“Just trust to the nets,” Kissinger said, glancing at the thick trees surrounding the hidden base, “and keep those land mines armed. Whether it’s helicopters, jet packs or pogo sticks, they got to land sometime.”
“Amen to that,” Greene said, tilting his head to listen to the soft voice coming over the radio. “Heads up, they’re here.”
Almost immediately they heard the powerful throb of rotor blades approaching from the south. The noise rapidly built in volume until suddenly a sleek Black Hawk came into view over the leafy tops of the trees in the park.
Greene and Kissinger watched the helicopter maneuver into a landing.
As the aircraft landed, the two men caught sight of the grinning pilot through the cockpit windows and relaxed. Chief Greene and Kissinger walked from the building bent over against the turbulence of the spinning blades. Before they got halfway there, the side door of the Black Hawk slid open, exposing Able Team and Phoenix Force. Carrying bulging duffel bags, Carl Lyons, Rosario Blancanales and Hermann Schwarz jumped to the ground, and, bent low, hurried to greet their friends.
Smiling with pleasure, Greene and Kissinger shook hands with the team.
“Glad to see you guys in one piece,” Greene shouted. “How did it go?”
“Still in one piece,” Lyons quipped.
Kissinger snorted a laugh. “Damn glad to hear it!”
Just then, the men of Phoenix Force exited the aircraft along with their cargo of destruction. The men were still under the blades when the Black Hawk lifted and circled the Farm once, the smiling pilot giving the men on the ground a thumbs-up gesture before leveling out and departing.
“Nice to see you boys again,” Kissinger stated as the swirling dust settled. “Barb’s waiting in the computer room for a debriefing. Something’s going on in Alaska.”
“Alaska?” Rafael Encizo asked, shifting the strap of the duffel over his shoulder. “Any trouble with the Chameleon test?”
They already knew? Chief Greene shook his head. “Better ask Barb.”
The two teams accepted that and headed for the farmhouse.
Walking onto the porch and up to the front door, McCarter tapped a security code into a keypad and the door clicked open.
The teams headed directly to the basement, taking the stairs rather than the elevator, ceiling-mounted security cameras tracking them along the way. At the landing, Schwarz raised a hand to block a camera, and it gave a nasty warning buzz. Quickly, he took away his hand before the alarms sounded and tear gas began to vent from the ceiling.
“Touchy, isn’t it?” Manning said, amused. “Built-in proximity sensor?”
“Yep,” Schwarz said with a touch of pride. “The best in existence. I helped design them.”
Hawkins frowned. “And if the Chameleon works as promised, they would be about as useful as two paper cups and some waxed string.”
Since it was true, nobody bothered to reply to that.
Exiting the stairwell, the two groups continued on to the tunnel that would take them to the Annex, choosing to walk rather than take the tram.
The Computer Room was abuzz with activity, two men typing madly at computer stations, while a redhaired woman wearing a VR helmet and gloves rode the Internet. At the end of the row of consoles, the fourth computer was dark, the chair empty.
“Anything on the railroads or bus lines?” Barbara Price demanded, crossing her arms.
“Nothing so far,” Aaron “the Bear” Kurtzman replied, his hands flowing across a keyboard. A former member of the Rand Corporation think tank, Kurtzman was the chief of the electron-riders at the Farm. Although confined to a wheelchair from an attack on the Farm many years earlier, his mind was as sharp as ever. That was, aside from a minor dementia for black coffee strong enough to kill a rhinoceros.
“Ditto with major airlines,” Akira Tokaido added, speed-reading a scrolling monitor. “Every plane is on schedule and accounted for.” Of Japanese and American descent, the handsome young man was often referred to as a natural-born hacker with “chips in his blood.”
“So far,” Price said, biting a lip. “Keep a watch on the private planes. He might try to hijack a Cessna or a helicopter. Are there any crop dusters working in the state?”
“Good idea. I’m on it,” Tokaido said, turning on a submonitor while typing with his other hand.
“What are we looking for?” Lyons asked, dropping his duffel to the floor. It landed with a clank that momentarily caught the attention of the hackers.
