A wooden disk bearing a satellite photograph lay to the west showing the approach of a rainstorm, and in the northeastern Kalahari Desert a score of plastic tanks and soldiers bore the hated flag of their ancient enemy of Angola.
“Are you sure they have broken through our defensive line?” the president of South Africa asked, licking dry lips. The politician was only thirty years old, but seemed to have aged drastically in only the past few hours.
“Confirmed, sir,” a colonel in intelligence replied. “Their tanks are rolling along the major highways and destroying everything in their path. This is a full-scale invasion.”
“Do we have any idea how many are dead?”
“Unknown, sir,” the man replied, checking a clipboard tucked under his arm. “The enemy is killing everybody they encounter, soldiers, civilians, farm workers, school children…”
Reaching out with a wooden stick, an aide silently moved the Angola markers deeper into South Africa.
“Bastards,” a grizzled general muttered, puffing away on a cigar. His left leg was gone at the hip, replaced with a titanium skeleton, a grim souvenir from the war for independence.
“Sir, we have no choice,” the Minister of Defense said. “They’ve invaded our nation without cause, killed thousands, maybe ten of thousands of our people, and are driving a wedge right into the heart of our nation. If we don’t stop them in the desert, we may never stop them!”
Saying nothing, the president bowed his head in somber contemplation. How could this have happened? South Africa had a colossal arsenal of weaponry, everything from a neutron bomb down to German 88 cannons from World War II!
“I’ve asked America for assistance,” the general said, “and they’re sending ships. But by the time those arrive, there may not be a South Africa anymore.
“Sadly, you are correct, old friend,” the president said wearily, sitting in a chair. “I have no choice. General, the action code is Nine, Omega, Fourteen. Firing code is Zulu Tango Five. Repeat, Zulu Tango Five.”
“Yes, sir,” the general said solemnly, and turned to relay the order to his aide.
Nobody spoke in the war room for a long time, the only noise coming from the gentle hum of the air purifiers.
Then an aide touched the radio receiver in his ear, nodded and used the stick to sweep all of the Angolan tanks from the map, replacing them with a small red disk marked with the atomic symbol for uranium.
“And may God grant mercy on my soul,” the president whispered, closing his tired eyes.
The bunker was deep underground, protected by hundreds of yards of concrete and steel, but the man could imagine the raging hellfire of the tactical nuclear bomb in the Kalahari Desert. The mushroom cloud would be visible for thousands of miles, and he knew for a fact that the deafening thunder of the nuclear detonation would be heard around the entire world.
North Dakota
CRAWLING OVER THE BLISTERING hot rocks, Carl Lyons crested the escarpment and looked down upon the five men. The Forge soldiers were all carrying LAW rockets, with an FN-2000 assault rifle slung across their backs. Staying low behind a row of loose boulders, the gaps filled with sage bushes, the soldiers were sitting on folding canvas stools and drinking from canteens, while keeping a sharp watch on the nearby roadway.
A hundred feet away, Route 29 cut through the bleak landscape like a black river. The highway curved near the boulders, forcing any traffic to slow down considerably, making the location a perfect spot for an ambush.
Unless you’re looking in the wrong direction, Lyons mentally noted, easing the safety off his Neostad shotgun.
A recent acquisition from the HSA armory, the left tubular magazine of the deadly weapon held four stun bags of the newest variety. More than just wads of cloth with soft jelly beads inside, these also contained breakable capsules that released an anesthesia compound that could put a down a charging rhino. And just in case those didn’t handle the problem, the other magazine held four 12-gauge cartridges of stainless steel fléchettes, which didn’t knock a man unconscious, but cut the poor bastard in two.
Knowing they were heading into a trap, Able Team had wisely turned off Route 29 a good hour before reaching the North Dakota border, and swung far out into the rocky badlands to circle around to try approach the Forge soldiers from behind. It took a while, but they found the ambush.
