“I know that design,” McCarter said, nudging the hand with the stubby barrel of his compact MP-5. “So Fukoka is the buyer, eh?”
“Nucleus,” Hawkins said, as if something foul were in his mouth. “Barb had received a message from Mack that these lunatics were doing something big near Japan. We just naturally assumed it had to with North Korea.”
“Nucleus has the Chameleon,” McCarter said. “Okay, now we know who.”
“Just have to discover where,” Hawkins added. “These guys were planted to guard something, probably the entrance.”
“Agreed,” McCarter said, then touched his throat. “Okay, I want everybody on a recon sweep of the area. We do it by quarters in a five-meter spread, man-on-man coverage. Let’s get moving.”
Moving fast, the men split into teams and spread across the irregular ground. Watching for more traps, Phoenix Force spiraled out from the hole in the sandy beach used by the gunners, probing everything with EM scanners. But aside from some old Soviet coins and a few recent shell casings, they found nothing important.
Climbing to the top of the lava ridge, Manning looked down into a volcanic caldera, the unnaturally clear water of the sunken crater full of colorful fish, and…
“Get hard, people,” Manning said into his throat mike. “We found the bastards.”
Spreading out along the ridge to not offer an enemy sniper a group target, the others studied the calm bay and its black rock shoreline. Long cooled, the lava tunnel extended from the direction of the volcano to end in the bay, the waters lapping inside the dark entrance. Shimmering on the surface was the rainbow effect of a gasoline spill.
Grunting in satisfaction at the sight, McCarter started forward at a careful run, with the rest of his team close behind.
Moving off the ridge, the men found a trip wire that was easily circumvented, along with a set of land mines in the loose sand near the shoals. It would waste time to try to disarm them, so Encizo and Manning simply marked the spots by jabbing cold-chemical light sticks into the beach directly alongside the deadly mines and kept going. Glistening with dried salt, the wet rocks were slippery along the shoreline near the tunnel, but the team traversed the area without incident.
Positioning themselves on both sides of the mouth of the tunnel, the men of Phoenix Force used their pocket mirrors to carefully check the interior. Out of the direct sun, the tunnel was dimly illuminated by the light reflected off the dancing waters, but they could still see a wooden dock with two speedboats moored in place, both of them identical to the one used by Davis Harrison. Deeper in the crude dock was a stack of fuel drums set alongside a brick wall painted to resemble the cooled lava. In the middle of the wall were two large steel doors draped with netting.
Using sign language, McCarter directed the men forward. But as the team started to ease into the tunnel along a narrow ledge, the steel doors parted with a sigh and out came several men wearing uniforms like the guards in the speedboat. Only these terrorists were armed with T-89 assault rifles, grenades already tucked into the barrels of the weapons.
Phoenix Force cut loose with their 40 mm grenade launchers, but not at the men. The shells hit the drums of fuel, and the stockpile erupted sending out a blast of flame to race along the tunnel. Diving out of the way, the Stony Man operatives got clear just in the nick of time as the hellish explosion rushed out across the bay like a demonic shotgun blast.
“So much for them using the front door for a while,” McCarter said, reloading, as pieces of the smashed dock and burning bodies fell into the clear blue water. “Anybody know how extensive this network of caves might be?”
“I used to do some mountain climbing as a kid and also know a lot about volcanoes,” Hawkins said, keeping a watch on the grasslands that rose to meet the steep sides of the volcano. If anybody came toward them from that direction, they’d be spotted.
“Yeah?” McCarter prompted impatiently.
“So if this is a typical volcano,” Hawkins continued, “there could be hundreds of underground caves and lava tubes, some of the tunnels extending for miles into the ground.”
“A natural maze, eh?”
“Exactly.”
McCarter gave a hard smile. “Excellent. That means there’s going to be a lot steam vents around. Fukoka will have most of them sealed off, or rigged with explosives.”
“Except for a few reserved as emergency exits.” Encizo grinned. “Come on, there’s a footpath over here that looks pretty well used.”
