Maelstrom

It didn’t take him long.

Blancanales quickly found his target and squeezed the trigger successively. Both 9 mm rounds reached flesh, the first punching through the enemy gunner’s stomach and the second cleanly detaching his left ear. The terrorist dropped his weapon, one hand clutching his gut while the other attempted to stop the sudden, violent flow of blood from his head. The terrorist dropped to his knees and began to moan, but it didn’t appear to Blancanales that either shot was lethal.

SCHWARZ WATCHED the terrorists fire on Blancanales as his friend sprinted for cover. The Able Team warrior found it interesting that they would focus all of their energies on one man. That wasn’t the typical discipline of terrorists, especially when they were the ones being terrorized. Then again, now wasn’t exactly the time to worry about it.

He listened for any further signals from Lyons, but the Able Team leader—his blond hair visible even in the twilight—wasn’t showing any sign of letting off the pressure on the terrorists below. He watched as Lyons took another one with a head shot. Schwarz followed suit. He aimed at one of the terrorists focused on killing Blancanales and squeezed the trigger. A trio of rounds rocketed from the muzzle of the FNC and drilled through the terrorist’s shoulder, continuing onward to blow out a good part of his chest wall.

The body of one of the terrorists they had wounded began to convulse and jerk. It took Schwarz only a moment to spot the reason for it. A lithe, shorter terrorist had managed to squeeze clear of one of the rearmost windows. A cascade of dark hair protruded from under the terrorist’s cap. The terrorist was a woman, her body lithe and shapely, even beneath the coveralls she was wearing.

Schwarz keyed his transmitter. “We’ve got one female party killing our wounded, guys!”

“Acknowledged,” Lyons replied. “Take her out.”

Schwarz nodded, sighted his target and squeezed the trigger. Milliseconds before fire from the Able Team trio reached her, the woman turned and dropped off the back edge of the bus. Schwarz was in motion even as he noticed movement from Lyons in his peripheral vision. His headset crackled with a burst of static and the sound of Blancanales’s voice, but he couldn’t make out the words.

He keyed his transmitter as he reached the fire escape. “Say again, Politician…I didn’t copy.”

“I said, ‘she’s headed eastbound on that side street.’ She’ll be closest to you, Gadgets.”

“Copy.”

“We’ll have to hold our position here, buddy,” Lyons replied. “You’ll be on your own on this one, so watch your ass.”

“Understood,” Schwarz replied as he slid down the ladder, then began to descend the steps of the fire escape three at a time.

It took him only twenty seconds to reach the sidewalk and he made it in time to see the woman duck inside a large club half a block down. Schwarz launched himself in the direction of the club, trading his FNC for the Beretta 93-R on the fly.

The Able Team commando came low through the club entrance, pistol tracking quickly and smoothly. It was comparatively cool to the muggy, outdoor air. He cleared the vestibule of the club, which was decorated with muted blues, grays and purples, and then proceeded into the main area. It was a pretty decent club, typical for middle-class clientele. The place was crowded, not surprising since it was a Friday and it was happy hour, and Schwarz kept his pistol low and behind him as he maneuvered between the tables. He smelled booze, food and cigarettes, and he also detected the fearful odor of his prey; she was very close.

So close that he nearly got his head blown off.

The female terrorist emerged from the shadows of an alcove Schwarz hadn’t seen and unleashed hellfire from her machine pistol. The Able Team electronics genius rolled to avoid being hit, came up near the bar and prepped to take his target. But pandemonium erupted after the shooting started and too many people scrambling for the exit made the job a bit too risky. One young woman caught a bullet that dropped her on the floor and left her screaming and writhing with pain.

Schwarz waited until the firing ceased with a click of a bolt locked back on an empty magazine, then exposed himself long enough to rush the felled bystander while simultaneously laying down a hail of fire in the terrorist’s general direction. It was meant more as a play to keep the gunner’s head down than to actually hit her. Besides, they still needed to take one of the terrorists alive, and Schwarz had no idea if any of the ones they’d wounded in the initial play at the bus were still alive after their cohort had turned her weapon on them.