“Glad you’re here,” Price stated without preamble.
“Where’s Hal?” McCarter asked, glancing around.
“Already back in D.C. talking with the President,” Price answered, waving the men toward the coffee station along the wall. “There’s plenty of coffee, so help yourself. I expect you’re also hungry, so I had the staff fill the fridge with fresh sandwiches. I can brief you as you eat. You go airborne in fifteen minutes.”
So fast? Lyons started to ask for an explanation, but said nothing. Price was no fool. If she was sending them into the field this quick, then the shit had already hit the fan.
“Ah, thanks, I think. Did Bear make the coffee?” James asked with a worried look.
Without turning in his wheelchair, Kurtzman laughed. “And you call yourselves soldiers.” He brandished a steaming mug. “This’ll put some hair on your chest!”
“Or take it off,” James quipped.
“Also degreases tractor parts,” Schwarz added.
“Heads up!” Carmen Delahunt announced from behind her VR helmet. “I just accessed a NSA WatchDog satellite.”
Right on cue, the main wall monitor fluttered with a wild scroll and settled into a picture of more swirling clouds.
“Damn!” Delahunt cursed. “There’s no break in the cloud cover over western Alaska.” She sounded as if the inclement weather were a personal affront to her abilities as a hacker.
“Carmen, did you really expect clear sky at this time of year?” Price asked. “That’s why the Pentagon set the field test for the Chameleon. No other nation’s satellites could watch.”
“Advanced technology is so damn primitive,” Schwarz said with a flash of a smile.
“Apparently so, this time,” Delahunt muttered, going back into the virtual reality of the worldwide Net.
Going to the kitchenette, Price poured herself a fresh cup of coffee, adding a lot of milk and sugar. “Have you all read the report from Hal?”
“In the Black Hawk coming here,” Lyons replied. “There wasn’t much there.”
“Sadly, it’s all we have,” she said.
“Okay, grab a seat,” Price instructed, gesturing at some chairs pushed along the wall. “We’re truly operating in the dark on this. We know nothing about how the Chameleon operates, power requirements, distance limitations and so on. Every report and file was destroyed in Alaska. All we can do is make some educated guesses. Everybody connected with the project was at that field test or in the laboratory. The missiles from the USS Fairfax killed them all.”
“What was the hoped-for size of the unit?” Schwarz asked, leaning forward in his chair.
“About the size of a paperback book,” Price replied. “But Hal said that the President believes Professor Johnson was field-testing a shoe box version yesterday.”
“The size of a shoe box?” James said, the astonishment plain on his face.
She nodded. “Yes. But once again, it’s only a guess.”
“Still certainly small enough to be portable,” McCarter said, rubbing his chin. “How much did it weigh?”
“We figured it at roughly twenty pounds. But it could be more, a lot more.”
“Barbara, was that Professor Torge Emile Johnson by any chance?” Schwarz asked, scrunching his face.
Blinking in surprise, Price turned. “Yes, it was. So you know him?”
“Only by reputation. I’ve read articles by the man. He was a genius. A real one. Made breakthroughs all the time. SA once called him
the Thomas Edison of the twenty-first century.”
“SA?” Manning asked patiently.
“Scientific American magazine,” James explained.
Manning nodded wisely. “Ah, yes. I have the swimsuit issue at home.”
“Oh, shut up,” James growled.
“So what is the mission?” Hawkins asked, leaning against the wall. “We’re supposed to get it back before anybody get hurts?”
“Over three hundred people are dead already,” Price answered sternly. “We want it found, or destroyed.”
Going to the fridge, Blancanales opened the door to find it filled with plates of sandwiches, soft drinks and bottles of juice, so he grabbed sandwiches and an orange juice. It was going to be a long day. He could feel it in his bones.
“What about the off-site backup files?” he asked, resting against the counter to unwrap his food and take a healthy bite.
“The what?” McCarter asked, heading for the fridge. There was no Coca-Cola in sight, only some diet Mountain Dew and several bottles of fruity stuff, and the juice.
