Perilous Skies (Stony Man)

by Don Pendleton

  The network was making it very clear that none of this had come from the United States.

  Price turned to another screen and found that CNN had already picked up the feed, crediting Worldwide Weather as the source. MSNBC had it, as well. Even the local news stations were showing it now.

  “Well,” Tokaido said happily, “China did want to claim it was their technology. I’d say Worldwide Weather News is giving them full credit for it.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  The plant sat between a wide, slow-moving waterway on one side and a near-empty parking lot on the other. A long access road at the rear led to the shipping bay. Chains stretched across the front entrance doors.

  David McCarter saw no time available to look for another entrance. This probe was not to be finessed. He ordered the team to cover and lobbed an HE grenade at the front doors, removing the chain and the doors they were attached to.

  Phoenix Force entered the factory and were welcomed with gunfire. Heavy-duty metal tables had been set on their sides and provided excellent cover to an unknown number of gunmen in a parts logistics room. The blast had already dumped shelving units, and tens of thousands of tiny plastic and electronic parts were scattered on the floor. They crunched underfoot.

  Hawkins was ready with a flash-bang, which he lobbed underhand across the sorting room, then put his fingers in his ears and squeezed his eyes.

  The team entered the room and gunned down the three stumbling, temporarily blinded and deaf men struggling to find the exit.

  There was no time for mercy.

  Encizo stepped behind the tables and found another gunman on the ground. The man made a last stand. His AK-47 lifted toward Encizo, but the Cuban fired into his chest. The man fell limp.

  They moved along to an assembly line, where racks of parts were organized in carts around manual workstations. The cowling segments and fan parts indicated that this was where the jet engines were being slapped together.

  David McCarter didn’t care about the equipment. He saw movement on the other side of the parts racks. He targeted through the grates and triggered his MP-5, and submachine-gun fire took down a fleeing man.

  Manning clambered over the assembly line, pulled himself up a wall-mounted access ladder and kicked at the top of the rack. It was ten feet tall, heavily weighted on the bottom, but with enough leverage it toppled. It carried the next two racks with it. There was a rattle of rifle fire, as if someone was trying to fight off the collapsing racks. The racks clattered heavily together—tons of shelving and components.

  There was a burst of gunfire from under the wreckage. One of the trapped men, unbelievably, was trying to cut them down. Gary Manning found a gap in the wreckage, inserted the barrel of his weapon and triggered it.

  After which there was silence from under the wreckage.

  David McCarter was already leading the others down the assembly line, searching for the way deeper into the factory. The wall ended and the ceiling extended up another fifty feet, opening into a huge room intended for manufacturing large-scale parts.

  Two men leaped from what might have been a janitorial closet, paces away from the four warriors—without realizing there was a fifth. Manning chose that moment to catch up and he gunned the pair down before they realized he was there.

  They entered the expansive manufacturing facility, filled with machinery, molding equipment and crates of materials. Hanging from an overhead crane was the molded fuselage of a stealth jet. Just the one piece of wings, body and tail. Glass, motors and controls were all still to be added. It seemed to be curing under specialty infrared lamps, which would harden and strengthen the engineered thermoplastic exterior.

  The molded fuselage had been pulled from a massive molding machine that dominated one end of the manufacturing chamber. The machine’s two-sided mold was closed, and the control panel indicated an operation in progress. There was another fuselage being compressed into shape even at that moment.

  “So this is where they come from,” Gary Manning said.

  “Not anymore,” McCarter responded.

  “Yeah,” Manning said. He stepped up, quickly adhered a pair of plastique bricks, activated their igniters and waved his teammates back the way they had come.

  A burst of gunfire from deeper inside the manufacturing chamber chased after them. Manning scrambled behind the wall and opened his igniter control—but held off. He and the other members of Phoenix Force were listening to the approaching footsteps. At the proper moment McCarter said, “Now.”

  Manning grinned and flipped the igniter switch. The plastique bricks detonated and a cloud of debris gushed into the engine assembly sector from the manufacturing chamber.

