Close Quarters

STONY MAN

An elite covert special ops team, Stony Man acts only under presidential directive. Backed by a sophisticated unit of cybernetics and weapons experts, Able Team and Phoenix Force fight terror across the globe. They operate with impunity, driven by grit and the instinct of true warriors dedicated to protecting the innocent.

TERROR TRAIL

When Peace Corps volunteers working in the jungles of Paraguay are kidnapped and brutalized by a mysterious new Islamic terrorist group—and political maneuvering fails—Stony Man gets the call. Its dual mission: an under-the-radar jungle rescue and a hunt along the Iranian shores and backstreets of Tehran for the terrorist masterminds. With the enemy’s hard-line agenda poised to fuel the powder keg of Middle East instability, Stony Man moves in against long odds that are only getting longer. Surrounded and outgunned, they’re willing to make the ultimate sacrifice to succeed.

“We’re talking a religious coup of incomprehensible proportions.”

“Do I smell a change in plans, then?” McCarter asked Price.

“Not for you,” she replied. “But we wanted you to have a better idea of what you’re up against. We’ll be taking care of the rest of this through Able Team.”

“And how exactly do you plan to do that, if I might be so bold as to inquire?”

“We’re sending them to Tehran to handle the matter personally,” Price said.

“Wait. Let me make sure I just heard you correctly. You’re sending Able Team into Iran?”

“Yes.”

“Oh, bloody hell,” McCarter said. “I don’t think that’s such a good idea.”

“Well, the decision’s already been made by the President, and Hal’s in complete agreement. I had my own reservations, but it didn’t seem like the issue was up for debate. Not now anyway.”

“Have you told Able Team yet?”

Special thanks and acknowledgment to Jon Guenther for his contribution to this work.

Close Quarters

Don Pendleton

www.mirabooks.co.uk

Contents

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

EPILOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

Paraguay, South America

Sweat stung his eyes.

The collar of a khaki shirt chafed his sunburned neck.

The stifling, oppressive heat of the jungle threatened to overtake him.

His lungs burned and his legs ached with every stride.

Christopher Harland had been running through the dense jungle for the past half hour as if his life

depended on it—because it did. He didn’t know the identity of his pursuers, but there was no doubt about what would happen if they caught him. That was all the incentive he needed to run this race—giving up was tantamount to a prolonged and painful death. Or worse, even, as his pursuers might actually subject Harland to the same things to which they had subjected his trusted colleagues, his friends, even a woman he loved.

Who the hell knew about their fates? He couldn’t even be sure of his own at this point.

Harland’s lungs threatened to give out on him. He heard the crash of the small armed unit as they closed the distance. He couldn’t keep this pace forever. No amount of track and field at Rutgers could have prepared him for it. He could only thank his coaches now for the training, although the repeated wind sprints at the time hadn’t seemed all that useful to most of the members on his team.

Harland’s flagging endurance ceased to be a concern as he felt something snag his ankle. He stopped and turned to see what it was, but got no further in his inspection—the sensation of his body leaving the ground proved as distracting as it was disconcerting. The world around him seemed to swirl in a haze of reds and blacks, stars popping in front of his eyes from the abrupt change in orientation.

Harland coughed as he fought for air. It felt as if his heart might explode in his chest. Would that be such a bad way to go? Not as bad as the way he’d exit this world at the hands of the figures who emerged from the jungle shadows. Most of them were dark-skinned but not in a mestizo way. These faces implied a more exotic place of origin, most likely somewhere in the Middle East or northern Africa. Harland had learned quite a bit from his ethnic studies in college.

Harland’s head hammered as he dangled helplessly from the tree. As he spun he could see that at least a dozen men had been chasing him. Why? Was he really a target of that importance or was it merely that they didn’t want him to get away? Clearly these men were operating in secret here, although Harland couldn’t imagine who they were or why they’d be interested in him. He’d heard the stories of Americans being kidnapped and held for ransom or missionaries murdered for proselytizing, but this situation seemed much different.

