The Chameleon Factor

There was nothing moving in the darkness outside the broken windows, but the driver knew trouble was coming, and soon. Frantically, he tried to get the engine to turn over and only got a clicking sound. The battery wires had to have ripped loose in the crash. Shit! Pulling an M-16 assault rifle from a boot alongside his seat, the driver pulled the arming bolt and started over the jumbled forms of the groaning guards sprawled on the floor to shoot the prisoners when he suddenly felt very warm and relaxed.

As his thoughts became muddy, it became difficult to stand and he slumped to the floor, losing his weapon. Fighting to stay conscious, the driver vaguely understood this was a gas attack. Summoning his last vestige of strength, the USP guard tried to slap the emergency alarm button on the dashboard that would send off a flare and radio signal, plus detonate a series of explosive bolts to lock down the entire transport, rendering it impossible for anybody to enter without using a cutting torch. The Black Vipers couldn’t be set free! The feeling had left most of his body and the man could only mentally order his arm to hit the switch. But the warm embrace of the gas filled his universe and everything went pleasantly dark.

SLUGGISHLY, THE FOUR members of the Black Vipers came awake in a field of damp grass, the moonlight overhead bathing them in silvery light.

“By God!” one of the terrorists exclaimed, lifting both hands to stare in wonder at his bare wrists. The handcuffs were gone.

“We are free,” the giant rumbled, holding his head. “How is this possible?”

The skinny leader rose and raised his arms high, savoring the sensation of unfettered movement.

“I do not care, my brothers,” he said in Arabic, just in case there were listeners in the woods. Years of confinement with guards always monitoring had made the men paranoid, even worse than when they first went into prison. “Let us take this gift and leave.”

“But which way?” the third man said in a nasal whine, his strength returning with every breath.

He turned about in every direction, and there was nothing in sight but trees. Maybe they had been thrown from the crash into the Cassatt Forest Preserve? But if so, what had happened to their shackles and cuffs? The terrorist sensed danger of some kind but couldn’t readily identify what it was. His first impulse was to stay exactly where he stood and let the police capture him again. Then his anger flared at the very idea that the Americans had beaten fear into his soul and sapped the strength from his will.

Just then, a fiery explosion rose in the distance, illuminating the nighttime.

“This way.” The leader pointed and took off in the opposite direction at a stumbling run.

The grassy field was empty and smooth, but it took the men a few moments to get past the wall of their cell. Eight feet was as far as any of them had walked without chains for years since their incarceration. That ninth step felt like bursting out of a bubble of glue. Suddenly, the killers were laughing as they ran, putting on speed and tearing off the hated prison jumpsuits. Naked, they raced through the night. Somewhere they would find new clothing to wear. A laundry line, a closed store or from the bodies of murdered strangers.

“The Americans must not capture us again, my brothers,” the leader panted, leaping over a shallow ravine. “They will slay us on sight and claim we fought back.”

In silent agreement, the others dashed into the forest dodging trees and running for their very lives. None of them spoke or stopped for miles before reaching a small creek. The smell of the fresh, clean water was overpowering, and the parched men dropped to their bellies to lap at the creek like thirsty animals.

“The Yankees shall pay for our years of imprisonment,” the thin man growled, rising to his knees after a while. “No, their families shall pay. I have been designing new bombs in my mind. Ones perfect for children. There shall be a slaughter like America has never seen.”

“Revenge shall be ours!” the third cried, wiping the water from his mouth with a hairy forearm. “By the blood of the prophet, this I do swear. America will pay for its crimes against us in the red blood of its children!”

“Not this time, freak,” a voice of stone said from the darkness.

The Black Vipers leaped to their feet as three armed men stepped out of the nearby shadows. Incredibly, the newcomers weren’t prison guards or police officers, but soldiers, their camouflaged jumpsuits covered with weapons.

“What is this, some sort of trick?” the leader demanded, lifting a rock from the mud of the creek. “By the blood of God!”

“God. You do everything for God, right? You ever actually read the Koran, asshole?” Lyons demanded, leveling an Atchisson assault shotgun. “It’s a book of peace, not war.”

The big prisoner snarled, lifting a piece of fallen fence post from the creek. The wood was old, a poor weapon, but better than nothing.