  They allowed the flying debris to settle and returned to the manufacturing chamber to find several gunmen strewed on the ground. Another foursome marched into view, peppering Phoenix Force from far across the chamber.

  McCarter triggered a long burst from the MP-5, cutting down two of them. The other two attempted to run, but Hawkins took a careful shot, shouldering his M-16 like a sniper rifle, and delivered a burst at shoulder level at them both. They fell.

  Manning jogged to the molding machine to inspect his own work. The controls were obliterated. The screws that held the mold were twisted, and at least one piece of the massive mold tool was cracked and broken. A mess of molten plastic and wadded fiber was oozing from the bottom of the broken metal slab.

  “She’s a goner,” Manning said.

  “You sure?” McCarter said.

  “They’re not going to be making any more aircraft anytime soon on this thing. Give them a month, and maybe they could repair this mold and get this thing functional again.”

  “If we give them a month,” Hawkins added.

  “Not up to us,” McCarter said. “Let’s finish this cleanup job and get the hell out.”

  They circled the molding facility and found themselves at the base of wide concrete stairs that led up to an oversize upper-level supervisor’s office overlooking the factory floor.

  Large steel barrels had been rolled into place and a trio of men waited at the bottom of the stairs. They blasted away at Phoenix Force.

  Encizo found good cover and returned fire, targeting the metal barrels. The results were satisfying; the metal barrels amplified each bullet strike into a raucous clang. Encizo laid on the trigger and turned the steel drums into a loudspeaker. The gunners found the cacophony unbearable and retreated up the stairs in a run. Fully exposed, the four other Phoenix Force warriors took them out with quick, efficient bursts.

  A burst of automatic gunfire came back at them from the top of the stairs, followed by the click of a grenade landing on the floor nearby. Phoenix retreated and ducked back behind the molding equipment to ride out the grenade blast. Fléchettes rattled against walls and equipment, and then Hawkins stepped into the open, aiming for the top of the stairs. He ducked back as automatic gunfire was returned.

  “They’ve got good cover up there,” Hawkins said.

  “The last thing I want is for us to get stuck,” McCarter said.

  “We just might be,” Encizo said. “If they’re well-armed up there, they could hold the stairs for quite a long time.”

  “This is why we should always carry shoulder-fired rocket launchers,” Hawkins said.

  McCarter said, “Okay, bloody smart-ass, you, Rafe and Manning. Go back out the front, circle the building and see if you can find a way in the rear. James and I will keep our friends upstairs busy.”

  The three soldiers hurried away, and Calvin James stepped around the corner to deliver a burst to the top of the stairs. He saw a hand and an upper body sink down behind an eight-foot-wide window—the factory supervisor’s office. James targeted the window. It shattered noisily. He waited for more signs of life, heard nothing at first, then came a clattering of feet upstairs. Another grenade came flying over the top rail and bonked on the concrete floor.

  James hurried back to their cover. Another frag burst o
pen behind him and filled the open factory floor with deadly shrapnel.

  “We’re making some progress, anyway,” McCarter said.

  “Such as what, exactly? Teasing out their supply of hand grenades?”

  “That, and putting this factory out of commission. They are doing more damage to it themselves than we could possibly hope to.”

  * * *

  THE EXTERIOR of the plant was deceptively peaceful. The night in Taiwan was quiet. The Phoenix Force warriors marched along the perimeter of the building and found nothing but blank brick wall. No windows or doors. The fire escapes were far above the ground.

  “There’s a loading bay in the rear,” Manning noted. “We could make an entrance there.”

  “Wait,” Hawkins said. “Look at this.” He indicated the fire escape above them, its extendable ladder partially descended. It was still several feet above their heads.

  “That’s got to open up into the upper level, right?” Hawkins said.

  “Can we get that ladder down?” Encizo asked.