Harland opened his mouth and gulped air. He thought about speaking to them, but before he could decide his body suddenly plummeted to the ground. He cursed as putting out a hand to break his fall sent shooting pains up his wrist, resulting in what was more likely a sprain than a fracture. Either way, it hurt and he wished these men would either kill him outright or let him go instead of toying with him.

It wasn’t to be.

In a minute that seemed more like an hour, two men grabbed Harland and hauled him to his feet. They shoved him against the gnarled trunk of a giant tree, the surface biting into his skin like sandpaper. They pinned his arms behind him, and then Harland felt something thick and smooth being inserted under his right armpit and drawn across his back until it extended out the opposite side under his other armpit. The men then jerked Harland’s arms down, causing a fresh wave of searing pain to travel up his arm from his injured wrist. They bound the stick to him with thick cord at shoulders and forearms and then spun him.

“Why are you doing this?” he asked, first in English and then in Spanish.

That bought him a slap across the mouth. “Shut up!”

Harland’s face stung and he surmised the striker had left a red welt.

Without another word his captors each grabbed one end of the stick and lifted just enough that Harland had to walk almost on his tiptoes to accompany them. He’d probably managed to make it at least a couple of miles from the Peace Corps encampment—walking all that distance back in this fashion would not be pleasant. Then again, what was pleasant about any of this?

His forced march turned out to be even more grueling than he’d suspected it would be, and Harland was exhausted by the time they reached the volunteer camp. Or what was left of it. The wooden buildings that had been home for the past three months were now smoldering hulks, their insides gutted by fire and the exteriors little more than charred, smoking frames. Only the concrete pads on which they’d been built had managed to survive. Harland noticed an odd, thick haze—a mix of orange and green in the late-afternoon sunlight filtering through the jungle canopy overhead—had fallen on the camp. It wasn’t caused by the smoke. This was some sort of natural phenomenon he’d never experienced before and he wondered if it had something to do with the fire.

The men half dragged, half walked Harland across the remains of the encampment until they reached the one building that had remained untouched: the camp mess. A man stood there, dressed in camouflage khakis like the others. A belt with a mixture of shotgun shells and high-velocity rounds encircled his waist in some kind of military webbing. His boots were highly polished and muscular arms bulged taut against the rolled-up sleeves of his uniform shirt. While the other men wore black berets, this one wore a blocked utility cap with gold wreaths braided along the brim and some kind of circular emblem on its crown.

The man turned and studied Harland for a time, his eyes indiscernible behind his sunglasses. A scar ran along his meaty jaw, very faint but evident. It was thin and looked as if it might have been caused by a razor blade or very sharp knife. His breath stank of cigarettes as he leaned in and studied Harland with a steady gaze.

“What is your name?” he asked in English.

That accent! Where the hell had Harland heard it before? He couldn’t remember and it was driving him nuts because it sounded nearly identical to the accent of the one who’d yelled at him. Harland knew it didn’t really matter, however, since his chances of getting out of here were slim. And even if he did manage to escape or they decided to let him go, who would he tell?

“I asked you your name!” the leader said. He tapped Harland’s forehead and said, “Are you stupid, American?”

“Harland,” he said. “My name is Christopher Harland. What’ve you done with my friends?”

“You should be worried for your own future,” the man said with a smile that lacked any warmth.

“Where are you from?” Harland asked. He looked around him at the men busily emptying the trays and silverware and other materials from the camp mess and then affixed his gaze on the man. “You’re not part of any guerrilla outfit I’ve ever seen. And I should tell you that we’re a U.S. Peace Corps group. If we’re out of contact long, you can bet your ass someone will know about it soon enough. They’ll come looking.”

The military leader favored Harland with another flat smile as he removed a pack of cigarettes from his pocket, put one in his mouth and turned his head to the side. An aide immediately stepped forward and lit it. The man took a deep drag, let out the smoke slowly through his nostrils and studied Harland, nodding steadily.