“Want a weapon? Try these instead,” Schwarz said, tossing a canvas sack onto the ground. The bag landed with a heavy metallic rattle.

“That’s filled with guns,” Blancanales stated in a hard voice. “More than enough to fight your way to freedom. Money, too. Small, nonsequential, unmarked bills. Clothing and passports. Food, medicine, the works.”

The terrorists stood there in the chilly night, looking at the freedom given to them in a canvas sack.

“Why would you do this?” the leader asked suspiciously. “Do you support our holy cause? Who are you?”

“Your cause is full of holes, not holy,” Lyons said, flicking the safety on the Atchisson and tossing it aside. “As to who we are, we’re your sworn enemies and want nothing more than to see you bastards buried in the ground.”

The terrorists stood in confusion, the gift and the words together not making any sense.

Blancanales clicked the safety on the M-16/M-203 assault rifle combo he carried and lowered his own weapon. “We knew that there were two more members of your hate group still running around loose in the world. So we arranged for your transfer in the hope they would try to come to your rescue.”

“And they did,” Schwarz muttered, his hands holding a 9 mm Beretta pistol.

“So they are now captives of the American secret police?” the leader snarled hatefully.

Softly in the distance came the chatter of several MP-5 submachine guns all firing in unison.

“Not anymore,” Lyons stated without emotion. “You have friends, and so do we. But I’m betting that our guys just sent yours to hell.”

Fighting a shiver from the cool breeze, the leader of the Black Vipers muttered something in Arabic to the others.

“Not quite,” Blancanales answered in English. The former Black Beret only knew a few words of Arabic, but as a master of psychological warfare he could guess what the other man had said. “If we wanted you dead, we would have slit your throats when you were unconscious instead of taking off your shackles. But we’re offering something you never gave any of your victims. A fighting chance for life.”

The terrorists stood in silence, thinking hard, their scared bodies poised for flight, but uncertain.

“Surrender and go back to prison,” Schwarz said, using a thumb to click on the safety and tossing away his Beretta. “Or go for the guns. Your choice.”

Flexing his hands, Lyons lowered into a combat crouch. “But you’ll have to get past us first to reach the guns.”

“With snipers hidden in the bushes?” The leader laughed, glancing around nervously. Only shrubbery and more trees were in sight. “Why should we give you an excuse to gun us down?”

“You did that already,” Lyons said in a guttural voice. “When you bombed that civilian hospital. Now choose, or we choose for you.”

“And even if there were snipers,” Blancanales stated in harsh logic, “do you have a better offer?”

The leader waved that aside and said something softly to the other members. “We want nothing of this charade,” he said in resignation. “We surrender.” Then he whipped his arm around and threw the stone he had been palming while the others charged in a group.

Expecting the betrayal, Lyons ducked out of the way of the rock, then launched a side kick into the belly of the first terrorist, the force of the blow driving the man to his knees. But from there, he lunged forward and snapped his teeth at Lyons’s groin. The Able Team leader raised his thigh just in time and drove a rock-hard fist into the other man’s exposed neck. The bones snapped with an audible crunch, and the terrorist fell to the ground twitching into death.

Two of the Black Vipers converged on Blancanales, while the leader went for Schwarz. Although an expert with explosives and electronic surveillance, the former U.S. Army soldier had done more than his fair share of unarmed combat and simply stood motionless until the very last second. Then Schwarz twisted his fingers together in an odd way and thrust both hands into the face of the terrorist. Screaming in pain, the man froze motionless to claw at his ruined eyes.

Unexpectedly, the terrorist lashed out a kick, and Schwarz just swayed out of the way in time to avoid having his throat crushed. Darting forward, he grabbed the snarling man’s neck in a complex hold and spun him fast. Still fighting to get free, the prisoner contorted in an odd angle, there was a crack and the leader of the Black Vipers slumped lifeless into the creek with a loud splash.

Moving fast, Blancanales ducked under the hands of the first terrorist and kicked the second in the knee. The joint broke and the man dropped, only to throw dirt into his adversary’s face. Blinded for a second, he backed away quickly and felt the oversize hands of the giant terrorist close around his neck. His air was instantly cut off, and Blancanales forced himself to go calm, which used less oxygen, and fingered the other man’s arms until sightlessly finding the nerve complex in the wrist. Savagely, he buried his thumbnails into the tattoo-covered skin at just the right angle. The giant screamed in pain and let him go.