Schwarz reached the wounded club-goer and dragged her behind a heavy, overturned table. She wasn’t moving and her eyes were closed. He checked her carotid pulse—it was strong and regular—and a quick check of ear to nostrils confirmed she was breathing. Okay, so she’d passed out from the pain, which was sure as hell better than being conscious for it.

Schwarz waited for a lull in the firing and then decided to take a risk. He had to neutralize this woman and fast. He reached to his belt and latched on to a flash-bang grenade. He pulled it from the belt with a quick turn of the wrist. A pop and snap followed, indicating the special mechanism he’d rigged to his belt had broken the plastic strap designed to prevent inadvertent dislodging of the spoon and simultaneously removed the pin. He jumped into view and hammered the area where he estimated his target had taken cover. While firing to force the terrorist to keep her head down, Schwarz released the grenade in a light over-hand toss.

The electronics whiz went flat, opened his mouth and plugged his ears. The grenade went off a moment later, then he was up and moving. He vaulted the table he’d been using as cover, Beretta in one hand and FNC in another. He quickly found his opponent writhing on the floor, her eyes and ears discharging watery blood. Schwarz holstered the Beretta and reached for her, but the terrorist surprised him with a judo circle throw.

Schwarz landed hard on his back, sucking down air to replace the wind knocked from him. He blinked several times and in one of those saw his opponent suddenly loom above him, her hands raised over her head as she wedged his skull between her thighs. Something kicked him into high gear and he brought both arms up in a cross block. Having stopped the combat knife from being buried in his chest, he then reached around and snagged her wrist. A quick sideways jerk and she landed on her right shoulder, facing him. He landed a rock-hard back fist punch on his adversary’s forehead and she dropped the knife, cried in pain and then lapsed into unconsciousness.

The Able Team commando rose, a bit winded from the encounter, but a quick physical inventory said he was still in one piece. He snapped riot cuffs on the terrorist, then returned to aid the bystander. He found the gunshot wound, a clean hole through the fleshy part of her thigh that exited the other side. He’d seen much worse and he knew she’d survive the physical scars, although the mental ones would have a more lasting effect. She was just becoming conscious as Schwarz removed two field compresses and bound them on the entrance and exit wounds, securing them with his belt.

She looked at him, a haze in her eyes.

He smiled at her. “Just relax. You’re going to be fine. The ambulance is on its way.”

“What happened?”

“Someone will explain it to you soon enough. For now, you’ve been shot and I want you to lie still.”

“I’ve…I’ve been shot?” Her eyes widened.

“Yes, but it’s not fatal. You’re going to pull through just fine.”

“How would you know?”

“Because I’ve been shot plenty of times,” he said with a chuckle, pouring on the charm. “I just know. Will you trust me?”

“I guess,” she whispered, smiling at him a little before she passed out again.

Schwarz sighed.

“Gadgets!” called a familiar voice.

He turned toward the entrance in time to see Lyons and Blancanales enter the club, weapons drawn and held at the ready.

“Over here,” he reported tiredly.

They quickly rushed to his aid.

“You hit?” Lyons asked.

He shook his head, then pointed at his patient. “She took an in-and-out in the leg, but I’ve controlled the bleeding. She’s got some shock, but I think she’ll be okay.”

Blancanales helped him to his feet as Lyons quickly scanned the room. His eyes came to rest on the terrorist. “Is she dead?”

Gadgets scowled with a negative shake of his head. “Dreamland. She nearly impaled me with this, though.” He held up the knife.

Blancanales gingerly took the knife from him and whistled. “Looks like she was planning on some Schwarz-ka-bobs.”

“Very funny,” the electronic expert deadpanned.

SHE CALLED HERSELF Magdalene Darmid from Israel, but a quick fingerprint analysis said she was Deborah Babbit from Kansas. Able Team settled on the second name as the most believable.

“Although she’s got a great accent going there,” Carl Lyons told them just before they entered the interrogation room.

Because she’d lied, they decided a hard approach was the best kind.

Blancanales started. “Listen, Deborah—”

“My name is not Deborah!” She was irritated because everyone coming into and out of the room in the last hour had been saying “Hi, Deborah” and “Would you like something to drink, Deborah?” and “Deborah, that’s such a pretty name.” Needless to say, that had her frazzled and angered enough to tell the Able Team commando where to stick it.