“Yes, yes…I’m sure you’re correct. And that is exactly why you have been chosen among your people to walk out of here alive.”

“What? What are you talking about?”

“I’m saying as long as you do what I tell you, your friends will remain alive. Otherwise, they are all dead and so are you.”

Harland considered this for a time, finally realizing he didn’t have any choice. If Dee and the rest of his entourage were to survive then he would have to do exactly as the man said. He couldn’t very well risk their lives. He’d never wanted this responsibility anyway—never asked to be responsible for the safety and welfare of others—so it didn’t make cooperating with this man seem so bad. Whoever he was, it made little difference. Harland was going to come out of this breathing and save a lot of lives in the process. How could that be bad?

“All right, I’ll play the game your way. What do you want me to do?”

And so the man issued Christopher Harland detailed instructions.

CHAPTER TWO

Little Havana, Florida

The stifling humidity had put Carl “Ironman” Lyons in a foul mood.

Only the ice-cold beer served by a smoking-hot waitress with wild brunette hair kept his temper in check. The sweat from the frosty bottle dribbled across

Lyons’s left hand and pooled onto the table. Once in a while, he’d wipe the cool water against his forehead but it didn’t help much. Lyons couldn’t remember the humidity being this bad during his time in Los Angeles when he was a cop with the LAPD.

Watching his Able Team partners stuff their faces with jalapeño nachos washed down by copious amounts of Malta Hatuey soft drinks didn’t improve his disposition. Lyons, leader of the elite covert-action team, sighed as he took in their surroundings for the tenth time in the past half hour. “Once more we’ve been

relegated to doing a job that should be assigned to the federal boys.”

“You know what I think?” Hermann “Gadgets” Schwarz managed to ask around a giant bite, cheese and sour cream running down his chin. “I think we should order another one of these.”

Rosario “Politician” Blancanales made a concerted effort to chew and swallow his own decadent mouthful before saying, “Cheer up, Ironman. You should make the most of this. Try to think of it as a vacation.”

“A vacation.”

“Sure,” Blancanales said, drawing the word out like a man tempting his grandchildren with a story. “I mean, there are much worse places the Farm could’ve sent us.”

“Oh, yeah? Like where?”

“Well, I—”

“Alaska,” Schwarz said.

Blancanales jerked a thumb at his companion. “There you have it! Alaska. It’s cold there.”

“They also have some of the best fishing this time of year,” Lyons countered.

“They also have polar bears,” Schwarz mused. “You could get eaten alive.”

Blancanales feigned a conspiratorial whisper, cupping his hand to his mouth as he said, “I don’t think they’d find Ironman too palatable.”

Lyons ignored the gibes from his friends as two men escorted a third across the street. They headed straight for Able Team’s table in the cabana-style exterior setting of the lounge. Lyons scowled at them, wondering how they’d managed to escort the guy this far without getting him wasted. Their charge wore khaki shorts and a Hawaiian-style silk shirt; sandals adorned his feet. He had light red hair that protruded in clumpy tufts from beneath his Marlins baseball cap. The man’s dress perfectly blended with the styles worn by the Able Team warriors, but his escorts stood out like highway cones in their government suits.

They stopped at the table, and the taller one in serge blue removed his sunglasses. He looked around, then said, “You Irons?”

“Yeah,” Lyons confirmed. He gestured to Blancanales and Schwarz respectively. “This is Rose and Black.”

“Here’s your man,” they said.

Without a word the pair whirled and made distance back the way they had come.

The man stood there with a somewhat beleaguered expression. Lyons felt a bit of empathy for the guy. The two FBI agents assigned to bring him here were obviously intent on more important things, and Lyons couldn’t imagine what he’d been through. The wrist brace on his right arm and deep scratches on his legs made it obvious he’d been in a recent tussle. Lyons had no doubt this was Christopher Harland.

“Have a seat,” he said, waving Harland into the one vacant chair at their table.

