The rocket-propelled projectile was essentially a battery with a propellant behind it. On contact with its target, it discharged its payload, creating electrical disruptions. Originally, according to the annotations in the files, the weapon was contracted by the Department of Defense as a means of neutralizing vehicles. In field tests, it seldom completely incapacitated an enemy target, particularly armored vehicles. Despite these limitations, RhemCorp marketed the weapon for crowd control and traffic enforcement in the United States, as a means of partially disabling runaway vehicles. Kurtzman had added a note in the dossier that said sales of this particular weapon were abysmal. Apparently, Rhemsen had taken a bath on the thing. Interesting.
Their liaison from the Filipino military was a competent-looking character named Ocampo. As they neared the target street, McCarter turned to Lieutenant Ocampo and gestured left and right.
“Can your men take up positions at either end of the street—cordon it off?” the Briton asked. “I don’t want civilians caught in the crossfire if things get ugly.”
“You expect that this will be…ugly?” Ocampo asked. His English was good, his tone sour. He seemed to know his business, but he also seemed less than thrilled with the presence of an armed, foreign contingent on his streets.
“I always expect it will be ugly,” McCarter answered. “That way I’m never surprised.”
“Very well,” Ocampo said. “Use caution, American.”
“I’m British,” McCarter said. “But I’ll try not to take it personal, mate.” Turning to James and Encizo, he said, “Take the left side of the street,” then directed Manning and Hawkins to take the right. “I’ll go up the middle, see if I can’t tempt somebody into taking a shot at me. We’ll check house to house until we either find our informant or come up empty.”
“I don’t like this, boss,” Manning said. “Something’s off about it.”
“Timing seem a little fishy to you, too?” McCarter asked. “Can’t say I blame you. Come on, lads. Let’s trip the trap if there’s one to be found.”
With the Filipinos standing guard at either end of the street, Phoenix Force began working their way down the killing funnel. That’s what it was, after all. A well-armed enemy fire team could use the barriers of the houses on either side to channel an opposing force and wipe it out. McCarter hoped that whatever they were facing, it wasn’t a machine gun team at the end of the street.
But if it was, they’d find a way. They always did.
The first few houses yielded nothing. Either nobody was home or the folks who were refused to answer. That was fine. They were looking for a willing informant, not trying to drag local citizens from their homes to interrogate them. They had gotten about two-thirds down the row of small homes when Rafael Encizo held up his hand.
“Hold on,” Encizo warned. “This door’s unlocked.” He splayed his fingers and the wood-slatted door creaked open.
The smell of death hit them hard.
“On me,” Encizo said. The other members of the team backed him up, two high, two watching the street. McCarter and James joined Encizo inside the dwelling.
“Bloody hell,” McCarter cursed.
“I think we’ve got the right joint,” James said.
Emblazoned in black spray paint on the wall was a huge skull-and-crossbones, the pirate symbol known the world over. The graffiti was obviously meant as a warning. The predominant color of the walls was not the paint, but great, gory whorls of dried human blood.
A dead man lay on the floor. He had been stabbed dozens of times. He had also been disemboweled; his entrails had been wrapped around his throat. A pair of coins, unremarkable local denominations, had been placed over his eyes.
“Get Ocampo up here,” McCarter called to Manning and Hawkins outside. “He’s going to want to see this.”
When the Filipino squad leader entered the home, he had his hand on the pistol at his belt. Beyond a slight wrinkling of his nose, he did not flinch despite the abattoir smell of the place. The dead man on the floor was not the only corpse. In an adjoining room, there were two more corpses, both of them female.
Ocampo squatted near the dead man, careful not to kneel in the puddle of congealed blood.
“He anybody to you?” McCarter asked.
“No,” Ocampo answered. “He could be street trash or he could be a resident of Calapan. This house is registered to a local landlord who rents his dwellings to work crews and sailors. It is a common practice here.”
“What’s with all the business?” James asked, moving his hand to encompass the desecrated body.
