Delivering the supplies to the Hummer, Hawkins and James went to a corner market to purchase several bottles of ammonia and a large plastic bucket. Just in case of trouble.
Taking turns behind the wheel, the men of Phoenix Force drove through the remaining darkness and all the next day, doggedly keeping track of the Pegasus and Calvano. The blip had finally stopped in a hotly contested section of the mountain range, the area claimed by Argentina, Chile and the Communist guerrillas. That was good news. There would be few civilians around and plenty of combat room for the coming battle. The general had managed to escape from Phoenix Force once, but it would never happen again.
The long day slowly faded into night, and the farther Phoenix Force drove into the mountains, the steeper and more narrow the roads became. The air got colder by the mile. Soon, their breath was fogging, then the windows became frosty, and then the first snowflakes appeared.
A sign near a town warned this was the last chance for gas in a hundred kilometers, so McCarter turned off the highway and the team judiciously hit the local shops for additional supplies. The snow was an unexpected complication.
Woolen longjohn underwear, boots and gloves were available, but the only parkas for sale were a bright orange color to make lost people easier to find in the mountains. However, an hour at the local laundry with a couple of bottles of bleach rendered the parkas a muddy fleshtone close enough to white to serve as winter camouflage. Next came skis and poles, then snowmobiles and snowshoes, plus a lot of beer, the last item added to make them seem like a group of gringo tourists just there for a drunken weekend.
The snowmobiles had powerful motors that could propel the sleek machines at well over 60 mph, but they made more noise than a wood chipper. On the other hand, the auxiliary electric motors were nearly dead silent, but only had a top speed of 25 mph. Stealth or speed. It was good to have a choice.
Heading back onto the highway, McCarter had Hawkins take the next exit and follow a long, winding road into the foothills. The ice-covered roads were slippery, but the Hummer traversed them with little problem, the rough military tires digging in hard.
Snow was falling soft and silent from the white sky, and it seemed to McCarter that a blizzard was coming. That was both good and bad, he decided, zipping up the new parka. The weather would help hide them from the Forge troops, but would also make it tough to find their hidden base in the first place. Then the man sneezed. He only hoped the Forge didn’t have any more guard dogs. The bloody parkas reeked of bleach so bad the team members could have been tracked through a sewage plant.
Stopping to dump the beer off a cliff, the team decided to have a fast meal, probably their last before the assault on the Forge firebase. Ignoring the beef jerky and MRE packs, they extracted the handful of U.S. Army Self-Heat Meals they had brought along. Popping open the tops on the lumpy bags, they poured in some water from their canteens and tightly closed the tops again. As the crystals inside the envelopes reacted to the water, the packages became warm, and soon wisps of steam rose from the tiny vents. Eagerly, Phoenix Force tore into the bags for their first hot meal in days.
“Best thing ever invented,” Manning said with his mouth full of beef stew.
His face smeared, Hawkins swallowed some steaming lasagna. “Amen to that, brother!”
Starting to add a comment, McCarter jerked around with the Browning Hi-Power pistol in his hand. A moment later, a llama walked out of the snowy bushes and casually strolled past the Hummer as if it weren’t there.
“Wonder what those taste like?” James grumbled, retrieving his meal from the floorboard. The stew had spilled and was gone. Mopping up the mess, he tore open an MRE and started chewing down a cold turkey dinner.
“Rather a lot like emu,” Manning said, trying not to smile.
Holstering his sidearm, Encizo lifted an eyebrow. “Emu?”
“Close enough, anyway.”
“God, you’re a weird bastard.” Encizo chuckled, going back to the interrupted meal.
Finished eating, the team got to work. Driving the Hummer into the bushes, they cut down branches to cover the vehicle, then slid the snowmobiles off the trailer. Checking over their weapons one last time, Phoenix Force started across a snowy field and darted into the misty expanse of trees.