Retreating to a safe distance, the men discussed the matter and quickly headed in different directions. Lyons stayed with the soldiers, while Schwarz and Blancanales drove far into the desert on rented motorcycles. The big black BMW bikes had been acquired in Huron, outside of Sioux Falls. Utilizing a transmission instead of a chain, the motorcycles were extremely quiet and it took less than an hour to coat the machines with industrial glue, then liberally apply a thick layer of sand. Now the black bikes were a dull, rusty color, and even the windshields had been removed to make sure there was nothing shiny to accidentally reveal the presence of the silenced machines.
Just then, his earphone gave soft beep, closely followed by another. Lowering the Neostad, Lyons checked his wristwatch. Excellent. The others were finally in place and the Forge soldiers should be reporting to their headquarters any minute now. Regular as clockwork, the men stationed below Lyons used their Kenwood hand radios to report to somebody. The same as back in Texas, the radio signals were heavily encoded, but knowing the frequency used by the enemy gave the Stony Man commandos all they needed. With Schwarz and Blancanales about a hundred miles away to the west and east, when the Forge soldiers sent off their hourly status report, the three men could use loop antennae to triangulate on the broadcast, and when their hidden base responded, they would have it located within a few yards.
“Unless they’re smart enough to change frequencies every time they talk,” Lyons muttered, adjusting the controls on a directional radio with a loop antenna on top. The portable radios of Stony Man changed frequencies automatically, just like the transponders used by the Navy SEALs and Delta Force. It all depended upon how savvy their commander was with counterintelligence technology. Calvano knew computers and satellites, but either way—
Covering a yawn, a Forge soldier laid aside his LAW and lifted a radio.
Swinging up a monocular, Lyons dialed for maximum enhancement and got a crystal-clear view of the Kenwood as the man tapped in the code.
Punching the code into another Kenwood stolen from the HSA armory, Lyons clearly heard the lieutenant report that nothing had happened yet. Anxiously, the Able Team leader waited, almost holding his breath, then the base replied with an acknowledgment and clicked off the air.
“Got them,” Schwarz said triumphantly. “Their base is at…Black Rock Mesa in McHenry County, about fifty miles deep in the heart of the Badlands.”
Tucking away the loop antenna, Lyons turned his head in that direction. The barren landscape was rough and rugged, a vast rocky vista of irregular stone.
“Any back doors?” he asked, lifting the monocular and thumbing on the solar filter. The view dimmed slightly as the glare of the sun was removed and he had a clear view to the horizon.
Tabletop mesa and craggy mountain peaks stood like castles on the flat ground. Driving their Hummer across that in broad daylight would be suicide, and there was no time to wait for night. The Internet was buzzing with news from around the globe of ever-increasing military conflicts. The world was poised for war and every minute counted. If they took too long seizing control of the uplink array, or failed in their mission, the civilization death toll could be astronomical.
“Checking,” Blancanales said, obviously busy with something. “Okay, according to this topographical map I bought at the mountaineering store, there should be a rill we can drive behind to hide our approach until about a mile away from Black Rock. Then we only have to cross about a few yards of open space before we can duck behind another mesa. That will let us get within two hundred feet.”
“If this approach is so good, Forge should have the area heavily mined—” L
yons began, then cut himself off. “No, forget that. This state is full of hikers and tourists. If a troop of Boy Scouts got blown apart, the National Guard would seal off the entire territory and do a rock-by-rock search for any more explosives.”
“They could use remote-control landmines like the Farm,” Schwarz suggested. “Fiber-optic cables wouldn’t leak any magnetic field for a park ranger to detect. But our EM scanners will let us know if the cameras are live or not.”
“Good enough. But we still have to cross two hundred feet of open space in broad daylight,” Blancanales noted dourly. “Can we do that in under ninety seconds?”
“Not without dropping a lot of equipment,” Schwarz declared.
“Or we can give them something to look at,” Lyons said, pulling a knife and starting to hack at the loose soil. When the hole was large enough, he laid an M-2 satchel charge inside and loosely covered it with dirt, leaving only an inch of the ebony antenna sticking up from the reddish ground.
“Leaving them a little gift, Carl?” Schwarz chuckled softly.