“That I can tell you,” said Ocampo. “It is a message. Your pirates are telling all in the neighborhood that to speak of their business is to earn a bad death. It is a way of discouraging others who might try to sell them out.” Ocampo’s radio flared to life. He held up a hand and unclipped the unit from his belt. “Ocampo,” he said. The static-laced reply made little sense to McCarter, but Ocampo’s expression changed. “Vehicles,” he said to McCarter. “Approaching quickly from both ends of the street.”
“Pull your men out!” McCarter shouted.
Explosions sounded at the end of the street. These were followed by gunfire.
“Contact east, contact west,” Manning reported from outside. “Repeat. We have enemy action on both sides of the street.”
“Go, go, go,” McCarter said. He followed Ocampo to the front door. “Two by two, lads. Let’s—”
A Jeep, its hood trailing dwindling flames, rolled through the cordon at the east end of the street. There was gunfire coming from inside it. As McCarter watched, the vehicle accelerated, hurtling straight for Phoenix Force. But the Jeep was not alone. Another vehicle, an old four-wheel-drive of a make McCarter did not recognize, plowed through the cordon at the opposite end. The Filipino soldiers fired at it. Return fire from the truck drove them back under cover.
And then the shooting was directed toward Phoenix Force.
“Down!” McCarter ordered. He tackled Ocampo and covered the man with his body as bullets ripped into the front of the house. Warmth touched his cheek; he reached up and realized he was covered in blood. It was not his. Ocampo had been shot and now lay, unconscious, beneath him.
The two vehicles circled and met, nose to nose, in the center of the street, forming a wedge to give the shooters inside cover. The men within piled out and used the engine blocks to shield themselves. Smoke was now gathering at both ends of the street. Whatever explosives the gunners had used to make their way past the locals’ cordon had been heavy enough to start serious fires, which explained why one of the two trucks had caught on the way.
The shooters themselves were a surprise.
As McCarter dragged Ocampo back through the doorway with the rest of Phoenix Force covering them, he got a good look at the gunmen. They were running the very latest in AR-pattern assault rifles, full automatic, with all the bells and whistles: red dot sights, low-profile hand guards and fore-grips, rails everywhere. They were also kitted out in black combat BDUs with modern web gear. They also wore black helmets with night-vision goggles pushed up. These were professionals; there was no doubt about that.
What were they doing here? What was their tie to the pirates?
Phoenix Force was now inside the bloody home of the would-be informant, using the dubious cover of the front walls to fire around the edges of the doorway. Bullets punched through the plaster and sprayed the men with gray-white dust.
“We can’t stay here,” McCarter said. “Ocampo needs a medic and we’re sitting ducks as long as we’re stationary. Find us a back door!”
Manning disappeared through the doorway to the small kitchen. Once there, he reported through his transceiver. “No back door.”
“Then make one!” McCarter directed.
“Roger,” Manning said. The big Canadian retreated to the front room and aimed his Tavor with its underslung 40mm grenade launcher. “Fire in the hole!”
The members of Phoenix Fo
rce ducked and covered their heads. Manning triggered his launcher.
The back of the house was blown apart. Chased by gunfire from the street outside, McCarter tasked Manning, the biggest of them, to carry Ocampo. Then he led his team out through the hole Manning had created.
The street outside was deserted. There was an ancient Volkswagen bus parked in the alley. McCarter looked left, then right. He saw no civilians, but the enemy gunfire was growing closer. They were going to come pouring through that empty house any minute now.
McCarter looked at James.
“You thinking what I’m thinking?” James asked.
“Too right, mate. Start ’er up!”
The van was unlocked. Manning secured Ocampo in the back and the other members of Phoenix piled in. McCarter took the passenger side while James got to work hotwiring the engine.
“I love these old buckets,” James said.
“Hurry,” McCarter urged.
“Know why I love these old buckets?” James said, bent under the dash.
“They’re coming,” McCarter said.
“Because they’re so easy to wire,” James said as the engine coughed to life.
“Go, go, go,” McCarter urged again. “Put some distance between us and them. And avoid any civilians on the street!”
