Don Pendleton - The Chameleon Factor

“Ah, thanks, I think. Did Bear make the coffee?” James asked with a worried look.

Without turning in his wheelchair, Kurtzman laughed. “And you call yourselves soldiers.” He brandished a steaming mug. “This’ll put some hair on your chest!”

“Or take it off,” James quipped.

“Also degreases tractor parts,” Schwarz added.

“Heads up!” Carmen Delahunt announced from behind her VR helmet. “I just accessed a NSA WatchDog satellite.”

Right on cue, the main wall monitor fluttered with a wild scroll and settled into a picture of more swirling clouds.

“Damn!” Delahunt cursed. “There’s no break in the cloud cover over western Alaska.” She sounded as if the inclement weather were a personal affront to her abilities as a hacker.

“Carmen, did you really expect clear sky at this time of year?” Price asked. “That’s why the Pentagon set the field test for the Chameleon. No other nation’s satellites could watch.”

“Advanced technology is so damn primitive,” Schwarz said with a flash of a smile.

“Apparently so, this time,” Delahunt muttered, going back into the virtual reality of the worldwide Net.

Going to the kitchenette, Price poured herself a fresh cup of coffee, adding a lot of milk and sugar. “Have you all read the report from Hal?”

“In the Black Hawk coming here,” Lyons replied. “There wasn’t much there.”

“Sadly, it’s all we have,” she said.

“Okay, grab a seat,” Price instructed, gesturing at some chairs pushed along the wall. “We’re truly operating in the dark on this. We know nothing about how the Chameleon operates, power requirements, distance limitations and so on. Every report and file was destroyed in Alaska. All we can do is make some educated guesses. Everybody connected with the project was at that field test or in the laboratory. The missiles from the USS Fairfax killed them all.”

“What was the hoped-for size of the unit?” Schwarz asked, leaning forward in his chair.

“About the size of a paperback book,” Price replied. “But Hal said that the President believes Professor Johnson was field-testing a shoe box version yesterday.”

“The size of a shoe box?” James said, the astonishment plain on his face.

She nodded. “Yes. But once again, it’s only a guess.”

“Still certainly small enough to be portable,” McCarter said, rubbing his chin. “How much did it weigh?”

“We figured it at roughly twenty pounds. But it could be more, a lot more.”

“Barbara, was that Professor Torge Emile Johnson by any chance?” Schwarz asked, scrunching his face.

Blinking in surprise, Price turned. “Yes, it was. So you know him?”

“Only by reputation. I’ve read articles by the man. He was a genius. A real one. Made breakthroughs all the time. SA once called him the Thomas Edison of the twenty-first century.”

“SA?” Manning asked patiently.

“Scientific American magazine,” James explained.

Manning nodded wisely. “Ah, yes. I have the swimsuit issue at home.”

“Oh, shut up,” James growled.

“So what is the mission?” Hawkins asked, leaning against the wall. “We’re supposed to get it back before anybody get hurts?”

“Over three hundred people are dead already,” Price answered sternly. “We want it found, or destroyed.”

Going to the fridge, Blancanales opened the door to find it filled with plates of sandwiches, soft drinks and bottles of juice, so he grabbed sandwiches and an orange juice. It was going to be a long day. He could feel it in his bones.

“What about the off-site backup files?” he asked, resting against the counter to unwrap his food and take a healthy bite.

“The what?” McCarter asked, heading for the fridge. There was no Coca-Cola in sight, only some diet Mountain Dew and several bottles of fruity stuff, and the juice.

Blancanales was chewing, so Schwarz answered. “Every project is vulnerable to accidents, or hackers. So all big corporations, and most government projects, have an automatic recording of everything done in the lab located far away from the building. Just in case.”

“Smart move,” McCarter commented.

“Damn straight it is. The IRS does the same thing, which is why it’s pointless to bomb the place.”

“The Farm, too?” Hawkins asked.

Turning away from his console Kurtzman said, “No, we’re too sensitive. If this place goes, nobody will ever know we even existed.”

“The backup files are a good place to start a search, but once again, we don’t know where they’re located,” Price added grimly. “Only the project head and the Pentagon liaison did.”

“And they’re dead,” Encizo stated.

“Exactly.”

“So our job is to go through the wreckage and find the location of those backup files,” Lyons said, thinking aloud, his eyes half-closed in concentration.

“Yes,” Price said. “Able Team goes in as DOD inspectors. Phoenix Force stays in the background to give you three cover in case of trouble.”

Lyons frowned. Which translated as, his team got killed, but Phoenix Force found the culprit.

“And then?” Encizo inquired.

“Kill the thief.” Price didn’t believe in couching terms. If the men could do the job, then she could damn well say the word.

“Any ID on him yet?” Blancanales asked, then added, “Or her?”

“Not a thing,” Price replied, placing her mug aside on the counter. “Whoever did this is good. As good as anybody we have.”

“Must have been an inside job. Nothing else makes sense,” McCarter stated. He took a drink from the bottle, then went on, “So it’s a mole.”

Lyons shook his head. “Or an ape.”

Ape, yes, Price knew the term. Spies stayed out and relayed information for years. Apes hit hard, blew things up and stole things. “Ape” was slang for an AP, which stood for Agent Provocateur. Secret government soldiers.

“So we’re facing a James Bond type,” Schwarz said without a trace of humor. “Not many of them around these days.”

Blancanales lowered his sandwich. “And for just this reason. Everybody is dead, and the prototype is lost.”

“Maybe lost,” James corrected. “Maybe destroyed in the explosions, or stolen. We don’t know shit right about now.”

“Could be a solo, or a freelance,” Price admitted. “Somebody not affiliated with any government. Just there to steal the Chameleon and sell it on the open market.”

“Or even sell it back to us,” Hawkins grumbled. “If it cost us a billion to make, then we’d certainly pay that much to get it back.”

“At least.”

Rubbing the faint bullet scar on his temple, Encizo sighed. “Hellfire, we really are in the dark on this.”

“That’s why we have to move fast,” Price agreed, “and try to cover every base.”

“What was the name of the company doing the research?” Kurtzman asked over a shoulder.

“Quiller Geo-Medical,” she said, and then smiled at the surprised expressions. “Yes, it means nothing. But it sounds very scientific, and people seldom ask.”

“Or maybe one did,” Kurtzman muttered, then wheeled his chair about. “Akira! Check the IRS tax records for a list of employees. Then cross-check that with the state driver’s-license files at the Alaska DMV. Carmen, I want you—”

“On it,” she interrupted from behind her mask, both hands in their VR gloves caressing the air. “I’ll access the video surveillance cameras at the airports and run a facial check as soon as Akira gives me some faces from the driver’s licenses.”

“He’ll be wearing a disguise,” Price warned. “And this person is damn good. KGB good. Maybe better.”

Delahunt shrugged. “We can adjust for that. It’s our ID software that caught that last group of terrorists trying to sneak out of the country.”