Instantly, Blancanales launched into a karate kata, a set sequence of movements normally used to fight your way out of a large crowd of opponents but also served well if you were blind. His hands and legs flashing, he hit nothing again and again, simply protecting himself while his watery eyes slowly cleared away the dirt.

When at last he could see, the Able Team commando dropped into a defense posture just as Schwarz smashed the temple of the small terrorist with a back-kick and Lyons released the giant from a bear hug, blood dribbling from the slack mouth of the last member of the dreaded Black Vipers as the killer started on his journey into hell.

Their chests heaving, Able Team stood for a moment amid the dead prisoners, pulling in the cool air. Often they had terminated the mad-dog killers of society, but usually it was at gunpoint and rarely was justice so satisfying.

“I swore to that dying Marine we would get these scumbags,” Lyons said softly, “face-to-face. It took a long time, but the bill has finally been paid in full.”

“Those two were supposed to be mine,” Blancanales said, wiping his cheeks dry with the back of a hand.

“Aw, but you were having so much fun punching the empty air,” Schwarz said with a weak grin, rubbing his oddly lumpy shoulder. “We didn’t want to disturb you.”

“I’m not a ninja like John Trent,” Blancanales replied, linking as his vision cleared. “But I make do. Hey, what’s wrong with your arm?”

“Dunno. Hurts like a bastard, but I don’t think it’s broken.”

Going around a corpse, Lyons walked over to the electronics expert and touched the shoulder. Schwarz winced slightly.

“It’s dislocated,” Lyons said as a warning.

Schwarz nodded, knowing what was coming.

Blancanales took his friend’s arm by the wrist, then placed the sole of his foot in the other man’s armpit.

“On the count of three,” Blancanales said, gently putting some tension on the arm.

Bracing his legs against the ground, Lyons held Schwarz tight by the waist, and instantly their teammate yanked hard on the arm, twisting it just slightly along the radius. Schwarz went white as the arm snapped back into the socket.

“Wh-hat th-the hell happened to three, you bastard?” he demanded, inhaling sharply though his nose.

They both released the man.

Blancanales gestured in apology. “I didn’t want you tensing up,” he explained. “That only makes the pain worse.”

“Worse?” Schwarz gasped, gently massaging his throbbing shoulder. “How is that possible?”

“Trust me,” Lyons said in a serious manner. “I’ve been there. It can get worse.”

“Damn.”

Just then a woodlark called from the darkness. Lyons spun about at the noise, and waited for it to come again before answering. A few seconds later, Phoenix Force strode into view from the midnight shadows beneath the thick cover of oak trees.

“The prison guards okay?” Lyons asked.

“Bruised, but alive,” David McCarter said, easing the tension on his Barnett military crossbow. In the hands of the former British SAS officer, the silent-kill weapon struck like divine justice, leaving only cooling corpses who left this world with a puzzled expression of how it had happened to them.

“Although they’ll have a hell of a headache when they finally wake up,” the Briton added, slinging the bow over a shoulder. “Without the antidote you gave the Black Vipers, that bleeding sleep gas has nasty side effects.”

“But it is fast,” Rafael Encizo stated, the compact Starlite goggles distorting his face as he scanned the night for any danger, or worse, any witnesses. “And that’s what counted tonight.” Heavily muscled, the soldier moved with catlike reflexes that spoke of endless years of combat in the field.

“We took a big chance on this,” Hawkins said, nudging one of the dead men. “Not that I disagree, but it was a hell of a chance. I’m surprised that Brognola gave this mission an okay. Pleased, but surprised.”

His actual name was Thomas Jefferson Hawkins, but everybody who saw him in combat quickly accepted the nickname of T.J. Trained by the elite Delta Force, Hawkins was relentless and brutal to the enemies of freedom.

Lyons rubbed a palm across his blood-smeared cheek. “Hal understands that there are some crimes,” he said softly, “for which a simple bullet in the head is not enough payment. Now the books are balanced.”