“Biggest one I have actually.”
“Make sure it isn’t going to start a rock slide and take out a lot of civvies on the road.”
“No danger of that,” Lyons said confidently, patting the solid granite ledge supporting the escarpment. “I just hate to leave them alive.”
“Unfortunately, killing them now would only alert the people inside the mesa when they failed to make their hourly report.”
“Yeah, I know. So let them keep waiting for Trinity.”
“You know, there’s still going to be some kind of surveillance along the perimeter of the mesa,” Blancanales added pragmatically. “Even if it is only more armed guards.”
“Too bad for them,” Lyons said with unaccustomed savagery, checking the arming circuit on the military explosive. When he got an answering beep, the man tucked the remote detonator into a pocket of his ghillie suit. The damn things may give excellent camouflage, but they were hotter than summer in hell.
“All set here,” Lyons subvocalized into his throat mike, beginning to carefully slide down the escarpment. “We rendezvous at the northern rill in an hour.”
“Roger,” his teammates replied.
“SIR?” A FORGE TECHNICIAN asked, looking up from his console in Command and Control.
“Yes, what is it?” Erica Sabot asked, reading the result of the latest GPS attacks. The computerized clipboard in her hand was equipped with a Bluetooth, and relayed a steady stream of data from the Internet. On the master console was a monitor scrolling with constant reports from Snake Eater, and while not officially part of her job, Sabot considered it only good sense to make sure the foreigner was telling them the truth about the assorted strikes. So far, so good.
“I caught a radio transmission a few seconds ago,” the man said hesitantly, removing a set of headphones. “It was localized, scrambled and not from one of our sentry outposts.”
“Are you sure?” Sabot demanded, placing the clipboard aside and swiveling her chair. The minicomputer turned itself off with a low hum.
“Absolutely,” the technician said, and reached out to press a button. From a wall speaker came a short burst of gibberish.
“That’s an encoded transmission, all right,” she acknowledged uneasily, tapping a finger on her jaw. “I don’t like this. Better inform Professor Reinhold, and double the guards at all entrances.”
“At once, ma’am.”
“Also send out a reconnaissance party to check the perimeter,” Sabot amended. “Especially the rill to the north.”
“Should the troops take prisoners if they find anybody?” the man asked, his hands busy flipping switches.
“No, the time for secrecy is nearly over,” Sabot said, leaning back in the chair and reclaiming the clipboard. “Better have the guards kill anybody they find.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“And activate the land mines,” she added, turning the minicomputer back on and searching for any fresh news from China.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Argun Valley, China
A huge mushroom cloud of roiling black smoke rose to above the river valley in hellish majesty. Red flames licked about inside the boiling column and lightning crackled about the decimated landscape, adding to the general destruction.
A glowing deathwind polluted with unstable isotopes howled like insane demons above the fused soil. The nearby river was boiling. The thunderclap of the atomic blast echoed among the shuddering mountain peaks, and a hundred small fires dotted the distant horizon in a shotgun pattern.
The entire forest was gone for almost a mile, the closest trees reduced to mono-atomic vapors for a thousand yards. Gradually, chunks and blackened lumps appeared, and finally the tall pine trees were merely uprooted and smashed into kindling from the exothermic concussion of the tactical nuke.
Every trace of the recent combat between the Chinese and the Russian soldiers was completely eradicated, the men and machines totally annihilated, leaving only a few fist-size lumps of molten steel that had once been million-dollar tanks splashed across the distant hillsides. The squadrons of jet fighters were gone from the rumbling sky, the smashed wreckage strewed randomly across a thousand miles.
The fused ground still trembled from the pile-driver impact of the uranium blast, the tortured wind constantly becoming louder and more forceful from the growing hurricane of furious thermal currents lashing upward from the lambent slag pit.
Very far away in Beijing and Moscow, the military leaders of both nations congratulated themselves for stopping the enemy invasion, even if it had taken desperate measures to get the job done. Hopefully, it would be enough. But just in case, the politicians and generals began stoically preparing a salvo of long-range missiles, the warheads tipped with hydrogen bombs, the thermonuclear charges ten thousand times more destructive than the pitiful little tactical nukes used this day.
