Don Pendleton - The Chameleon Factor

“Good to see you, Hal,” the President replied. “We have a situation.”

“So I gathered, sir. Can it wait until I arrive? I’m already en route to D.C. ETA, twenty minutes.”

“Sorry,” the President said, frowning. “This cannot wait, and you have to turn back.”

Return to the Farm? “This relay is secure, sir,” Brognola reminded him respectfully.

“For now, yes.”

The President reclined in his chair and lifted a sheet of paper edged with red stripes. Even as he held it, the paper turned brownish where his fingers rested. Brognola scowled at that. A level-ten report, for the President only. This was big.

“It’s called Chameleon,” the President said, putting the paper down, “a brand-new kind of jamming field that blocks or interferes with about ninety-five percent of all modulated electromagnetism.”

Brognola raised an eyebrow at that but said nothing. Ninety-five percent? That would scramble cell phones, and even landline phones, and make radar absolutely dead. Doppler or focused radar, even proximity fuses on warheads might not work. It would be the ultimate stealth shield. Tanks, planes, hell, even aircraft carriers would become as close to invisible as modern science would allow. In the hands of terrorists, they could fly cargo planes of troops or bombs anywhere and America would never know until it was far too late.

Lifting a cup of coffee into view, the President took a sip and waited while Brognola worked out the details.

“How close are they to completion?” the big Fed demanded.

“This morning was the final test.”

“And what went wrong?”

“Everything, my friend,” the Man said honestly. “The missiles being fired from a U.S. Navy corvette in the bay first took out the control bunker, killing the inventor, a Professor Torge Johnson, and destroying every working prototype of the device.”

Brognola bit back a curse.

The President leaned closer. “We received a piece of a phone call from Congresswoman Margaret Anders at the sight, then she went off the air. A recon flight from Fairbanks confirmed that the second wave of Delta Four missiles hit the grandstand, killing a couple of hundred people, mostly politicians and high-ranking soldiers.”

“Could still just be an accident,” Brognola said slowly, then he noticed the hard expression in the other man’s face. “There’s more.”

“Unfortunately, yes. The third wave of Delta Four missiles went straight past the firing range and curved around a mountain to strike and destroy the laboratory where the Chameleon had been invented.”

Brognola opened his mouth to say “Impossible,” then closed it with a snap. “So we have a traitor who planted homing beacons for the missiles.”

“That is also the opinion of the Joint Chiefs.”

“What was the breakage?” Brognola asked, frowning.

The President drummed his fingers on the desk. “Total. The plans are gone, the working prototypes are gone, everything is gone, and everybody involved with the project is dead.”

“What about the off-site backup files?” Brognola demanded gruffly.

“Unknown,” the President replied, hunching his shoulders. “Everybody who knew their location is now dead.”

“Everybody?”

“Yes.”

“Shit.”

“Agreed. We have been compromised on a major level, and by a professional. As of this moment, our unknown thief owns a billion dollars’ worth of American technology.”

“And there’s no way to re-create the work?”

“Over time, of course. Eight months, maybe a year. But by then…”

Brognola felt a gnawing sensation in his stomach. A year from now the world could be in total chaos, or worse, total warfare. Unlimited smuggling, unstoppable hijackers, it was a nightmare!

“What are the various agencies doing so far?”

“Nothing. This is a White Project. Level Ten personnel only. As far as the FBI and the media are concerned, there was a gas explosion at a military warehouse in Alaska.”

“Orders, sir?” Brognola asked grimly.

“Search the wreckage, find out who stole the Chameleon, or if nobody did and this is all a gigantic coincidence. They do happen sometimes.”

Yeah, right. “If it isn’t a coincidence, sir?”

The President leaned closer to the screen. “Then get the Chameleon back at any cost. Get it back, Hal. And if that proves impossible, then destroy the prototype.”

“Sir?”

“You heard me. I’ll eat that billion dollars, and another billion on top, if that is what it takes to keep the U.S. safe. The Chameleon is dangerous enough in our hands. But at least we have checks and balances in our government. However, under the control of a terrorist group, or rogue nation, we’d never even know what was happening until Manhattan, L.A. or even D.C. was blown off the face of the map with millions dead.”

“Understood, sir,” Hal said in a strained voice, and then bluntly added, “What a shitstorm!”

The President gave a strained smile. “You took the words right out of my mouth, my friend.”

A light flashed on the briefcase computer.

“You should have the full files and aerial reconnaissance photos by now,” the President announced, doing something off-screen.

“Just arrived, sir. Standard decoding?”

“Yes. Move fast on this one, Hal. We’re completely in the dark so far, and that light at the end of the tunnel isn’t daylight, but a goddamn express train coming down our throats.”

With a swirl of colors, the link was broken and the screen returned to its neutral silver sheen.

Closing the briefcase, Brognola cupped a hand to his mouth and loudly shouted, “Hey, pilot!”

In the wide cockpit, the blacksuit glanced over a shoulder. “Yes, sir!”

“Turn around. We’re going back.”

The man arched an eyebrow in surprise, but said nothing and tilted the stick in his grip. The pitch of the blades overhead changed, and the Black Hawk started to swing around in the sky.

As the sun reappeared on the other side of the gunship, Brognola opened his briefcase once more and started to access a secret satellite.

Within a few minutes, the screen cleared to show a blond-haired woman leaning forward on a desk. She was dressed in a simple blue workshirt, with no jewelry.

“Forget your wallet, Hal?” asked Barbara Price, mission controller at Stony Man Farm.

“Wish I had. Call them back,” Brognola ordered. “Both teams. Call everybody back. We’ve got trouble.”

Cassatt Federal Penitentiary, South Carolina

Soft and low, the mournful call of a freight train moved through the night as armed guards in the high watchtowers closely scrutinized the arrival of an armored bus at the front gate of the Cassatt Federal Penitentiary.

The first line of guards checked the driver’s ID and did an EM scan of the vehicle, then finally passed it through the outer, thirty-foot-tall fence. Once the bus was trapped between the first and second fences, more guards arrived with dogs to sniff for explosives or narcotics before the transport rolled through the inner, electric fence and finally onto a featureless parking lot. There were no concrete bumpers or ornamental bushes for anyone to take cover behind. Just a flat expanse of bare asphalt studded with tiny reflecting squares set into the tar and gravel, range finders to assist the sharpshooters in the watchtowers.

In an ocean of bright lights, there came the sound of pumping hydraulic, and the huge ferruled doors on the Cassatt Federal Penitentiary began to ponderously cycle open.

With the close of Alcatraz so many years ago, there had been an urgent need for new prisons to hold the worst of the worst, the mad-dog killers and terrorists that the courts had condemned to death. With nothing to lose, the prisoners would use any opportunity to escape, and since a person could be executed only once, taking another human life meant less than nothing to the cold-blooded psychopaths. Hence the creation of the Bureau of Prisons’ supermax facilities.