Constantly checking a compass, McCarter led the other men through the forest and up a gentle foothill. Cresting the top, they started down once more and immediately the snowmobiles started increasing speed, slipping and sliding dangerously along the icy slope. Quickly, the Stony Man commandos threw the vehicles into Reverse to try to slow the wild descent. Unfortunately, the weight of the men and the supplies kept the machines going at a breakneck pace.
Biting back curses, McCarter fought his snowmobile around an outcropping of black rocks, then swing wide around a smooth patch of white that might have been a snow bridge. Those often covered deep holes, or even rivers, and at their present speed that would be lethal.
Zigzagging frantically to dodge trees, rocks and miscellaneous lumps, the team fought the streaking machines down the slick expanse until finally reaching the bottom. Gliding across a smooth field, they coasted for while to regain their breath, and checked the compass and started off once more, heading toward the northwest.
Long, slow, cold miles passed when suddenly Hawkins jerked his head upward.
“Plane!” the man subvocalized into his throat mike, and the team scattered for cover.
Minutes later, there came the sound of a single-engine plane moving through the storm overhead.
“Might be a mail plane,” Manning said, swinging up the Barrett to try to track the noise. “Or a delivery service ferrying supplies to mountain resorts. We do that all the time in Canada.”
Encizo worked the arming bolt on an FN-2000 assault rifle. The longer barrel gave the weapon much greater range than the MP-5, and would count for a lot when fighting with an aircraft.
“Or it might be a reconnaissance plane for Forge,” McCarter countered, pulling out a monocular to check the clouds. IR showed nothing so he switched to UV. Now he got a blurry image. “Okay, she appears to be a single-engine Cessna, but it’s impossible to tell for sure.” Adjusting the focus, he frowned. “However, it’s armed with a bleeding rocket pod on each wing.”
“Forge,” Hawkins growled, an FN-2000 balanced in his gloved hands. A finger rested on the trigger of the 40 mm grenade launcher.
“Or the Federal Police, Argentine army, Chileans or the goddamn Commie guerrillas,” Encizo stated. “Good thing we reached the trees. Those antitank rockets would have blown us into the next world.”
“And then some,” James agreed, tracking the airplane with a 9 mm MP-5 machine gun. Hopefully the pilot wasn’t checking the landscape with infrared scanners. The blazing engines of the snowmobiles would show up brighter than a road flare in a broom closet.
Adjusting their woolen ski masks, the Stony Man commandos anxiously watched the clouds, waiting for the attack to begin. But the buzzing noise wavered and lowered in volume, then moved off to the north.
“Base is to the west,” McCarter said, checking his compass. “It must be doing a perimeter sweep.”
“Okay, we go silent from this point,” the Briton directed, starting the electric motor of the snowmobile. The dashboard meters flickered to life, but that was the only indication that the engine was operating. “We’d better get far away from here before it comes back for a second pass.”
In ragged order, the men slid forward and the silent machines darted into the falling snowflakes.
Suddenly coming out of the storm, the men of Phoenix Force found themselves crossing a frozen lake. Every member of the team knew that they were incredibly vulnerable to attack out in the open, and increased their speed. Then they heard a soft crinkling sound. A spiderweb of cracks appeared under Manning and Hawkins, then all of them.
Instantly the men separated and revved the snowmobiles to maximum speed. But behind the team, the cracks were extending
in every direction, and getting wider, water appearing in a few areas. Switching on the noisy gasoline engines, the men frantically raced across the shattering lake and breathed a sigh of relief when they were reached the shore at last.
“Kill them!” McCarter ordered over the radio, and the men went back to the slower electric motors. Their speed dropped noticeably, but they slid through the wintry landscape with only the hush of the treads discernable.
By now the cold was seeping through their civilian parkas, and the men hunched low, trying to absorb some of the heat coming off the deactivated gasoline engines. Icicles hung thick from the tree branches, and from somewhere there came a splintery crash as a branch cracked apart from the accumulated weight.