“You’re not making things easy on yourself,” Lyons warned her when she tried to spit on Blancanales. He easily sidestepped the offense, which only seemed to anger her more.

“I’d listen to him,” Schwarz added, jabbing a thumb at Lyons.

Lyons’s voice went quiet. “Maybe that beating you threw her wasn’t good enough, Deputy Black.”

Schwarz looked at him straight-faced a moment, then said, “Maybe you’re right. Maybe I need to do a more thorough job.”

“Now that you mention it, your work has been sloppy lately,” Lyons replied with a curt nod.

“Hey…wait a minute.” Blancanales raised his hands in mock innocence and said, “She’s now under the protective custody of the U.S. Marshals Service. You two can’t just start beating the hell out of her. We’ll all lose our jobs!”

“Calm down,” Lyons replied, waving at him casually as if he had it all under control.

“Yeah, really,” Schwarz jumped in. “What are you getting all backed up about? She just killed a bunch of innocent people. You think we should give a shit about her? Who’s going to complain?”

Lyons stepped forward and grabbed the woman by the throat, transforming her smug look into one of terror. “I’m sure after some neck-wringing we’ll put her into a spirit of cooperation.”

The woman managed to emit a squeal of outrage and pain before Lyons closed her trachea with one squeeze, immediately depriving her of oxygen. With her arms cuffed behind her, she had no way to defend herself. She tried to kick at him, but the proximity of her chair to the table made the attack ineffective. A moment later it stopped being an act of defiance and started to become an act of desperation. Her lips began to turn blue and her ears reddened.

Blancanales stepped forward and cracked a fist down on the brachial-cephalic nerve area of Lyons’s arm. The blow looked real enough, although Blancanales insured he was actually an inch off the actual nerve bundle. Lyons let go of Babbit’s throat with a mock yelp. The hulking Ironman turned on the Politician, but it was Schwarz who got in between them.

“Knock it off!” he said, trying to sound like the voice of reason.

“Yeah, but did you see what that fu—”

“I said, knock it off!”

The room went silent as Schwarz and Lyons squared off on each other for nearly a full two minutes. It was finally Blancanales with his calm voice and lax demeanor who became the voice of reason.

“Hey, we shouldn’t be fighting with each other,” he said. He pointed to Babbit and said, “She’s our enemy.”

“Yeah,” the two men chorused.

Blancanales turned back to Babbit and said, “What you have just seen is a test. This is only a test. If this had been an actual emergency, I would have just let him strangle you to death. Now, do you want talk to us? Or should we just skip the formalities, take you out into a public square and shoot you dead?”

“You’re crazy! All of you are fucking crazy!” She began to scream and shout additional obscenities. “You can’t just take me out and kill me!”

“Well, actually, we can,” Lyons said. “You see, you’re not an American. You’re a foreigner who has entered this country and committed a terrorist act. Under the new laws enacted by the Homeland Security Act, the things you and your friends did today are considered crimes against humanity and acts of war, and as such that means you are subject to the rules of war.”

“He’s right,” Schwarz said. “You have no rights as a civilian, since you’re not a citizen of this country.”

“In fact, you’re not even in the country legally,” Blancanales added.

That did it.

“Yes, I am! I am! My name is Deborah Babbit. I live in Kansas City, and I went to high school at Monroe High and I can tell you anything about my life you want. But I’m an American citizen and you can’t execute me!”

“We couldn’t execute you anyway,” Lyons said with a shrug, and started to walk toward the door, Schwarz on his tail. “Summary execution of a POW is a violation of Geneva Convention rules.”

Her eyes reverted to Blancanales’s who was now seated across the table and studying her with a broad grin. “Let’s start from the top.”

CHAPTER FIVE

Stony Man Farm, Virginia

“So that’s the story,” Carl Lyons finished, his voice resounding through the speaker.

Hal Brognola sat back, folded his arms and chewed thoughtfully at his unlit cigar. For a moment nobody said a word. Price and Kurtzman stared at Brognola, waiting with anxious expressions. They didn’t wait long.

