Extreme Instinct

“Fair enough,” Brognola said, tucking the Glock into his belt. The service revolver was slipped into a pocket of his jeans. “That somebody got a name?”

“Yes, sir. Eagle One.”

Instantly all reticence was gone and Brognola walked over to the Hummer, holding out a hand. As he got close, the corporal in the back proffered a hand mike attached to a large transmitter situated between the seats.

Accepting the mike, Brognola impatiently waited while the soldiers moved away from the vehicle to give him some privacy. They might not be sure who he was, but they sure as hell knew the identity of Eagle One.

When the Green Berets were far enough away, Brognola thumbed the transmit switch and repeated his name, slow and clear. There was a brief pause as the signal was encoded and relayed across the continent via a series of military satellites. Once NSA equipment on the other side analyzed his vocal patterns to ascertain it actually was him, a familiar voice crackled over the speaker.

“Sorry for the interruption, Hal,” said the President without a preamble. “But I needed to talk to you immediately, and there was no time to fly you back to D.C. We have a problem in Russia.”

“Is Striker in trouble?” Brognola asked.

Striker was one of the many code names for Mack Bolan.

“Not at the moment, Hal, no. This is something completely different,” the President stated. “Just a few hours ago, a NATO courier delivered a coded report to the joint chiefs. One of their spy satellites detected a tactical nuclear explosion near Mystery Mountain.”

“But that is not a nuclear facility,” Brognola said, sitting inside the Hummer. The seat was damp from the rush up the river, but he paid it no mind. “The mountain mostly works on experimental weapons, plasma lasers, coil guns, orbiting kinetics, microwaves, robotics and such.”

“Correct. And this was nothing new. Just an ordinary nuclear weapon.” The President paused. “Except that the flash signature was Chinese.”

The words were said quite simply, but Brognola exhaled as if punched in the stomach. China nuked Mystery Mountain? “Has that been confirmed?” he demanded brusquely.

“Triple checked from multiple sources.” The President sighed. “There can be no mistake. The nuclear weapons of every nation are completely different, and the flash signature of the fireball cannot be faked to resemble another. This was a Chinese nuke.”

“Son of a bitch,” Brognola whispered. “How could a goddamn Chinese ICBM get that far inside Russia without being shot down?”

A scholarly man, the new President really did not approve of the crude language, but said nothing. Brognola had to be accepted on his terms, and thus was one of the very few people in the world who could address him this way. “It wasn’t an ICBM,” he corrected. “Just a tactical nuke. Barely a half-kiloton yield. Probably a suitcase model, very similar to our own man-portable charge.”

“Well, that’s something, then.” Brognola sighed, looking across the river. “There could not have been that much damage. With any luck—”

“Hal, the base was obliterated. Utterly destroyed.”

“With a tactical nuke?” Brognola scoffed. “That’s not possible, sir, unless… Goddamn it, the Chinese nuked the dam and flooded the base.”

There was an affirmative grunt. “As usual, Hal, you are correct. The death toll is in the thousands and the base will never fully recover. There is simply too much contamination.”

“The Kremlin must be going insane.”

“That’s putting it mildly,” the President agreed. “Their president has already contacted me to remind me of our mutual defense pact.”

Which was the first step toward declaring open war, Brognola realized, shifting the Glock in his belt to a more comfortable position. A goddamn nuclear war. “Any response from China?”

“They say it is a Russian trick, and are massing troops along the border to repel a possible invasion.”

“Which means Russia is doing the same thing to stop them from invading. Right?”

“Actually no,” the President said, speaking slowly. “The Kremlin has authorized a full mobilization, land, sea and air, almost everything they have. However, all of it is heading toward Mystery Mountain. Not China.”

“But why—?” Brognola inhaled sharply. “China had nothing to do with this—the nuke was a goddamn diversion.” The man ran stiff fingers through his hair. “Something was stolen from Mystery Mountain,” he stated with conviction. “Something new, and big.”

“Sadly, that is the same conclusion that my chief of staff, the national security adviser and I each arrived at about an hour ago,” the President stated forcibly. “We have no idea what this new weapon could be, but the very fact that the thieves used a nuclear weapon to obtain the device clearly indicates it is more powerful. You don’t use a rocket launcher to steal a handgun.”