“Good. T.J. is on point,” McCarter said as another blast shook the tunnel, sending loose pieces of debris into the turbulent bay. “Gary plays God.”
“Got you covered,” Manning replied, bringing up the massive Barrett. “Let’s move.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Cascade Headquarters
Limping out of the shadows, Lyons blew away a rushing Cascade guard who was trying to insert a clip into his M-16 rifle. The man died under the maelstrom of lead pellets, the useless weapon still clutched in his fumbling hands.
Reloading, Lyons tried his best to ignore his aching leg. The numbness had changed to a throbbing pain. But the bandage was holding and only a small trickle of blood was coming out from under the adhesive. It hurt, but he would live.
Moving past an array of conveyor belts, the Able Team leader slashed at a coaxial cable on the wall with his knife. It could be for receiving cable TV, but he recognized it as the type used for video cameras, so better safe than sorry.
Starting down a corridor edged with trash from takeout restaurants, he grimaced as he stood tall and held a butane lighter to the fire sensor on the ceiling. But when nothing happened, he abandoned the effort and continued looking for the corpse under the skylight. Apparently, Woods had killed the fire alarm system.
His combat instincts wire sharp, Lyons froze at the sound of a slamming door, closely followed by running boots. Licking dry lips, he stood with a tense finger on the trigger of his heavy weapon and waited until the sound receded into the distance.
Proceeding past a set of swing doors that hung badly off center, Lyons went swiftly down the middle of the hallway where the trash was sparse and stepping on the crunching containers wouldn’t reveal his presence. The old building reverberated with echoes from all of the men rushing about searching for him, and that only served to heighten the confusion. Woods was smart and his lieutenant, Mannix, was ruthless, but apparently neither had seriously considered one lone man blitzing through their headquarters. All of the defenses were designed around an invasion of police. Police and the FBI had to follow rules; Lyons worked on the law of the jungle. Kill or be killed.
Suddenly, there was a motion in a shadowy doorway, and Lyons blasted the man before he could bring up the boxy weapon in his hands. Starting past the body, he paused at the startling sight of the Atchisson autoshotgun lying in the bloody arms of the Cascade terrorist. It was a much older model than his, and clearly not augmented by the technical geniuses of the Farm, but it was still one powerful piece of man-stopping artillery.
Kneeling on the filthy floor, Lyons checked the weapon, then slowly stood with an Atchisson clenched in each fist. The balance felt good. Oh, yeah, time to bring a little downtown justice to Peter Woods and his gang of madmen.
The bright red dot of a laser spotter moved across the wall toward Lyons, and he dived to the left, firing both of the autoshotguns behind him. Their combined roar felt like the wrath of God and he heard shattering glass mixed with the wails of dying men.
Rolling to his feet, Lyons spotted two men lying on the floor, one of them holding a Glock 17 equipped with a laser spotter. The red beam was still on and pointed upward at a niche in the wall.
“There he is!” a voice shouted. “Get him!”
Dashing into what seemed to be an old secretarial pool for the factory, Lyons ducked behind the splintery furniture as fiery flowers flashed in the darkness. The incoming rounds hit the floor and walls around him, kicking up puffs of plaster dust. Then the
shooters found his distance and savagely pounded the desk he was crouched behind. Listening to the weapons, Lyons could tell the terrorists were firing in unison. A classic beginner’s mistake.
Putting as much of his weight as possible on his good leg, Lyons waited for a break in the firing as the group paused to reload together, then he stood and swept the two Atchissons back and forth.
Down the hallway, screaming men disintegrated under the twin onslaught, several of them wearing flak jackets falling to their knees as their lower legs were blown away. Gushing blood, the thrashing men randomly stitched the bare ceiling and then one another with machine-gun rounds. The noise of the two Atchissons was almost beyond endurance, but Lyons gritted his teeth and fought to control the bucking monsters. More terrorists fell away, then one large man exploded into flames as the pressurized fuel tanks of the flamethrower on his back were ruptured. The expanding fireball engulfed all of the terrorists in its chemical inferno, their screams of pain changing to animal-like squeals of agony.