  Hawkins extracted a short length of utility cable and tossed the hook at the lowest rung. The hook grabbed the rung on the second try. He wrapped the end of the cable around his wrist and dragged on it. The ladder rattled, and Hawkins gave it another lunge with all of his body weight. The ladder began to descend, its corroded components protesting noisily. Encizo grabbed the line above Hawkins, and they both hauled against it, and the ladder moved four feet closer.

  “Give me a hand, Rafe.” Hawkins didn’t wait for a response. He stepped up into Encizo’s right hand, then onto his shoulder, using the brick wall for support, and finally onto Encizo’s head, giving him the last few inches he needed. The bottom rung on the ladder fell into his grip. He held on, then swung his body and managed to drag the ladder a few feet closer to the ground.

  Encizo leaped, snatched Hawkins by the ankles, and together their weight dragged the screeching, protesting ladder to its full extension.

  Encizo followed Hawkins up the rungs, tousling gravel out of his hair as he did so.

  Manning stayed below and quickly contacted McCarter via his new headset, updating him on their activity.

  “I don’t think we should ignore the rear loading bay,” Manning said. “I’m going to go check that out myself.”

  There was a pause. “Do it,” McCarter said.

  Manning jogged in exactly the wrong direction—toward the front of the building.

  “Gary—” Encizo called.

  “I’m perfectly aware,” Manning responded.

  Manning headed for the parking lot, nearly empty, and ducked behind a parked truck at the rear, in an unlit corner of the lot.

  “Maybe he needs to take a leak and wants some privacy,” Hawkins suggested quietly.

  In that moment they saw the outlines of an SUV, running dark, veer off the street and stop behind the parked truck.

  “I knew it,” Hawkins said. “He’s got a date with the CIA in the tight jeans.”

  They reached the top of the ladder and crept onto the steel-grate platform outside a tall window. The platform creaked under their weight, and Encizo couldn’t help but notice that the bolts that held the platform into the brick wall were rusted and loose. A full inch of slack separated the wall from the landing.

  They stayed clear of the window, just in case the dim light of the nighttime silhouetted them against the blinds. But the room seemed dark and quiet. Encizo pressed his ear to the glass, heard nothing and shook his head.

  Then he put both hands against the glass and pushed up. The window moved, opening a few inches and squeaking slightly. He grabbed under it and muscled it all the way open, then poked through the blinds with his M-16.

  The room was empty and dark, but a door stood ajar. They could hear activity outside the room. As Encizo stepped inside, a man scrambled down the hall, keeping low, and ducked into the room with them. He stopped cold, facing them. Encizo jammed the M-16 into the soft tissue under the man’s chin and lifted his head high, while Hawkins relieved the man of his AK-47.

  Hawkins checked the AK. Bone-dry.

  “They may be running low on ammo up here,” Hawkins noted.

  “Where is Zordun?” Encizo demanded, pressing the gun barrel harder up under the man’s chin, forcing him to rise up on his toes. The man had the look of an Uyghur. He might have been one of Zordun’s personal retinue and quite likely a relative.

  The man was afraid, but he wasn’t talking, either.

  In fact, he made a break for it. He pulled away quickly and pushed himself through the door, shouting, only to collapse after just a few steps. Hawkins had shot the backs of his knees out.

  Encizo and Hawkins took the offensive. They moved into the hall and cut down the gunners who appeared one after another from the room ahead. Another man attempted to leap to safety over their falling bodies but didn’t make the distance. He landed on the head of a fallen friend and twisted his ankle savagely. The ankle stopped working. The gunner landed and twisted in the tight space with his dead friend and somehow managed to get his AK in front of him.

  Hawkins had no intention of testing his theory that these men had used up all of their small-arms ammo. He stitched the man from crotch to throat with a burst from the M-16, and as the man died his finger jerked on the AK trigger. The gun coughed up a single round that buried itself in the wall.

  Hawkins and Encizo advanced, swept the room that the three had emerged from and found it to be an empty media room. Across the hall were empty, filthy bedrooms. Up ahead the hallway ended at the railing looking out onto the manufacturing floor.