“Nag, nag, nag,” James muttered under his breath. He guided the VW away, putting the old bus through its gears as swiftly as the machine would allow. They were a hundred yards down the street when the first of the enemy gunmen burst through the grenade hole at the back of the dead informant’s place.
“Contact rear!” McCarter shouted. Twisting in his seat, he leveled his Tavor and started squeezing off rounds. “We need as much space between us and them as we can get.” He braced himself against the frame of the open passenger-side window as the bus slewed sideways. James managed to get them through the turn, but only barely, and the old VW nearly came up on two wheels as he did it.
“We’re overloaded!” James said. “They’re going to catch up.”
“Then let’s give them something to catch up to,” McCarter huffed. Looking at Hawkins and Encizo, he directed, “Cover Ocampo. Shield him with your bodies if you have to.” He then directed Manning to break out the rear window.
“Copy,” Manning said. He positioned himself at the back of the van and smashed out the glass with the butt of his Tavor. Shucking open his weapon’s grenade launcher, he loaded a fresh 40 mm grenade from his bandolier.
“Where are we going?” James asked from the driver’s seat.
“Find us a small, tight alleyway,” McCarter ordered.
“That’s what she said,” muttered James.
“We’ll funnel them the way they wanted to funnel us,” McCarter proposed, pretending he had not heard. “Listen up, lads. We’re facing a numerically superior force of combat professionals, provenance unknown, motivations unknown. Chances are very good this trap was set for us specifically.”
“You think they killed some guy just to make it more realistic?” Hawkins asked.
“It’s possible,” James interjected. “Life’s cheap hereabouts. Or maybe they knew they had some loose lips in their crew, so they figured they’d kill him and us at the same time. Send their message. You know, efficient.”
“That actually makes a lot of sense,” McCarter mused. “Here. Turn left here.”
Once more James nearly had their stolen vehicle up onto two wheels. Ocampo groaned as he shifted in the back. That was a good sign. It meant the man was alive to groan at all. He was bleeding badly, though. They needed to get him patched up.
“Hawk,” McCarter said, once more positioning himself in the passenger-side window. “Get a field dressing and some fast-clot on that man’s wound. Keep him as comfortable as you can. It’s going to get worse before it gets better.”
“What I wouldn’t give for some air support right now,” Encizo said.
Bullets began to ricochet off the old Volkswagen. The enemy shooters had successfully tracked them down and were closing the distance in their own vehicles.
“You and me both, lad,” McCarter responded. “You and me both.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
Charleston, South Carolina
Lyons drove the Suburban past the sign proclaiming the city’s limits. The vehicle had come through its time in the RhemCorp headquarters parking lot relatively unscathed. There was a bullet hole in the upper corner of the windshield that would require replacement glass when they could manage it. To stop the wind whistling through the hole, Blancanales had patched it on both sides with rigging tape. Lyons would have felt bad about retiring one of the Farm’s most faithful old trucks, if it came to that. It still might, for that matter.
“I have never seen a woman scarier than that receptionist,” Schwarz said. He shouted in pain. “Ow! Come on, man. Be careful, Pol.”
“I’m doing my best,” Blancanales muttered. He was perched on the edge of the rear bench seat, doing his best, in the limited room available, to finish re-taping Schwarz’s ribs. The Stony Man electronics expert had complained so much about how tight the wrap was the first time that Blancanales had offered to do it over again.
“Wussy,” Lyons said from the driver’s seat.
“That’s easy for you to say,” Schwarz protested. “I can’t remember the last time one of my plans involved you getting beat up.”
“You’re blaming me for this?” Lyons said. “I thought it was your idea to distract him so Pol could play Artful Dodger. Isn’t that why you went out of your way to poke Laughing Boy with a stick?”
“I’m still blaming you,” Schwarz said. “Ow! Okay, okay, Pol. That’s good enough.”
“He’s right. You are a wussy,” Blancanales said.