Dropping the spare Atchisson, Lyons started to reload when he noticed a corpse dressed in rags stuffed into a corner. Could this be it, the spot he was searching for? Looking upward, he saw a skylight, but then spun as there came a soft, almost unnoticeable hiss from behind.
Crouching behind the battered desk once more, Lyons grabbed the spare Atchisson and attempted to slide in a magazine of shells as a large section of the graffiti-covered wall broke apart and started to swing away. The massive portal resembled something from an old bank, when the institutions used tons of solid metal to protect their money instead of advanced electronics. The armored door was actually bigger than the one used to protect the War Room at Stony Man Farm. There could be no doubt that was it, the entrance to Cascade!
As the yard of layered steel moved aside, blinding lights flooded the death room, and an army of shadowy men holding automatic weapons started squeezing out of the widening crack.
Instantly, the skylight violently exploded, showering the secretarial pool with glistening shards, and the first men out of the vault died on the spot, the sharp slivers of glass sticking out of their faces and necks. Even before the concussion of the blast faded, Blancanales and Schwarz rapelled down from the opening in the roof, their M-16/M-203 assault rifle combos laying down a fusillade of mixed ordnance. The 5.56 mm tumblers, HEAT and armor-piercing rounds cut through the living flesh of Cascade with the expected results.
Favoring his throbbing leg, Lyons stood, but with only one Atchisson in his grip. Aiming carefully, he fired off a full clip of fléchettes, the autoshotgun emptying in seconds. But he didn’t aim at the other terrorists. With the vault door open, the hydraulic lines were fully exposed, and the reinforced hoses vanished under the hellish song of the Atchisson.
Spurting red fluid like a severed artery, the pressurized hoses for the vault came loose to lash about, soaking the terrorists with the slippery liquid.
Dropping to the floor, Blancanales and Schwarz immediately launched 40 mm grenades directly into the disorganized mob of killers. The blinded men flew backward out of the doorway under the concussive force of the antipersonnel rounds.
Blancanales slapped a fresh clip into his M-16/M-203. “You okay?” he demanded, glancing at Lyons’s bloody leg.
Shifting his weight, the Able Team leader raised the two smoking Atchissons. “Ask me later,” he growled, starting forward with a slight limp.
Closing the breech of his grenade launcher, Schwarz moved close to the left side of the former L.A. cop. Lyons said nothing, but what might have been a smile flashed on his face for a brief moment.
Taking the point, Blancanales swept into the well-lit room, firing short bursts with every step. The place was full of humming computers, and several people in lab coats fumbled to draw pistols. One of them was firing over a shoulder as he raced for a small door in the nearby wall. Blancanales and Schwarz fired in a figure-eight pattern, cutting down the technicians while Lyons triggered his double shotguns. The fleeing tech was cut in two, and the door was hammered off its hinges. As it crashed onto the floor, Tommy Mannix stepped into sight wearing a flak jacket and cradling a big M-60 in both hands.
“Long live America, you fuckers!” he yelled, triggering the weapon. The belt of ammo shrank fast as the M-60 threw out a stuttering rod of tracer rounds across the computer room. Dropping to the floor, the Able Team commando rolled into shooting positions and returned volley fire. Hit a dozen times, Mannix staggered backward, the M-60 continuing to chatter away, the heavy-duty rounds spewing destruction along the ceiling. Incredibly, the dying terrorist tried to bring the weapon to bear on Able Team once more, and Lyons hit him with both barrels. Mannix was torn asunder, gobbets of flesh flying backward into the office.
Guarding the open vault door, Schwarz stayed with Lyons as Blancanales took the point again and checked the office. There was nobody else in sight, only an open weapons cabinet and a gore-streaked desk with a fancy intercom, a few telephones and a small metal box. Its lid was thrown back to show a single button without any markings.
Even as Blancanales started to warily approach the desk, the box gave an audible click.
Firebase One
ALARMS WERE HOWLING all over the base as Major Fukoka scowled at the video monitors showing the fiery interior of the access tunnel. He couldn’t see who the attackers were, but the professional soldier knew the sound of an AK-105 when he heard it. So the Russian army was attacking, eh? That was bad, very bad indeed, but not fatal.