Brognola grunted and said, “All right, let me see if I heard you right. You’re saying that these Jewish terrorists aren’t really Jewish?”

“Right,” Lyons said. “Maybe one or two originally hail from Israel, but the one we got to roll said she’s from Kansas, and the N.Y.P.D.’s computers confirmed it from her prints.”

“Did this Babbit give you any explanation for her being an American?”

“Nothing other than she was hired to do the job by parties unknown. They went to a secret training camp stuck in some part of the Louisiana backwater for two months. Claims she has no idea where because she was blindfolded along with the rest of her comrades and nearly beaten and starved to death during the first week.”

“Sounds like your standard, run-of-the-mill mercenary training,” Price remarked.

“Maybe and maybe not, but in either case it doesn’t matter,” Brognola said. “Even if we could find this camp, I don’t think it could tell us much more than Babbit has. What’s your recommendation, Carl?”

“I say we stick with our current information. I think she’s telling the truth, and she’s already agreed to help us in return for leniency. She got into this for the money and nothing more, which she says was real good by the way.”

“It seems strange that someone would pay them to do this,” Brognola said. “Why hire a group of Americans to dress as Jewish radicals and waste a bunch of innocent people in front of God and country?”

“Well, they obviously want to start a street war,” Price offered. “Maybe stir hatred for Jewish radical groups.”

“I can buy fueling the fire for a street war,” Lyons said. “I just talked to our liaison with the N.Y.P.D., and he said this incident has already started riots in three separate areas of the city. The cops are calling in everyone they can find to help out.”

Kurtzman sighed. “Great.”

“But that second part about stirring hatred up for Jewish groups just doesn’t wash, Barb,” Lyons continued. “In fact, Babbit told us how this one guy kept telling them they were fighting for the Jewish cause and to think how nice it would be to secure their country from the Pakistanis, the Arabs and so forth. She was adamant about what he said, and we all agree here that she’s telling the truth. She said this guy preached pure hatred of them.”

“Like it was personal,” Price said, looking at Brognola.

Brognola nodded. “Carl, you said something earlier about this group that I found interesting. Something about arm bands they were wearing?”

“Yeah, the witnesses canvassed by the uniforms where the massacre took place consistently referenced arm bands with the Star of David.”

“Wait a minute!” Kurtzman snapped his fingers. “We just received the first transmissions of the tapes from David McCarter. Those terrorists they went up against were wearing arm bands just like that.”

Price inhaled sharply. “These two incidents are connected, then?”

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves yet,” Brognola said. “Although I think we’d better consider that as a possibility.”

“What happened to Phoenix Force?”

Price gave him a quick overview of the situation, skipping most of the minutiae. When she was finished explaining, they all agreed that the similarities and the timing were more than coincidences. There had to be a connection, and it had now become Stony Man’s number-one priority to find out what that was and to predict the group’s next action.

“Like I said before, this Babbit’s willing to help us,” Lyons concluded. “She says she has some sketchy details of other plans this group might have. If we grant her immunity, she’ll deal.”

“You know our policy, Carl,” Brognola replied. “We don’t ‘deal’ with terrorists.”

“I understand that, but we may not have any other choice. If David and the rest can’t make a connection there, then we’ll have to work it from our end. She’s the one lead we have, Hal, and I want to exploit that to our advantage.”

Lyons was right, of course, and Brognola knew it. Sometimes the rules had to be bent. That was the name of the game, and it was fortunate that Stony Man had the freedom to conduct operations as they saw fit, as long as they kept the President apprised.

“All right,” Brognola conceded. “I’ll arrange for her to be cut loose and remanded to your custody. See where she leads you. But whatever you do, keep her alive. You’re right. She’s our only link to whoever’s behind this.”

“Understood,” Lyons said, and he disconnected the call.

ONCE THEY HAD concluded their call with Lyons, Price and Kurtzman began working on their intelligence, performing keyword searches and investigations into the backgrounds of Babbit’s deceased associates. It didn’t take long to figure out that most of them had ended up at the remote training camp in Louisiana after responding to an ad in a mercenary magazine. An anonymous caller took out the ad by contacting one of the magazine’s copy editors, faxing the three ambiguous lines advertising paid mercenary training, and paying for the job by money order mailed without a return address. The caller had given a fake name and the address and telephone number turned out to be that of an elderly woman who had two weeks before been admitted to a long-term nursing facility.