Blancanales was chewing, so Schwarz answered. “Every project is vulnerable to accidents, or hackers. So all big corporations, and most government projects, have an automatic recording of everything done in the lab located far away from the building. Just in case.”
“Smart move,” McCarter commented.
“Damn straight it is. The IRS does the same thing, which is why it’s pointless to bomb the place.”
“The Farm, too?” Hawkins asked.
Turning away from his console Kurtzman said, “No, we’re too sensitive. If this place goes, nobody will ever know we even existed.”
“The backup files are a good place to start a search, but once again, we don’t know where they’re located,” Price added grimly. “Only the project head and the Pentagon liaison did.”
“And they’re dead,” Encizo stated.
“Exactly.”
“So our job is to go through the wreckage and find the location of those backup files,” Lyons said, thinking aloud, his eyes half-closed in concentration.
“Yes,” Price said. “Able Team goes in as DOD inspectors. Phoenix Force stays in the background to give you three cover in case of trouble.”
Lyons frowned. Which translated as, his team got killed, but Phoenix Force found the culprit.
“And then?” Encizo inquired.
“Kill the thief.” Price didn’t believe in couching terms. If the men could do the job, then she could damn well say the word.
“Any ID on him yet?” Blancanales asked, then added, “Or her?”
“Not a thing,” Price replied, placing her mug aside on the counter. “Whoever did this is good. As good as anybody we have.”
“Must have been an inside job. Nothing else makes sense,” McCarter stated. He took a drink from the bottle, then went on, “So it’s a mole.”
Lyons shook his head. “Or an ape.”
Ape, yes, Price knew the term. Spies stayed out and relayed information for years. Apes hit hard, blew things up and stole things. “Ape” was slang for an AP, which stood for Agent Provocateur. Secret government soldiers.
“So we’re facing a James Bond type,” Schwarz said without a trace of humor. “Not many of them around these days.”
Blancanales lowered his sandwich. “And for just this reason. Everybody is dead, and the prototype is lost.”
“Maybe lost,” James corrected. “Maybe destroyed in the explosions, or stolen. We don’t know shit right about now.”
“Could be a solo, or a freelance,” Price admitted. “Somebody not affiliated with any government. Just there to steal the Chameleon and sell it on the open market.”
“Or even sell it back to us,” Hawkins grumbled. “If it cost us a billion to make, then we’d certainly pay that much to get it back.”
“At least.”
Rubbing the faint bullet scar on his temple, Encizo sighed. “Hellfire, we really are in the dark on this.”
“That’s why we have to move fast,” Price agreed, “and try to cover every base.”
“What was the name of the company doing the research?” Kurtzman asked over a shoulder.
“Quiller Geo-Medical,” she said, and then smiled at the surprised expressions. “Yes, it means nothing. But it sounds very scientific, and people seldom ask.”
“Or maybe one did,” Kurtzman muttered, then wheeled his chair about. “Akira! Check the IRS tax records for a list of employees. Then cross-check that with the state driver’s-license files at the Alaska DMV. Carmen, I want you—”
“On it,” she interrupted from behind her mask, both hands in their VR gloves caressing the air. “I’ll access the video surveillance cameras at the airports and run a facial check as soon as Akira gives me some faces from the driver’s licenses.”
“He’ll be wearing a disguise,” Price warned. “And this person is damn good. KGB good. Maybe better.”
Delahunt shrugged. “We can adjust for that. It’s our ID software that caught that last group of terrorists trying to sneak out of the country.”
“Where’s Hunt, anyway?” Blancanales asked, glancing at the empty fourth chair at the end of the row of computer stations.
Huntington “Hunt” Wethers had been teaching cybernetics at Berkeley when he was recruited into Stony Man. With wings of gray hair at his temples, and smoking his briarwood pipe, Wethers looked like the stereotypical college professor. Yet he possessed a facility with computers that few other experts had.
“Hunt’s on a special assignment with Mack,” Price explained after a moment.
That was an unexpected answer. “In the field?”
She shrugged. “Mack asks, and he gets.”