“Sergeant, send all reserve troops to the access tunnel,” he commanded. “Have them form a barricade with furniture and prepare to hold off hostile forces.”
“At once, sir!” the terrorist replied with a shaky salute. Walking over to a vacant control console, Major Fukoka adjusted the dials until the monitor was filled with a picture of Dr. Tetsuto and several of his people working inside one of the missiles. There was a crude box lying on the catwalk near their shoes, wires dangling from its unpainted sides. One of the new Chameleons. Excellent.
“Dr. Tetsuto,” the major said loudly into a microphone, “report on your status immediately!”
“Why? What’s going on?” Tetsuto answered, both hands buried in the complicated wiring of the missiles. “Is this some sort of drill you’re holding? Most inappropriate, I must state.”
Such insolence! “This is no drill, Doctor,” Fukoka said, barely controlling himself. “The base is under attack, and we need to launch the missiles immediately.”
“Attack, you say?” Tetsuto repeated, pulling out of the missile to look directly at the video camera. “Launch immediately? But that’s impossible!”
“You must—” Fukoka bit his tongue and set his face into a neutral expression. “Why can’t we launch? What is wrong with the units?”
“Nothing is wrong with them,” the doctor replied, waving a hand at the ICBM. “But I have only a single Chameleon fully installed!”
“Incompetent fool, I’ll have your head for this!” Fukoka roared in anger, starting to draw his pistol.
The doctor contemptuously waved the implied threat away as if it were meaningless. “Bah, this is not my fault. They were simply harder to duplicate than estimated. My people only need a few more minutes to finish the job.”
“How long?”
“Ten, maybe fifteen minutes.”
Fukoka inhaled sharply, then gave a nod of acceptance as if they were old friends discussing a minor matter.
“Accepted, Doctor,” the major said. “Report when you are ready.”
Hitting the controls, Fukoka killed the circuits and turned to the row of technicians sitting at the other consoles.
“The failure of Dr. Tetsuto must be rewarded,” he said in a flat voice. “Prepare to fire all four of the missiles.”
“All of them, sir?” a man asked, glancing at the blank screen where the old physicist and his team had just been shown.
“The other three ICBMs will act as protective cover for the one,” Fu
koka explained curtly.
Most of the technicians exchanged nervous glances, but the one at the fire-control board merely bobbed his head in formal acceptance.
“As you command, sir,” he replied, throwing switches. “Beginning countdown in one minute.”
“We have no time for that now!” the major barked, placing a hand on the grip of his weapon. “Blow the doors and launch the missiles. Launch them immediately!”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Cascade Headquarters
“Get hard, guys,” Blancanales ordered, stepping from the office, holding a fistful of dangling wires. “Something just went live, and it doesn’t seem to have an off switch.”
Muttering a curse, Lyons swung about to glance over the row of control consoles, but saw nothing unusual happening. No red lights were flashing, nor were any of the meters showing power spikes.
Standing near the open vault door, Schwarz frowned. “You sure, Rosario?” he demanded.
Stepping over a dead man sprawled on the floor, Lyons joined Blancanales. “Definitely,” he stated, shaking the wires. “These were attached to a protected switch inside a locked box on Woods’s desk.”
“Could be a radio call for help,” Blancanales said. “With Bear blocking the airwaves, there’s no way of telling.”
“Maybe,” Lyons agreed, casting the loose wires aside. “But just to be safe, keep the com link open.”
Opening his mouth to offer a suggestion, Schwarz unexpectedly started to gag. There was a terrible stink coming from the room outside that cut through the pungent reek of the corpses like a thermite lance. Sweet Jesus, what was that? It was sort of like vinegar, he noted, trying not to breathe. Some sort of industrial solvent perhaps?
Glancing at the ruptured hydraulic lines, Schwarz discounted them as the source when he heard a soft hiss coming from the next room. Peeking carefully around the burnished jamb, Schwarz felt his stomach tighten at the sight of the yellowish mist rising from hidden vents along the old baseboards.
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