Don Pendleton: The Chameleon Factor

As the pretty flight attendant walked by, Harrison stretched out a fingertip to lightly brush the smooth nylons on her thigh.

Angrily, Gwenneth glanced down to scold the flirt. But when she saw it was the pregnant passenger, she dismissed it as an accident and moved on to help other passengers settle in for the long flight to India.

Yes, do your job, little flower, but nothing can save these fools now. Harrison smirked behind an impassive face. All I need are a few more minutes. Then it will be too late to stop me. And afterward, nobody would ever be able to stop the fall of America.

Stony Man Farm, Virginia

MURMURING SOFTLY, the radio receiver tucked into security chief Buck Greene’s ear gave a constant report on the progress of the Black Hawk gunship coming in from the south. The surface-to-air missile bunkers were armed and ready in case it wasn’t the Stony Man teams inside coming home. The Farm’s mission controller, Barbara Price, had told Chief Greene about the secondary effects of the Chameleon device, so he was taking no chances. If the lights flickered just once, or if there were two Black Hawks instead of one, then he would order the covert fortress to cut loose with everything it had, which was plenty. A mistake could be made, and friends might die. “How could we stop a Chameleon attack?” Greene wondered out loud.

“Yeah, I’ve been thinking that myself,” John “Cowboy” Kissinger stated. “Radar-invisible gunships, armed with invisible missiles—how could we stop those?”

“We couldn’t,” Greene replied flatly. “That’s what worries me. Even our proximity trips wouldn’t work.”

“Damn.”

“That’s putting it mildly.”

If they were reduced to visually targeting a flying enemy, they’d be slaughtered. Running stiff fingers through his hair, Kissinger scratched his head as he considered possible countermaneuvers, and came up with nothing.

Tall and lanky, Kissinger was the master gunsmith for the covert warriors of Stony Man, his strong and nimble hands constructing nearly all of their speciality weapons. Guns were his thing, and there were damn few better at his job in the entire world. A 10 mm Megastar pistol rode in his shoulder holster this month, the Magnum automatic being personally tested by the gunsmith for possible use by the field operatives. Unless a weapon carried the Cowboy seal of approval, it never made it into the hands of the Stony Man commandos.

“Our heat-seekers are good, but at short range, they’d never have enough flight time to lock on to the exhaust of an incoming missile or rocket,” Kissinger said at last.

“I know,” Greene rumbled.

“Just trust to the nets,” Kissinger said, glancing at the thick trees surrounding the hidden base, “and keep those land mines armed. Whether it’s helicopters, jet packs or pogo sticks, they got to land sometime.”

“Amen to that,” Greene said, tilting his head to listen to the soft voice coming over the radio. “Heads up, they’re here.”

Almost immediately they heard the powerful throb of rotor blades approaching from the south. The noise rapidly built in volume until suddenly a sleek Black Hawk came into view over the leafy tops of the trees in the park.

Greene and Kissinger watched the helicopter maneuver into a landing.

As the aircraft landed, the two men caught sight of the grinning pilot through the cockpit windows and relaxed. Chief Greene and Kissinger walked from the building bent over against the turbulence of the spinning blades. Before they got halfway there, the side door of the Black Hawk slid open, exposing Able Team and Phoenix Force. Carrying bulging duffel bags, Carl Lyons, Rosario Blancanales and Hermann Schwarz jumped to the ground, and, bent low, hurried to greet their friends.

Smiling with pleasure, Greene and Kissinger shook hands with the team.

“Glad to see you guys in one piece,” Greene shouted. “How did it go?”

“Still in one piece,” Lyons quipped.

Kissinger snorted a laugh. “Damn glad to hear it!”

Just then, the men of Phoenix Force exited the aircraft along with their cargo of destruction. The men were still under the blades when the Black Hawk lifted and circled the Farm once, the smiling pilot giving the men on the ground a thumbs-up gesture before leveling out and departing.

“Nice to see you boys again,” Kissinger stated as the swirling dust settled. “Barb’s waiting in the computer room for a debriefing. Something’s going on in Alaska.”

“Alaska?” Rafael Encizo asked, shifting the strap of the duffel over his shoulder. “Any trouble with the Chameleon test?”

They already knew? Chief Greene shook his head. “Better ask Barb.”

The two teams accepted that and headed for the farmhouse.

Walking onto the porch and up to the front door, McCarter tapped a security code into a keypad and the door clicked open.

The teams headed directly to the basement, taking the stairs rather than the elevator, ceiling-mounted security cameras tracking them along the way. At the landing, Schwarz raised a hand to block a camera, and it gave a nasty warning buzz. Quickly, he took away his hand before the alarms sounded and tear gas began to vent from the ceiling.

“Touchy, isn’t it?” Manning said, amused. “Built-in proximity sensor?”

“Yep,” Schwarz said with a touch of pride. “The best in existence. I helped design them.”

Hawkins frowned. “And if the Chameleon works as promised, they would be about as useful as two paper cups and some waxed string.”

Since it was true, nobody bothered to reply to that.

Exiting the stairwell, the two groups continued on to the tunnel that would take them to the Annex, choosing to walk rather than take the tram.

The Computer Room was abuzz with activity, two men typing madly at computer stations, while a redhaired woman wearing a VR helmet and gloves rode the Internet. At the end of the row of consoles, the fourth computer was dark, the chair empty.

“Anything on the railroads or bus lines?” Barbara Price demanded, crossing her arms.

“Nothing so far,” Aaron “the Bear” Kurtzman replied, his hands flowing across a keyboard. A former member of the Rand Corporation think tank, Kurtzman was the chief of the electron-riders at the Farm. Although confined to a wheelchair from an attack on the Farm many years earlier, his mind was as sharp as ever. That was, aside from a minor dementia for black coffee strong enough to kill a rhinoceros.

“Ditto with major airlines,” Akira Tokaido added, speed-reading a scrolling monitor. “Every plane is on schedule and accounted for.” Of Japanese and American descent, the handsome young man was often referred to as a natural-born hacker with “chips in his blood.”

“So far,” Price said, biting a lip. “Keep a watch on the private planes. He might try to hijack a Cessna or a helicopter. Are there any crop dusters working in the state?”

“Good idea. I’m on it,” Tokaido said, turning on a submonitor while typing with his other hand.

“What are we looking for?” Lyons asked, dropping his duffel to the floor. It landed with a clank that momentarily caught the attention of the hackers.

“Glad you’re here,” Price stated without preamble.

“Where’s Hal?” McCarter asked, glancing around.

“Already back in D.C. talking with the President,” Price answered, waving the men toward the coffee station along the wall. “There’s plenty of coffee, so help yourself. I expect you’re also hungry, so I had the staff fill the fridge with fresh sandwiches. I can brief you as you eat. You go airborne in fifteen minutes.”

So fast? Lyons started to ask for an explanation, but said nothing. Price was no fool. If she was sending them into the field this quick, then the shit had already hit the fan.