A few miles later they saw a low swell in the ground, and judiciously braked the vehicles. Throwing thermal blankets over the machines to hide their heat signatures, the men then donned the bulky snowshoes. Moving fast and low, the team left only light tracks in the freshly fallen powder, and the windblown snowflakes should fill those in very quickly.
Darting from tree to tree, the team constantly checked for landmines and proximity sensors. Hawkins found the first, a Claymore hidden inside a bird nest made of fiberglass. Manning found the next, a video camera slowly sweeping across the icy landscape. The lens was partially covered with the freshly fallen snow, so Manning added another layer of ice from a spray bottle kept warm inside his parka. That would give them the necessary cover, and if somebody came outside to clean the camera lens, so much the better. The team only needed that door to open for a single moment.
From that point onward, the team moved easily through the boobytraps, thankful for all the hours Chief Greene had made them practice over and over in trying to penetrate the multiple layers of defensives around the Farm.
Reaching a clear zone, Phoenix Force found themselves standing in a strange sort of arbor. The trees branches overhead had been lashed together, additional branches woven into the lacing to make a crude dome over a squat concrete dome. The featureless walls were covered with ice, and there was only one door, slightly recessed into a steel-edged alcove. The door was a seamless slab of burnished metal, and there was no sign of a handle, lock or keypad.
“No way we’re getting through that quietly,” McCarter stated, pulling out his IR goggles. “Everybody search for thermals.”
Looking through the infrared goggles, Hawkins noted that on the side of a nearby escarpment, the snow was moving against the wind, bending in toward a ragged opening in the rockface. That could only be the air pumps for the underground base. If there was an attack, the subterranean bunker would seal itself tight against a nuclear, chemical or bacteriological strike. But for the moment, Forge was still taking in outside air. Obviously, secure in the knowledge that nobody knew where they were hidden again.
Touching his throat mike, Hawkins changed his mind and raised a gloved hand to sign “follow me.” There were very few deaf soldiers in any army, and American sign language was a perfect way to silently communicate. Even with the cameras blocked, there could be hidden microphones, as well.
Stealthily crossing the arbor, feeling as if their every footstep was as loud as cannonfire, Phoenix Force reached the cave and quickly checked for traps before easing inside. The walls of the cave were rough hewn and appeared natural, but situated behind a stout steel fence was a large piece of machinery covered with pipes and conduits.
We’re screwed, Encizo signed, jerking his chin at a louvered cowling set deep among the machinery. That’s a biofilter.
Removing the useless bottle of ammonia from a pocket, McCarter tossed it aside. Encizo and James did the same. The plan had been for the team to relieve themselves in the plastic bucket, add the ammonia and pour it liberally all around the air-intake vents. With luck, the Forge soldiers would think some wild animal had used the cave as a lavatory and would send somebody to shovel away the reeking mess. Phoenix Force would then follow the man back inside the bunker. But the biofilter canceled that idea. Even if the team had some VX nerve gas, it would never reach the troops underground. At the first sign of any unusual infusion, the biofilter would automatically shut down the air vents and sound the alarm.
Okay, there are too many trees around here, McCarter directed, using both hands to sign. So spread out and find where the Super Stallion landed.
The computers? Encizo asked silently.
It’s our only hope now.
Moving fast, the team swept through the woods in a three-on-three defensive formation. They found more land mines and video cameras hidden among the trees, but there was a corridor through the forest and they moved alongside the outside of the clear path, deactivating each explosive charge in turn.
Leaving the woods, the men found a large open field, the ground dotted with tree stumps rising a few inches from the snow. The crude landing field was covered with hundreds of boot prints, the white snow stained with oil and gas.
Raising a clenched fist, McCarter rotated it once, then splayed his fingers. The rest of the team nodded and spread out in different directions. A few moments later, James appeared from behind a snowbank and waved the others closer.
Gathering quickly around, the rest of team saw a few drops of red blood on the snow, and the boots of a Forge soldier were visible behind a large rock. The boots shook once, then went still.