At the first sign of further aggression from the detested enemy, the missiles would fly. Not at isolated mountain valleys but at the major cities: St. Petersburg, Peking, Vladivostok, Chungking, Simbirsk, Canton.
In a cataclysmic maelstrom of nuclear fire, the long-expected China-Russia War would finally begin. The outcome of which both sides faced with dark apprehension and a dreadful eagerness.
Andes Mountains, Western Argentina
A GENTLE SNOW WAS FALLING on the windshield of the Hummer, the double set of wiper blades maintaining a rhythmic arc of clarity. The wall vents gushed hot air and the defroster audibly moaned. The halogen headlights stabbed into the dancing flakes and soon vanished; visibility was only a dozen yards.
Shifting gears, McCarter fed more power to the big engine and kept a sharp watch on the edge of the steep road only a few feet away. Far below was a deep crevice, the bottom masked in lazy fog. There was nothing ahead of them, or behind. Only the snow and mist. It was as if the APC was driving through a dream.
Escaping from the exploding Fort Peron had proved to be simplicity itself for the Stony Man operatives. The Gavins were tough war machines and plowed through the cascading detonations as if designed for that very purpose. The slate armor around the APCs had proved its worth, getting battered and bent outrageously from the endless barrage of shrapnel in the mad dash for safety. However, the M-113 vehicles crashed intact through the sagging ruin of the front gate, the men inside shaken and bruised by the rollicking journey, but still very much alive.
Reaching the forest, Phoenix Force kept on going, plowing deep into the morass of trees, leaving the thundering legacy of General Calvano far behind. One of the APCs passed by the empty auto-mortar set by Manning. There were several dead Forge soldiers lying around the weapon, but none of them had managed to broach the protective ring of Claymore mines encircling the mortar.
Cresting the ridge of the woody hillock, the team rendezvoused with Manning in a small clearing, the man rising from the bushes like a pagan god. Exchanging grins of relief that everybody was alive, Mann
ing climbed into the APC driven by McCarter and the three vehicles left the decimated battle zone to reclaim their stash of supplies in the old mine. That was all of the food and ammunition the team had remaining, and the Stony Man commandos knew that they’d need every pound for when they tangled with Forge again.
After checking over the fuel and munitions, McCarter decided they would use the Hummer instead of the APCs. The Gavins could carry more, but an armored personnel carrier was painfully noticeable in civilian traffic. There was no way they could remain covert driving a Gavin on a public road. Besides, the Hummer got better gas mileage, and there was no telling yet where the Pegasus was flying. The blip on the tracking device was still in motion, proceeding ever deeper into the rugged expanse of the Argentine Andes Mountains.
After banding some minor wounds, the team shifted everything useable into the Hummer and took off immediately, heading back to the Continental Highway rather than smashing their way through the dense forest. They’d make better time on the paved road.
Passing the roadblock, McCarter noted that the police car was gone, which meant the cops had escaped, and there would be an APB out for the Hummer. Not good news. He debated going back for a Gavin, but decided to keep going. The numbers were falling and there was no time to waste. In preparation to go EVA, the team started removing their camouflage paint and got into their civilian clothing once more.
Driving the Hummer until the needle was almost on empty, McCarter refueled at a roadside gas station, while Hawkins bought as many cans of fuel as they could without being conspicuous. James and Manning depleted a roadside restaurant of whatever consumables were available, and Encizo emptied a small hunting store of as much spare ammunition for their military weapons as possible. There was a cornucopia of 9 mm bullets and 12-gauge shotgun shells, but only a single box of .357 Magnum rounds for Manning’s Desert Eagle, the same for Encizo’s .38 Walther PPK, and nothing for the 5.56 mm FN-2000 assault rifles. Wisely, he didn’t even ask the happy clerk about ammunition for the Barrett sniper rifle.
Capital Offensive (Stony Man) Page 25