“Don’t you start, Pol,” Schwarz warned. “And you didn’t get your face all bashed in, either.” Schwarz was, in fact, sporting several small bandages on his face. His lip was badly cut and swollen.
“Let’s hope that he’s there with Rhemsen,” Lyons said. “I want another crack at that ape.”
“You suppose he knows by now that his building didn’t blow up?” Blancanales asked.
“I almost had a heart attack when we walked in there and found that old biddy waving the wires around. There was enough C-4 packed underneath the reception desk to blow that place sky high.”
“Let that be a lesson to you, I guess,” Lyons said. “When you’ve got one of those ornery old ladies who knows where all the bodies are buried, chances are good she knows which wires to pull out so you don’t blow up both her and her collection of desktop family photos.”
“You figure they’ll put her in jail?”
“Probably not,” Lyons said. “No crime against answering phones for a criminal. At least, not that I know of. She can always claim she knew the bomb was there, but thought it was some kind of government security policy. You know, to protect from having foreign agents steal military-contracted designs.”
“You should be a lawyer, Ironman,” Schwarz teased. “You’d be good at it.”
“You insult me like that again and I’ll make your upper lip match the bottom one,” Lyons said.
“You used to be fun,” Schwarz muttered.
“Wrong,” Lyons said. “I was never fun.”
“He’s got you there,” Blancanales noted.
Lyons focused on the road, reading the GPS coordinates for the RhemCorp factory they were trying to find. According to the Farm, this manufacturing facility was the closest Rhemsen-held asset to the headquarters they had just visited—and which Rhemsen himself had just fled. It was the logical fallback location.
Unfortunately, Barbara Price had explained that politicking, once again, was holding up action that should be taken right away. Specifically, Lyons had informed the Farm that Rhemsen was actively working against the United States—based on his immediate kidnapping and torture of agents of the US government—and that this meant he should be declared an enemy of the state by the Department of Hom
eland Security. Rhemsen, though, was lawyered up to hell and gone, apparently, and while they could conceivably come after him for the kidnapping, declaring him persona non grata on American soil was going to take more time. Wheels in Washington had to be greased; reluctant politicians whose pockets Rhemsen had lined had to be persuaded; some of the officials that RhemCorp money had outright bought and paid for would have to be pushed out of the way. Brognola was on the case in Wonderland, Price had explained, but it was going to take a while before they had all the obstacles cleared. And of course RhemCorp was a big military contractor, so there were plenty of people, from the Hill to the Pentagon, who stood to have egg on their faces as word of Rhemsen’s treason spread.
Add to all that the fact that they still didn’t know the exact dimensions of what Rhemsen’s treason meant, and it was a formula for delay, hesitation and more delay. This was why Lyons hated politics. Right now, blacksuits and Feds and Department of Homeland Security leg-breakers should be busting down the doors of every asset, every property, that Rhemsen held. The man should, as far as Lyons was concerned, be shot on sight…but then, he’d suggested that at the beginning, hadn’t he? Lyons could feel his hands tightening on the steering wheel again.
The one thing the government had been able to do was to put Rhemsen on a no-fly list and suspend his passport pending an investigation. That investigation was never going to happen. The man wouldn’t live long enough, as far as Lyons was concerned. But it meant that Rhemsen couldn’t just get on a plane and fly out of the country. He couldn’t charter a private jet, either; his company’s air assets were being monitored. Any guy smart enough to have built a corporation on military-grade weapons and defense contracts had to understand that these were just a few of the steps that would be taken against him if he turned up dirty.
So what did Rhemsen think he was going to get out of all this? Was he just so arrogant that he thought he could never be caught? It didn’t make a whole lot of sense. But then, neither did it make sense for him to tip his hand right away by trying to take Able Team out as soon as they’d walked on the property. Why wouldn’t the guy try to buy himself some more breathing space by putting Able Team off, telling them a convincing lie? It had happened plenty of times before on similar missions. But, no; he had tried to go right for the throat, kind of the way Lyons had wanted to do, and now Blancanales was banged up and Schwarz had been downright abused.
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