“They call themselves the Resurrected Defense League,” Barbara Price told Phoenix Force.

McCarter’s face filled the computer screen in the Communications Center of the Annex. John Kissinger—on a charter flight back to the States—was also on the conference line via his cellular phone, but he had no video feed.

“Sound like a nice bunch,” Kissinger interjected.

Price talked about their conversation with Lyons, then said, “We’re convinced these two incidents are connected, and we’re also sure these won’t be the last.”

“You have any luck with those tapes we sent?” Encizo’s voice cut in, although Price couldn’t actually see his face.

“Bear and Carmen are now working with facial recognition software to see if they can identify any of the dead and tie them to any of the members Able Team neutralized in New York. We’re also analyzing the prototypes data you sent to see what connections we can pull from that.”

“What else do we know about this group?” McCarter asked.

Price frowned. “Not much. They’re relatively new to this game.”

“Couldn’t prove it by us,” T. J. Hawkins said. “This attack was well planned and coordinated. They were obviously practiced and ready for any eventuality.”

“They managed to take us by surprise,” Gary Manning said.

“Only the fact we were separated saved our hides,” Calvin James added. “If we’d been together when it went down, we probably wouldn’t be having this conversation right now.”

“It’s good to hear you’re back to your old self, Calvin,” Price said, smiling into the camera.

James’s grinning countenance suddenly filled the screen, pushing McCarter slightly out of view. “Thanks, Barb, because it damn sure feels good to be alive.”

McCarter took back center stage and with a cock-sure grin and sideways glance, said, “You can play nice-nice later, mate.”

The line erupted with laughter.

“Okay, enough with the court jester routine,” Price said, although she knew they weren’t taking her that seriously. She was happy to know everyone was still breathing. The morning’s news had really worn on her.

“What about the prototypes, Barb?” Kissinger asked. “Is there anything you think can help us there?”

“Possibly, but I’m not sure how far we can go. As you know, although Phoenix Force may not have been told, we were first alerted to this from a Pentagon connection of Hal’s. There’s a Navy man who spent considerable time consulting with the design and development engineers at Stormalite’s headquarters near Lake Victoria. His name is Kendall Remar, a rear admiral with the Naval Air Warfare Detachment at NAF Key West. What I need you to do, Cowboy, is to divert there. He’s expecting you. He has a wealth of additional information he can provide, which we then need you to forward to us and the field crews.”

“No problem,” Kissinger replied.

“What about us?” McCarter asked.

“I think I can help out there,” Kurtzman replied, wheeling up next to where Barbara Price stood with her arms folded. “I have Carmen sending an upload to you now. We connected two of those faces with a photo capture by a camera posted at the airport. We don’t have positive IDs on either of these guys yet, but we have confirmed they’re both players you went up against at the conference.”

“Where are they headed?” McCarter asked.

“Well, we can only guess as to final destination, but the plane they boarded was headed for Spain.”

“Seems like a strange place to go,” Gary Manning interjected.

“Not really,” Price replied. “There is significant support in Spain for a wide variety of terrorist organizations. We’ve known this for years, actually, but because of very stringent laws and Spain’s influence in both the UN and the European Union, we’ve never really considered the risks of operating there worth the potential costs in U.S. foreign relations.”

“Of course,” McCarter said, snorting. “We wouldn’t want to upset those protecting terrorists. That would be a bloody shame.”

“I know the politics are something that sticks in your craw, guys, but you know there’s little I can do about that,” Price said.

Price was very empathetic to the teams. Walking the line they had to walk was difficult. It certainly wasn’t something she could have brought herself to do; her political convictions were a little too strong for that. But the members of Able Team and Phoenix Force had to temper those convictions and maintain some level of neutrality. Still, it didn’t stop them from bitching about it, and Price saw no reason to begrudge them being able to verbalize. Most of the time, it was just a way to blow off steam.

“So where do we go from here?” James asked.