“Unless a rocket launcher is all you have,” Brognola countered, momentarily lost in thought. “Could this have been done by some terrorist organization? Maybe Hamas, or the Warriors of God?” There was a brief surge of static and any response was lost.

“Sir? I missed that,” Brognola said. “Please repeat.”

“I said that terrorists doing this is most unlikely, but we should not rule out the possibility,” the President acknowledged. “This might even be the work of some lone madman trying to bring back the glory days of communism.”

God forbid. “What has been done so far, sir?”

There came the rustling of papers. “Homeland Security is trying to confirm if China is innocent or is working through some mercenary group. The CIA is concentrating on the larger terrorist organizations. Military Intelligence is looking into the radical splinter groups, while the FBI is tackling domestic terrorists, and the NSA is monitoring all cell phone traffic in western Europe and Asia for any reference to Mystery Mountain.”

“Sounds good. What would you like for my people to do, sir?” Even over a scrambled transmission, Brognola could not bring himself to name the covert Stony Man teams. In spite of every conceivable security precaution, the Farm had been invaded once, and the man was grimly determined to never allow that to happen again.

“For the time being, merely to stay alert and watch for any unusual sales in the underworld,” the President said. “If some new, experimental weapon has indeed been stolen, then most likely it will soon be offered for sale like those damnable Shklov rocket torpedoes a few years ago. Pay any price within reason—no, scratch that. Pay any price to get the whatever it is off the streets. We can decide what to do with it later.”

“Rabbit stew,” Brognola muttered.

The President snorted at that, obviously familiar with the military axiom. The recipe for rabbit stew was always—first and foremost—catch the rabbit.

“Confirmed, and what about the thieves?”

The President thought about that for a moment. How many people had been working at the dam when it blew? How many families, wives and children, had been living in the off-base facilities downriver? How many soldiers and scientists had drowned when the tidal wave arrived?

“Sir?” Brognola repeated. “What if we manage to capture the thieves alive?”

“Don’t,” the President declared gruffly, and hung up.

Staring at the radio for a long moment, Brognola returned the mike to a clip, then climbed out of the Hummer. “Lieutenant!” he bellowed. “Please have one of your men drive my car to the hotel where I’m staying. I’ll have somebody pick it up later.”

The soldiers walked closer. “And you will be coming back with us to the base,” the officer said, not posing it as a question.

“And commandeering a jetfighter back to the east coast.” Brognola nodded. “Eagle One wants me there ASAP.”

“Going to the White House, sir?” a young soldier asked excitedly.

“Something like that,” Brognola muttered evasively, climbing into the damp front seat and glancing at his watch. If he flew directly to Andrews Air Force Base, he could reach the Farm in western Virginia by midnight. With any luck, the Russian army would have captured the thieves by then and the matter would be over. If not, then it would be time to activate the Stony Man teams.

Caucasus Mountains

AS THE OLD Soviet Army truck raced along the mountain highway, Lindquist glanced in the side mirror and watched the river valley vanish behind them in the night. Good riddance.

Personally, there really was nothing in the world the man hated more than Russians, and Lindquist was extremely pleased that Foxfire had left the Russian weapons facility pounded flat, with large sections of the surrounding forest ablaze. The mushroom cloud of the nuclear explosion was long gone, but the hellish red glow of the growing conflagration was rapidly spreading across the hills. A forest fire had not been in the original plans, but it made a nice addition to their escape.

Give the bastards something else to worry about than trying to find us, Lindquist thought, smirking. Not that it would do them any good.

Now wearing civilian clothing, the man and his team were speeding away from the annihilated valley along an old logging road not on any civilian map. It was in surprisingly good condition. The pavement was smooth, the dividing lines freshly painted, and there were tiny plastic pyramids set into the material to reflect the headlights of a vehicle so that a driver could stay in the correct lane during even the worst possible winter storm. Obviously this road was reserved for use by visiting politicians and generals. But it would serve them well tonight, and in ways never dreamed of by the idiots in the Kremlin.

Keeping a hand on the wheel, Kessler shifted gears and glanced sideways. “What’s that thing under the dashboard?” he asked with a frown. “Some sort of radar jammer?”

