“No problem,” Brognola replied, refilling the cup and placing it in a convenient position on the bed table.
Summoning strength, Lyons looked at the big Fed. “Report,” he whispered.
Caught by surprise, Brognola broke into a laugh. “Yes, sir! The world is back to normal, such as it is, and the Forge firebases have been destroyed. We had no breakage, aside from you, and caught all of the Forge personnel. The UN Peacekeepers freed the trapped families without any incidents. Thank God.”
Fingering the neat row of stitches, Lyons nodded in relief.
“Anyway, the President has placed a rush order for inertial guidance systems for our ICBM defense,” Brognola continued. “The NSA is assigning new safeguards on our Comsats, and the Pentagon is installing self-destruct mechanisms into all of our long-range missiles. Army, Navy, the works.”
“Good.” Lyons settled weakly into the soft bed.
“You’ll be interested to know that Phoenix Force caught the hacker working for Forge. It was our old pal Mongoose from Calcutta.”
His temper flaring, Lyons narrowed his gaze. Yeah, he remembered McCarter talking about the cowardly computer genius. Betrayed his employer, then did it again with his next employer, and then faked his own death to escape Stony Man.
“Is he dead?” Lyons whispered. “If not, he should be.”
“Agreed,” Brognola said with a palms-up gesture. “However, he’s currently spilling his guts to Kurtzman about Professor Reinhold’s work on the GPS network. With the detailed information, the network can be redesigned so that this sort of thing never happens again.”
“Don’t…” Lyons broke into a cough again.
Reaching for the tumbler and straw again, Brognola arched an eyebrow. “Trust him? Of course we’re not going to trust him. Although, he has been very helpful. Even told us the exact location of his old employer, Unity.”
Accepting the deliciously cold tumbler, Lyons said nothing, then questioningly tilted his head.
Grinning widely, the big Fed checked his wristwatch. “Oh, just about any second now.”
Sahara Desert, Middle East
ARGUING LOUDLY OVER THEIR latest failure, the Supreme Council of Unity was still sitting around the large conference table when every video monitor on the base flickered into a picture of a large granite statue, the man of stone turning to face outward and slowly smiling with a grinding noise.
“Welcome from America,” the voice of Aaron Kurtzman said. “Now say goodbye, assholes.”
A split second later a Tomahawk cruise missile arched over a sand dune high above the subterranean base; it angled sharply, diving into the loose sand and penetrating almost to the concrete roof of the underground base when the massive warhead detonated. The entire isolated area erupted into a thundering volcano, the brunt of the blast directed downward by the shaped-charge of the special bunker buster.
The strident concussion seemed to shake the world, as sand dunes rose and fell like waves upon the sea, cresting and crashing in primordial chaos. Static electricity randomly crackled like wild sheet lighting as a roiling column of smoke rose to darken the sky.
As the colossal reverberations finally ceased, the loose sand began to trickle back down into the glowing blast crater, the mighty Sahara already starting to fill in the molten grave of the terrorist organization. Soon, there was no trace that Unity had ever existed.
First edition December 2007
ISBN: 978-1-4268-1020-6
CAPITAL OFFENSIVE
Copyright © 2007 by Worldwide Library.
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Table of Contents
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
EPILOGUE
Capital Offensive (Stony Man) Page 30