The young man stuck his hands in his pockets and studied their faces in turn—almost as if sizing them up—before he sat.

“You hungry?” Blancanales asked.

Harland inclined his head at the disappearing agents and said, “They got me something when we landed. I’m good.” After a pause he added, “Thanks.”

“How about something to drink? You must be thirsty.”

He nodded and Blancanales signaled the waitress. The young man ordered a beer—a Tecate—and watched the waitress with obvious appreciation as she jiggled away with his order.

Lyons smiled at his two companions. Okay, so maybe he could learn to like the kid, after all.

“How was your flight?” Schwarz asked to break the silence.

“It was okay.”

“Those guys, they treat you okay?” Lyons asked.

“I suppose.”

“You go by Chris?” Blancanales asked.

“I prefer Christopher.”

“Fair enough.”

Schwarz went back to shoveling food into his mouth while Blancanales took another pull at his malt-based soda.

Lyons looked around. He saw only a couple of people nearby, nobody within earshot. Midafternoon and the lunch crowd was gone. It was too early for happy hour. “We’ve been briefed on what happened to you.”

“Okay,” Harland said.

“Anything you want to add?”

“It’s pretty much like I told them.” Harland clammed up as the waitress dropped a napkin on the table, followed by his beer.

Lyons handed her enough cash to cover the entire tab plus a tip that was generous enough to imply they wouldn’t need her again.

Once she’d left, Harland continued. “I barely managed to escape with my life. Those bastards are holding my friends hostage, including a woman I care about.”

“What do they want with your team?” Blancanales asked.

Lyons eyed Harland. “And especially why would they keep the others and release just you?”

Harland pulled off his sunglasses to expose a fresh black eye. Something in his expression seemed hardened, more mature and empowered than the average twenty-eight-year-old college grad. His expression bore witness to untold brutalities and hardships, and Lyons felt a measure of regret.

“I didn’t make any deals, if that’s what you think,” Harland said.

Lyons leaned close. “Hey, asshole, take it easy. We’re on your side.”

Blancanales quickly intervened in a way that had earned him the “Politician” nickname. “Listen, Christopher, we’re not trying to give you a hard time. You can relax with us. Our job’s to keep you alive, but in order to do that we need to know everything. You shoot straight with us and we’ll do the same, no bull. Just tell us everything you can remember about these men.”

Able Team had, of course, already been thoroughly briefed by Stony Man Farm. As soon as word came from channels—specifically a SIGINT analyst from the American embassy in the Paraguayan capital of Asunción—mission controller Barbara Price had called the Stony Man teams into action. The situation, as Harland had laid it out, was that seventeen members from a U.S. Peace Corps contingent along with three missionaries had been brutally assaulted and taken hostage by parties unknown. After they razed the camp and brutalized several of the women, they took them all except Harland. He’d been fortunate or maybe unfortunate enough to get the crap beaten out of him and sent to Asunción with a message: don’t attempt to interfere or the hostages would be slaughtered.

“What were you doing there exactly?” Schwarz asked.

“I was there on a Peace Corps mission,” Harland said.

Lyons said, “We understand that, but what kind of mission? Humanitarian aid, education, what?”

“Take your pick. After I left Rutgers I got selected to go down there and help try to bring modern facilities to their indigenous tribal populations. In some respects, these people have chosen a self-imposed exile. Mostly it’s a social and cultural isolationism but there’s a political play to it, too.”

“What kind of play?” Blancanales asked.

Harland took a long swallow from his bottle and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “More than sixty percent of the population of Paraguay is urbanized. The rest are content to retire to farming life, particularly since they have the sixth largest soy production in the world. A very small percentage have made their homes deeper in the jungle, traveling to the farms like sharecroppers and then back again at the end of the workday. It’s almost a migratory existence. It’s those people we were sent there to help.”

“So these military men,” Lyons said. “What can you tell us about them specifically?”