  Hawkins was realizing just how large this upper-level residential structure actually was.

  “Talk about dedication to work,” Hawkins said. “They must’ve lived here.”

  Encizo touched his headset. “McCarter, T.J. and I are in the upper level. We’re going to be coming out onto the railing in a minute.”

  “Understood,” McCarter replied.

  Encizo emerged, finding himself at the far end of the landing at the top of the stairs. Hawkins stepped into the open and fired a burst at the other end of the upper level, which elicited return fire. It was another long burst of AK fire, which flew out into the open warehouse. The gunner had no line of sight on Hawkins.

  But now Encizo and Hawkins knew exactly where he was. The wide picture window, where the supervisor could sit and watch the manufacturing activity below, was now obliterated. The glass had shattered in all directions. The gunner was inside that room—and essentially trapped.

  Encizo and Hawkins hugged the wall and approached the open window, listening to the activity inside. Someone was panting, removed a magazine and replaced it. It sounded like a handgun.

  Encizo was thinking that this gunner had also drained his AK-47 dry.

  He could see McCarter down below, peering from his cover. McCarter spoke, and Encizo heard his voice through his headset.

  “Would it help if I attracted his attention?”

  Encizo gave McCarter a big, silent thumbs-up.

  McCarter stepped into full view and triggered his weapon, aiming far to the right of the upper-level window, so as not to risk an errant round hitting Encizo or Hawkins. The man in the office saw his enemy emerge into plain view, completely exposed. Then for a heartbeat McCarter stopped firing and just stood there, looking at his gun with exaggerated confusion.

  The man in the office was lured out. He came to the open window. McCarter bolted. The man fired a 9 mm handgun once—then Encizo chopped the hand off with a burst of autofire.

  Encizo stepped in front of the window and swept the room, and found only bodies.

  The one-handed man pushed himself to his feet, gripping his bloody wrist stump, and Encizo threatened him with a gunshot to the head.

  “Where is Zordun?”

  “Zordun left us!” the man snarled through bitterness and pain. “He betrayed his own family and left us to die.”

  “Where did he go?” Encizo dem
anded.

  The man panted through his teeth and said, “You get him, you send him to hell with me. But now he’s going to fly away.”

  “Where’s the aircraft?” Encizo demanded—but all at once he knew.

  The one-handed man confirmed it. “The loading bay.” Zordun’s relative jerked his head in that direction and then staggered out of the room and onto the landing outside. Very deliberately, he tipped himself over the rail. He fell thirty feet to the concrete floor below and landed with a crunch.

  * * *

  CELLO WAS POUNDING the steering wheel, barely able to contain herself as she watched the flashes of gunfire and a wisp of smoke rising from one of the windows of the Zordun plant. She couldn’t stand not being a part of the insertion.

  When she had gotten the call from Manning she’d shouted and stomped on the gas. She’d driven dark to rendezvous with the big Canadian.

  Manning pulled the rear hatch open and yanked their prisoner onto the asphalt.

  “You stay with him,” Manning said.

  “No fucking way! I’m going with you.”

  “No way, CIA,” Manning said. “You’re official in this country. You get dirty and it could end your career.”

  “I’ll risk it,” Cello insisted.

  “Sorry.” Manning stepped behind the wheel and stomped on the gas, the lurch forward slamming the door for him. He sped across the asphalt and crossed the long, long acres of patchy grass. Up ahead he saw the double-wide delivery bay doors rise up and slot into the ceiling. Manning spun the wheel, maneuvering the Mercedes SUV until he could see what was parked inside.

  He saw the nose of a small aircraft.

  From this distance the stealth jet looked like an RC aircraft—but someone was preparing for takeoff.

  Manning knew it was Ali Zordun.

  And the isolated back road leading to the delivery bay could easily serve as a runway for one of those short-taxiing jets. In this isolated, industrial part of the country, a near-silent, unlit aircraft could make a landing or takeoff unnoticed.