Lyons stood. “Good luck to them both,” he said with feeling. There had to be a major problem for Striker to request assistance from anybody, and double so for him to ask for a desk jockey like the professor.
“Better save it,” Hawkins said, pushing away from the wall. “Because I think we’re going to need all of the luck we can get to bust this nut.”
“Alert,” Delahunt announced calmly. “We have a break in the clouds.”
Everybody turned. The main wall monitor filled with a view of western Alaska, then jumped closer in a staggered series of zoom shots until the screen was filled with a real-time view of the destroyed target zone and the smoking ruin of the research lab. The ambulances had come and gone, leaving only chalk outlines everywhere on the ground. Often, there was only the outline of a limb, or a torso, instead of an entire body.
Somebody merely grunted, while another muttered a curse.
“Barbara, tell Jack to get fueled and ready for liftoff,” Lyons ordered brusquely. “We’ll meet him on the front lawn in ten minutes.”
“Cowboy already has your spare equipment ready to go. Along with the proper ID cards, weapons permits, all the usual,” she told him.
Both teams headed for the door, and a grim-faced Encizo tapped in the exit code this time.
“We bloody well could be walking into a trap, mate,” McCarter commented.
As the armored door started to cycle open, Lyons looked backward at the pictures on the wall monitor, the hundreds of chalk outlines amid the smoking rubble.
“No,” he replied in a voice of stone. “They are.”
CHAPTER FOUR
Flight 18, above the North Pacific
The recessed ceiling lights in the 747 flickered for a moment.
“Hey,” a man said, taking the cell phone away from his ear. “What the hell is going on?”
“What’s the matter?” his wife asked, lowering her magazine.
“This damn thing is dead!” he raged, hitting the device.
Gwenneth started forward to talk to the upset passenger, when she noticed that across the plane, a woman was shaking her airphone and also muttering annoyances. Two phones died at the same time? How odd.
“Hu, Yuki,” Gwenneth said to the other flight attendants. “Go calm
down the passengers. I’ll report this to the captain.”
Yuki nodded vigorously and started down the aisle, beaming a pleasant smile.
“It’s nothing,” Hu scoffed, sliding another packaged meal into a microwave to be warmed. “Just a coincidence.”
“Maybe,” Gwenneth said, biting a lip. “Or maybe it’s a freak magnetic storm that’ll throw off the navigation and make us hours late. Either way, regulations say that the captain must be informed at once.”
Hu shrugged in a noncommittal manner, and Gwenneth pushed past the man to start for the cockpit. Moving through first class, she stopped as the door to the lavatory opened, almost hitting her in the face. It was Mrs. Coleson, the pregnant American woman from coach.
“You really shouldn’t be here, dear,” Gwenneth started to say, when the woman grabbed her forcibly by the arm and shoved something hard into her stomach.
“I have a weapon,” Davis Harrison growled in his real voice. “Stay calm and you may get to live.”
Her eyes went wide at the realization that it was a man wearing a disguise. Quickly, Gwenneth started to pull air into her lungs for a full-throated scream, but Harrison rammed the gun into her stomach, almost knocking her out. Gasping for breath, Gwenneth felt her eyes well with tears as she fought to draw in a ragged breath.
“Oh, dear,” Harrison said, sounding like a woman again. “You’ve go the flu, too, eh? Here, let me help you sit down.”
Gwenneth tried to fight free from the other person, but his grip was like iron, and every move only earned her another jab in the belly. Her vision was starting to go red from the lack of air, and a wave of weakness swept over her. This had to be a hijacking…terrorists! But how to warn…
Something slammed into her face, and Gwenneth had a brief flash of the steel-plated door to the cockpit before the universe turned black and she tumbled into a warm darkness.
“Yes?” a voice said from the other side.
Dropping the unconscious woman to the deck, Harrison pushed the door open, its electronic lock disabled from the humming Chameleon strapped to his belly. Stepping inside, he swung the deadly Tech-9 about, marking his targets. The crew was three, pilot, copilot and navigator, exactly as there should be. No surprises here. Excellent.
The Chameleon Factor Page 5