“Starting to sound more and more like Bolan all the time,” Gary Manning said, canting his silenced MP-5 submachine gun against his hip.

“Thanks for the compliment,” Lyons growled, almost smiling.

“Incoming call,” Calvin James said, touching the radio receiver in his ear. Tall and lean, the night-camouflage paint only took the reflective quality off the man’s dark skin.

“We’ve been recalled,” he stated, looking at the others. “Barbara wants us to report in person ASAP.”

“The SUV is this way,” Lyons said, starting into the bushes. If the farm was calling during a mission, something serious was brewing.

CHAPTER THREE

Nome, Alaska

Death stalked the crowd.

A calm voice called an announcement over the PA system of the airport. Excited children ran ahead of their weary parents. An old couple walked stiffly along the carpeted corridor, holding hands and talking softly. An anxious young man clutched a bouquet of flowers and watched each arriving plane with painfully obvious impatience.

As he stood in line at the airport scanner, the weight of the gun felt heavy inside the blouse of the disguised man. His wig itched, and his lower back ached from the weight strapped to his belly, along with the padded bra and the—

“Next, please!” the guard called out.

His disguise of Professor Johnson long ago removed, Davis Harrison, aka the Chameleon, waddled forward from the yellow line on the floor and placed his lady’s handbag on the conveyor belt, then paused and removed a plain gold wedding ring from his pinkie and put it in a little plastic tray. His long nails were manicured and freshly painted, his sneakers worn at the heels and his white support stockings had a small run artistically placed near the ankle, where most runs occurred in stockings. He knew his disguise was perfect, but there was still a small knot of tension in his stomach. After 9/11, the Americans had become exceptionally good at uncovering smugglers—whether it was drugs, money or weapons. He was carrying all three. Plus his technological namesake, the prototype jamming unit.

Armed guards stood in the far corners of the airport, loaded M-16 assault rifles cradled in their arms, hard eyes sweeping the crowds steadily. Briefly, Harrison had a flashback to the armed guards walking the elevated catwalks of the Berlin airport before the Wall came down. Hard times to make a living.

However, as the Transportation Security Administration guards glanced his way, they shifted their attention away from his face to the bulging belly, and those with wedding rings smiled. Posing as a pregnant woman was a favorite ruse of smugglers, but this one seemed to be okay. She was wearing support stockings and her ankles were slightly swollen, her wedding ring didn’t fit the correct finger anymore from the water weight gain, her ears were pierced, but she wasn’t wearing earrings, there was no scarf to cover an Adam’s apple, no razor burn on the cheeks and so on. Satisfied for the moment, their attention moved to more likely suspects.

An Inuit woman in a neatly pressed TSA uniform at the scanner held up a restraining hand as Harrison waddled toward the scanner.

“Your glasses, ma’am,” she said, holding out a hand.

“Sorry, I forget they were there,” Harrison said as he passed over the glasses.

The guard nodded in sympathy and waved him on.

Holding his bulging stomach protectively, he squeezed through the scanner and it remained silent. It worked! Elation filled the man, but he kept his expression weary. He was pregnant now, and it was exhausting work. Remember that, fool!

Once on the other side, the now smiling guard returned his glasses, ring and handbag, and waved for the next passenger.

Awkwardly shuffling away, Harrison paused for a moment to glance into a convenient wall mirror as he put on the ring and glasses, and fixed his hair. Then he pretended to burp and frantically covered his mouth in embarrassment.

ON THE OTHER SIDE of the mirror, the security guards drinking coffee watched with dull interest as the pregnant woman primped for a moment. A lot of smugglers were caught by the mirror trick. They remained icy cool at the scanner, then smirked in satisfaction at their cleverness in the reflection in the “conveniently placed” mirror.

“Poor thing,” a soldier said. “When my sister was preggers with her twins, she belched like a sailor day and night.”

Another man laughed. “Well, that explains a lot about you.”

“Stuff it,” the first guard snarled, the threat softened by a half smile. “Now, your sister, whew! Let me tell you…”

WADDLING AWAY, Harrison joined the short line heading to the China Air counter. His ticket was for New Delhi, a city closely watched for smuggling things out, but not well monitored for smuggling things into. The nation was poor. Why would anybody smuggle something into India? Harrison kept his face pensive, but smiled inside his mind. Why indeed?