“Just an eight-track tape player,” Lindquist replied, checking the map. Soon they should be nearing the tunnel where everything would happen.

“Yeah?” asked the puzzled man. “And what the fuck is that?”

Not in the mood to explain antiques to a child, Lindquist dismissed the question with a wave of his hand.

In the rear of the truck, Barrowman was practicing loading an assault rifle with just one hand, Johansen was wrapping an amazingly realistic-looking plastic baby in a soft pink blanket and Hannigan was hard at work on the last lock, sealing shut the huge cylinder recovered from the flatbed. A wooden box on the floor was filled with parts he had already removed, including a delicate Faraday Net, which protected the complex electronics of the weapon from the EMP blast of a nuclear bomb.

“How is it coming?” Lindquist asked impatiently.

“Almost there,” Hannigan muttered, wiping his forehead with a sleeve and leaving a streak of grease behind. “Damn, these locks are intricate.”

“It was not designed to ever be disassembled,” Lindquist reminded him harshly.

“This I know,” Hannigan rumbled, returning to the task.

Outside the truck, a car raced by, heading in the opposite direction, the headlights washing over them for only a moment before it was gone.

“Think that was the FSB?” Barrowman asked, bringing up the AK-47 assault rifle.

“Too soon,” Lindquist stated. “The federal police will be the very last people the Kremlin lets know what actually occurred this night.”

“Good.”

Just then, Johansen jerked in surprise as the animatronic doll swaddled in her arms began to softly cry. With a scowl, she gently rocked the thing, and the noise stopped.

“Do I look like a fucking mother?” the mercenary angrily muttered under her breath, shifting uncomfortably in her plain woolen dress.

“More than the rest of us, yes,” Barrowman said, clumsily working the arming bolt.

“Hmm, sounds like it’s hungry. Why don’t you whip out a tit and give it a drink?” Kessler called over a shoulder, both hands on the wheel.

“Why don’t you jump up your own ass?” Johansen snarled, gesturing, and a knife dropped into her palm from a sleeve of her dress.

“Can’t while I’m driving. Maybe later.”

“I can wait.”

“Got it,” Hannigan cried, stepping back.

As he dropped a circuit board into the wooden box, there came the low hiss of working pneumatics and the middle section of the cylinder cycled up to reveal seven large spheres nestled inside the complex machinery, their smooth surfaces glistening with condensation. It took a moment before the mercs realized the white objects were not truly spheres, but some sort of decahedron, or more properly, a dodecahedron, the curved sides made of a smooth array of a hundred interlocking pyramids.

“Whew, so that’s them, eh?” Barrowman said, scratching his arm inside the sling. “Kind of hard to imagine, isn’t it?”

“Not really, no,” Lindquist replied, feeling his heart quicken at the sight. The spy at Mystery Mountain had informed him that the Skyfire weapon system possessed multiple warheads, but he had expected to find two thermobaric bombs, not seven. This windfall once again changed his plans.

Shifting gears to take a hill, Kessler looked at the spheres in the rearview mirror. “What kind of a yield are we talking about here?”

“Close to the order of a kiloton of TNT,” Lindquist answered absentmindedly, his thoughts elsewhere.

“Are you serious?” Kessler gasped. “But that Chinese nuke we used on the dam only had a quarter-kiloton yield.”

“Then this would be more,” Johansen said with a tolerant smile.

“Four times more powerful than a tactical nuke,” Barrowman muttered. It was incredible. One of those spheres could flatten Manhattan. The cluster would burn all of New York City, from Brooklyn to the Bronx, clean off the map.

“Pity we’re not selling them on the black market,” he said impulsively. “We’d be millionaires overnight.”

“Billionaires, more likely,” Lindquist corrected.

The mercenaries exchanged glances, but said nothing.

“How much farther to the tunnel?” Johansen asked, licking her lips.

“We should be there any minute now,” Lindquist answered.

“There she blows!” Kessler announced, taking a curve in the road.

Directly ahead of the truck was a wall of dark rock, impossible to climb or traverse. But smack in the middle was a small tunnel, the mouth just barely large enough for the huge Soviet truck to gain entry.

