment—onto the floor, each man arranging his gear in a neat pile. Five Marines donned the coveralls and hats. In about five minutes, they’d load up in the van and leave, their faces hopefully obscured by the hats and the coming dusk.

McCarter and the others readied their weapons. The Briton heard footsteps moving in clipped cadence approaching from behind. Glancing over his shoulder, he saw a slender man, about five feet eight inches, his white hair trimmed close to his pinkish skin and flat on top, moving toward them. He halted about ten feet away and scrutinized each member of Phoenix Force with a hard gaze, saving McCarter for last. Scowling, he crossed his arms over his chest and stared at the Phoenix Force leader.

“So you’re the hot-shit commandos the White House made us wait for,” he said. “God, give me strength.”

“He just did, mate,” McCarter said, “in spades. You got a name?”

“Colvin. Steve Colvin.”

“You’re State Department?”

Colvin nodded. “Diplomatic Security Service. And you’re Justice Department.”

“Rick Cornett,” McCarter said, using his alias. He didn’t bother to introduce the other men. He didn’t plan to start a long-term relationship with Colvin.

“You with the FBI? Hostage Rescue Team maybe?”

“No.”

“Delta Force?”

“No.”

“Care to elaborate?”

“No.”

His cheeks reddening, Colvin glowered at McCarter for a stretched second. Despite his rising impatience, the Briton didn’t avert his own gaze. Colvin reached into his breast pocket, extracted a crumpled pack of cigarettes and tapped one into his palm. Replacing the pack, he lit the smoke with a disposable lighter, inhaled deeply and gestured with a nod at the space behind him.

“All right, Cornett,” the State Department man said, “why don’t you drag your Limey butt over here and I’ll brief you.”

He turned and headed toward a table topped with a pair of laptops and three satellite telephones.

McCarter glanced at Manning, who grinned. “‘Limey butt?’” Manning asked. “Not very diplomatic for the State Department, eh?”

“He’s sizing me up,” McCarter said. “It obviously hurts his professional pride a little to have Washington send in outsiders to handle this mission. Probably wants to see whether we’re up for the job.”

“Think we passed his test?”

“I couldn’t care less,” McCarter said.

Manning shot him a grin and they fell into step behind the State Department man, following him to a makeshift briefing area set up in the rear of the store. A table topped by laptops, architect’s drawings and scattered papers sat in the middle of the converted storeroom. Three technicians, two women and a man, all dressed in civilian clothes, were positioned around the table, working at computers.

“Lynn,” Colvin said, “show us the layout.”

A thirtysomething brunette nodded. She tapped a few keys and moments later an architect’s drawing of the embassy filled the screen. McCarter noted several X’s situated at various points on the image. A small laser pointer in his grip, Colvin rested the device’s red dot on a large rectangular room.

“This is the first-floor lobby,” he said. “According to early security camera images, there were at least eight shooters in this area. Unfortunately the latter information is dated. Within thirty minutes of taking the embassy, they’d shut down the surveillance feeds to our satellites. Doing so creates a closed system. They can monitor every inch of the place, but we can’t see a damn thing. We can still track people by their body heat, but we can’t tell whether they’re the good guys or the bad guys.”

“What about the second floor?” Encizo asked.

Colvin nodded at the computer operator, who with a few keystrokes, changed the picture again. “Flyovers indicate a great deal of body heat here. And it’d make the most sense for them to keep hostages here. They can herd them into rooms, most of which have no windows, for security reasons, making it easier to guard the prisoners.”

“What are your negotiators telling you?” McCarter asked. “What do these blokes want?”

“Typical terrorist crap—release certain members of their group, cut U.S. aid to Israel, withdraw troops from the Middle East.”

“In other words, the impossible,” McCarter said.