As the line to board the plane moved slowly forward, he started shifting his weight from foot to foot, and began breathing a little heavily.

An alert flight attendant noticed the action and briskly walked over.

“Come on, dear,” she said, smiling. “Let’s get you on board where you can use the rest room.” Her nametag said Gwenneth, and the tall beauty had deep green eyes, a sure sign of not being of pure Chinese descent.

“Thank you,” Harrison whispered in a little voice. “I didn’t want to seem pushy or anything, but, well, you know…”

“My first baby seemed to love kicking my bladder,” the woman said in a friendly manner. “I understand. It’s okay, come with me, please.”

A few of the younger men scowled as the pair moved past the line and onto the plane. But all of the adults merely smiled as they figured out the reasoning behind the courtesy, and remembered similar incidents from their own lives.

A killer a hundred times over, Harrison took hold of the pretty woman’s arm and let his hand press against her uniform jacket, savoring the warmth of her full breasts as they walked along the skyway tunnel. Then he felt a flash of real fear at the totally unexpected appearance of a second weapons scanner in the entrance of the waiting 747 jetliner. This wasn’t on any of his plans or charts! Relinquishing his hold on the flight attendant, Harrison cradled his fake stomach and pressed on the sides to activate the Chameleon at its lowest setting. The tunnel lights flickered for a brief moment as the field engaged, but then they returned to normal and he passed through the EM scanner without incident.

Inside the plane, he gave a male flight attendant his ticket and shuffled quickly toward the little lavatory. Once inside, Harrison locked the door and reached under his dress to turn on a Humbug. The device silently swept the lavatory for any optical pickups or working microphones. When it checked as clear, he pulled out a Tech-9 machine pistol, worked the bolt to chamber a round for immediate use, then slid it back under his dress into the cushioned sack of supplies hanging from his shoulders. The thing weighed a ton, but there was no other way to accomplish his mission. So what couldn’t be changed had to be endured. At least temporarily.

Adjusting the power levels on the Chameleon, he raised the dial from its lowest setting to about halfway, and locked it into position. Soon now, very soon. Using the toilet, Harrison washed his hands and waddled out to his seat, settling down with a contented sigh.

Remembering to read a magazine through his glasses, he waited and watched as the last of the passengers came on board. After the door was latched shut, the pilot made an announcement that the flight was on schedule, and the steward began his mindless song about safety and seat belts, while the female flight attendant checked seat belts and the storage of the carryon baggage. Gwenneth was working his aisle, and Harrison allowed himself to study her in detail. Slim legs rising to a perfect rear, a narrow waist and large breasts. Midnight-black hair, pouting lips, sparkling green eyes—yeah, maybe he’d keep her alive for a while, before he sent everybody else on this plane straight to hell.

As the pretty flight attendant walked by, Harrison stretched out a fingertip to lightly brush the smooth nylons on her thigh.

Angrily, Gwenneth glanced down to scold the flirt. But when she saw it was the pregnant passenger, she dismissed it as an accident and moved on to help other passengers settle in for the long flight to India.

Yes, do your job, little flower, but nothing can save these fools now. Harrison smirked behind an impassive face. All I need are a few more minutes. Then it will be too late to stop me. And afterward, nobody would ever be able to stop the fall of America.

Stony Man Farm, Virginia

MURMURING SOFTLY, the radio receiver tucked into security chief Buck Greene’s ear gave a constant report on the progress of the Black Hawk gunship coming in from the south. The surface-to-air missile bunkers were armed and ready in case it wasn’t the Stony Man teams inside coming home. The Farm’s mission controller, Barbara Price, had told Chief Greene about the secondary effects of the Chameleon device, so he was taking no chances. If the lights flickered just once, or if there were two Black Hawks instead of one, then he would order the covert fortress to cut loose with everything it had, which was plenty. A mistake could be made, and friends might die. “How could we stop a Chameleon attack?” Greene wondered out loud.

“Yeah, I’ve been thinking that myself,” John “Cowboy” Kissinger stated. “Radar-invisible gunships, armed with invisible missiles—how could we stop those?”