As they entered the tunnel, the truck headlights illuminated the interior for hundreds of feet. The pavement was old, but the smooth concrete walls were spotlessly clean, without any trace of diesel fumes or car exhaust, almost as if the tunnel was brand-new.

Or very rarely ever used, Lindquist mentally corrected himself. Only the top brass at the Kremlin ever used the secret tunnel, and not even the nosy Americans knew of its existence.

But almost instantly, Kessler downshifted and started to brake. “There’s roadwork up ahead,” he added in a suspicious voice.

Craning their necks to see through the windshield, the Foxfire team scowled at the sight of a van parked in the middle of the roadway, the headlights beating to the rhythm of the idling engine. Surrounded by a ring of bright yellow cones, a team of workmen wearing bright orange safety jackets and carrying shovels seemed to be doing something to the pavement. There were several tanker trucks on the far side of the construction zone, the drivers standing outside their rigs smoking cigarettes.

Braking to a halt, Kessler pumped the gas pedal a few times to stop the engine dieseling. At first it did not seem to work, then the engine went still and a heavy silence blanketed the highway.

“Okay, we do this by the numbers,” Lindquist said, pulling out a 9 mm automatic Tokarev and working the slide. “Everybody stay here, and I’ll go see what’s happening.”

“We got your six, sir,” Johansen stated, pulling the Carl Gustav launcher onto her lap.

Tucking the Soviet automatic into a pocket, Lindquist opened the side door and stepped down to the roadway. “Hello,” he called, waving a hand. “What’s the trouble?”

“Water main broken,” a slim man shouted in a heavy accent, checking something on a clipboard.

“Can we get past?” Lindquist asked, walking over casually. Then he suddenly dived to the side.

Instantly the workers dropped their clipboards and shovels to bring up Red Army 30 mm grenade launchers and fire a salvo at the Soviet truck.

“What the… It’s a trap!” Kessler bellowed, frantically trying to start the engine while the barrage of canisters impacted around the truck, gushing out thick volumes of a bilious green smoke.

“Gas attack,” Johansen cursed, grabbing a gas mask from under a seat.

Everybody else did the same as the rising fumes seeped into the truck, swirling around their boots. Breathing deeply as they had been taught, the mercenaries now grabbed weapons, but a terrible wave of nausea overtook each of them. The strength flowed from their limbs like water down a drain. Their fingers turned numb, breathing became impossible, then they went blind. Foaming at the mouths, the Foxfire team dropped twitching to the floor, and went very still.

Staying safely where they were located, the workers waited for several minutes until the ventilation system of the tunnel cleared away the fumes of the deadly gas.

With a bang, the rear doors of the truck slammed open and out stepped a skeletal thin man wearing the crisp uniform of a Soviet Union admiral. There was a Tokarev automatic holstered at his stomach, the grip reversed for a left-handed man. A nylon cord connected the pistol to his belt in case it was dropped when at sea. He appeared to be much older than he actually was and his teeth were clearly false, but the bony man still possessed a full head of wavy hair and radiated authority the way a furnace does heat.

“Report please, Sergeant,” commanded Brigadier General Ivan Alexander Novostk, both hands held behind his back. A smooth red scar crossed his throat from ear to ear where a Soviet Union paratrooper had tried to remove his head and failed at the cost of his own life. General “Iron Ivan” Novostk considered himself unkillable. His body was covered with scars from a hundred battles, hard fought and won. His long career in the Slovakian military was burned into living flesh, and most of the scars were a constant reminder of the brutality of the Kremlin and its monstrous lapdogs, the KGB, forever renewing his unquenchable hatred of the Communists.

“The air is reading clear, sir,” Sergeant Petrova Melori announced in Slovakian, checking the monitor of a chemical sensor.

Rising to his feet, Lindquist dusted off his pants. “Two of you make sure they’re dead,” he directed in the same language. “The rest of you clear away these cones. The entire Russian army will soon be here, and we better be long gone.”

“You heard the colonel!” a corporal bellowed, slinging the grenade launcher over a shoulder. “Kleinova, Louvsky, check the bodies and watch for traps. Everybody else, clear the way.”

As the soldiers got busy, Lindquist walked over to the skinny man. “Good to see you again, sir,” he said with a genuine smile.

“And you, Colonel,” General Novostk replied, offering the man a hand. “How many T-bombs did we get?”