“Nothing. I was told that if I so much as breathed a word about what I saw they’d kill my friends. I took a risk just leaving the country. I’m sure they’ll figure I’ve talked.” Harland’s voice cracked when he added, “They’re probably all dead by now and I killed them.”

“You can’t think like that, man,” Schwarz said.

“That’s right, Christopher,” Blancanales added in a gentle tone, squeezing Harland’s shoulder. “We’re not going to let anything happen to you. And if we can help it, we’re not going to let anything happen to your friends, either.”

“Get real, dude,” Harland said as he wiped his bloodshot, swollen eyes. “You don’t have any control over what’s going on down there.”

“We have more control than you might think,” Lyons said.

Indeed, even as Harland’s tough facade melted, the Able Team warriors knew something perhaps less than a dozen people in the world knew. Five of the toughest and bravest men alive were touching down in Paraguay at that moment. Few knew their names or places of origin, but the exploits of Phoenix Force were no less mythical than the fiery bird from which they drew their namesake.

“You haven’t seen what these men are capable of,” Harland said.

Blancanales smiled. “They haven’t seen what we’re capable of.”

“Why don’t you go ahead and drink up,” Lyons said. “Sitting here with our derrieres hanging out for just anybody to take a shot at is starting to make me nervous.”

“Remember,” Schwarz quipped. “We were going to try to look at this as a vacation?”

Lyons’s cold blue eyes glinted wickedly in the sunlight as he expressed alert like a terrier on a rabbit’s scent. “I think it just got cut short.”

Even as Schwarz and Blancanales turned to see what had Lyons’s attention, the Able Team warrior was rolling out of his seat and grabbing hold of Harland’s shirtsleeve. He yanked backward as he warned his two companions to take cover, although it seemed pointless since Blancanales and Schwarz were already in motion with the practiced reaction of combat veterans. The four men ate the decorative tile of the patio as young Arab types exited a black sedan, leveled SMGs and opened up on their position.

The report from the weapons drowned a shout of pain from Harland, who got slammed onto his shoulder with some significant force. He wouldn’t realize until later it was a small price to pay in consideration that Lyons had kept his promise to save Harland’s ass. Lyons ordered his charge to stay where he was, then whirled on one knee and reached beneath his loose-fitting shirt. In his fist rode a 6-inch Colt Anaconda, its silver finish brilliant in the afternoon sun. A successor to Lyons’s .357 Colt Python, the pistol had been qualified by Lyons with six rounds in a one-inch shot grouping using 240-grain XTPs at 30 yards—a champion marksman’s score. The Anaconda was deadly in the hands of the Able Team leader.

Lyons snap-aimed the pistol, going for the opponent who had experienced a gun jam, and squeezed the trigger twice. A pair of 300-grain jacketed hollowpoints crossed the gap in milliseconds and caught the intended target as if Lyons had fired point-blank. The first busted the gunner’s chest open and exploded his heart, while the second ripped out a good portion of the left side of his neck. The man did a pirouette as the jammed SMG fell from his fingers and then he toppled to the pavement, bright blood springing from his neck in a geyser.

Lyons went low and pressed his back to the waist-high brick wall lining the dining patio even as a fresh maelstrom of rounds buzzed the air around them. The street and sidewalks had erupted in complete pandemonium, and the few diners who’d been sitting outside had either hit the ground and crawled for cover into the restaurant or simply beaten feet out of there.

Schwarz and Blancanales had produced their own sidearms, a Beretta 92-DS and a SIG-Sauer P-239, respectively. The pair found relatively decent concealment behind a set of potted rubber trees just ahead of the patio wall to the left of where they’d been seated. They took up positions and began dishing out some of what they’d been served.

Lyons took the moment to inspect Harland and make sure the young man was still alive, and then risked breaking cover to assist his companions.

Two of the remaining gunners made a beeline for the cover of an old, beat-up SUV while a third apparently thought he was Superman and tried to take out his quarry single-handedly. For his troubles he got three of Schwarz’s 9 mm slugs to the belly, followed by a head shot courtesy of Blancanales.