Slipping around the snowbank, they found a copse of trees, a disguised door in the fake trees swung open wide. More machinery could be seen inside. Warily entering the artificial copse, McCarter grinned at the sight of several large, pressurized tanks embedded with thick insulated pipes leading into the ground. This had to be part of the cooling unit for the massive Cray computers operating the uplink. The complex machines were extremely sensitive to heat, and were kept cold with a liquid nitrogen refrigeration system. The computers at the Farm used the same arrangement, only the nitrogen tanks were kept immediately alongside the computers for safety. The deadly material was nonexplosive, but incredibly dangerous in the right hands.
Rapping a quivering gauge with a gloved knuckle, McCarter found the tanks almost full. They had to have been freshly recharged from the Pegasus. Exchanging their skiing gloves for cumbersome welding gloves, the men got to work with adjustable wrenches and shut off one of the tanks, then released the locking clamps. With the other tanks full, nobody should notice the missing tank for days. More than enough time.
It took all of them working together to manhandle the cumbersome canister out the tiny door, and then roll it along the cleared pathway to reach the concrete dome. Positioning the canister directly in front of the door, the entire team put their shoulders against the tank for support, and McCarter used a wrench to work the exhaust valve on top.
The pressurized canister savagely recoiled as a thin watery spray blasted from the nozzle, and a biting wave of preternatural cold slapped the men in the face. Turning their faces away, they fought to breathe, the frigid air stabbing their lungs with icy knives.
Hitting the armored door, the liquid nitrogen splashed about, turning the door and surrounding concrete dull in color, then becoming shiny as a mirror.
Finally, the stream eased to a trickle as the tank was depleted, and McCarter closed off the valve. Gratefully moving away from the empty canister, Phoenix Force pulled on their flexible gloves once more and readied their assorted weapons.
Slinging the 9 mm MP-5 machine gun over a shoulder, Hawkins checked the 40 mm round in the FN-2000 assault rifle. There was one shell from the grenade launcher, so he would have to make it count.
Nodding at the others, McCarter raised an arm to protect his eyes and triggered a single shot from his MP-5 machine gun. As the 9 mm bullet hit the discolored metal, the entire door shattered as if made of glass, the military armor crystallized by the incredible cold of the liquid nitrogen. Sprinkling to the ground, the concrete crumbled away, a large hole forming in the resilient dome. Buried inside the jamb, a dozen Claymore mines were briefly exposed before they also
fell away, frozen into inert dust.
With a soft wind blowing loose flakes around their snowshoes, Phoenix Force moved swiftly into the Forge base, their weapons at the ready. Ahead of them was a long corridor, winding steps leading almost straight down.
Easing off the snowshoes, the team started to proceed down the corridor when a Forge soldier walked into view on the stairs, an FN-2000 assault rifle slung across his back. The burly soldier gasped at the sight of the masked invaders and went for the Bersa pistol holstered at his side.
Without a qualm, McCarter shot the man in the throat.
Gurgling, the terrorist collapsed, partially on the concrete floor, one boot dangling over the stairwell. Sweeping forward, the team then stopped in its tracks at the sound of laughing children coming from below.
“The sons of bitches brought their families with them,” James snarled, tightening his grip on the MP-5. “What the hell do we do now?”
“Our job,” McCarter replied coldly, his voice sounding as if the man aged ten years with the grim pronouncement.
The men of Phoenix Force said nothing in reply, then straightened their shoulders and started down the spiral stairs into the very heart of the enemy fortress.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Royal Oil Field #9, Saudi Arabia
The heavy pounding was a palpable thing in the warm desert air. The loud noise of the nineteen massive pumps handling the colossal flow from the 114 oil derricks almost sounded like a beating human heart. Rhythmic and steady. It was as though an invisible giant stalked among the hundreds of workers, towering derricks, pumping stations, repair shops, storage tanks and barracks.
Capital Offensive (Stony Man) Page 26