“Seven,” Colonel Lindquist replied, drawing the Norinco automatic and tossing it away. “More than enough to get the job done.”

“Excellent! I am more than pleased.”

Damn well hope so. But the colonel said nothing out loud.

A sharp whistle came from the Soviet truck and a soldier waved. “They’re dead, sir,” he shouted through cupped hands.

“You sure?” Lindquist demanded, brushing back his hair.

There came the sound of four individual pistol shots.

“Yes, sir,” the private replied. “We’re sure.”

Good enough. “Well done, Private.”

After transferring the seven angular spheres to the van and strapping them down, the soldiers threw the box of spare parts across the tunnel and left.

“To enhance the appearance of an internal explosion,” Colonel Lindquist said to the sergeant. If the general did not agree, he kept the matter to himself.

Satisfied for the moment, Lindquist drove away in the van, the soldiers easily running beside the slow-moving vehicle until it reached the other end of the tunnel. Idling there was a titanic Mi-6 Hook, the largest helicopter in the world.

The van was guided up the rear ramp into the Hook, where the soldiers lashed it securely into position. Then they took seats along the walls and put on their seat belts. This promised to be a bumpy ride. Lindquist and Melori went to the flight deck for their seats, and strapped in tight.

As they did, the pilot revved the power to full strength, and the nearly overloaded Mi-6 Hook lifted off.

As the tunnel dwindled below, Sergeant Melori waited until he was sure the cargo helicopter had reached a safe distance, then activated a small radio detonator and pressed the button.

The range was too great for them to feel the shock wave of the explosion. But from their great height, the two officers saw volcanoes of flame erupt from both ends of the tunnel. The fire raged unchecked until the steel support beams began to soften and the mouth of the tunnel melted shut.

“I wish them luck getting those open soon,” Melori stated, tucking away the detonator.

“What did you use?” Lindquist asked, watching the white-hot flames recede until they were only a pair of bright points in the darkness, then only a single point, and then the natural contour of the landscape took them from sight.

“Rocket fuel,” the sergeant replied.

Saying nothing, Lindquist tilted his head in disbelief.

“No, it’s true, my friend.” General Novostk chuckled. “Those tankers contained liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen. We used the same mixture as the Americans do for their space shuttle. Two parts liquid oxygen and one part liquid hydrogen. Add some diesel fuel from the engines, and the mixture burns almost as hot as a thermobaric bomb.”

“Almost. But not quite.”

The general shrugged. “No, not quite. However, it should take them days to figure that out. And by then…” He grinned.

Colonel Lindquist understood. Soon enough, the whole world would have other things to worry about than the deaths of some thieves. Then he frowned.

“Were the tankers stolen?” the colonel demanded. From bitter experience, the man knew that hijacked trucks were easily traced, and this needed to resemble an accidental triggering of the Skyfire device, not a clever way of destroying any trace of forensic evidence.

“No, they were supplied by a dummy company owned by your employer in the Ukraine.” General Novostk laughed. “On paper, they never existed, and thus cannot go missing, eh?” Then he pretended to punch the officer in the arm. “Do not worry, my American friend. Every detail has been considered and taken care of. We are quite safe. Nobody will ever know who we really are.”

Angling away from the spreading umbrella of hard radiation tainting the clouds over the remote valley, the Soviet Union cargo helicopter moved low and fast over the rugged terrain, heading due south, out over the Black Sea.

CHAPTER TWO

Stony Man Farm, Virginia

“Just a few minutes ago, we caught another heat flash,” Aaron “the Bear” Kurtzman said, turning his wheelchair away from his computer workstation to pour himself a cup of coffee. “At first we thought it was a second nuke, but this wasn’t hot enough, and the chemical signature more resembled a space shuttle launch.”

“Have the Russians put something into space?” Barbara Price demanded, her stomach tightening.

Without adding milk or sugar, Kurtzman took a long draft of the steaming coffee as if it was tap water. “No, we don’t think so,” the Stony Man computer genius replied carefully, setting the mug into a recess on the armrest of his chair. “If the blast had occurred out in the open, that might have been a possibility. This actually seemed to be two simultaneous explosions exactly where the CIA believes there is a hidden tunnel.”