Don Pendleton - Primary Directive

The Phoenix Force leader turned to face the prow of the boat and propped his right leg on the edge. He ground his heel down, flexing his thigh muscles in preparation for the jump. He hoped to make it close to the observation point by the first leap, although he didn’t yet have a measure of how deep the water would be there. Based on what he saw, he assumed it would come up to at least his knees.

The Briton took another drag of the cigarette and let the smoke curl from his nostrils as he made a point of flicking it high in the air just as the boat chugged parallel with the target landing point. McCarter hoped the observer’s eyes would track the path of the cigarette long enough for him to reach the guy. A moment after it left his fingers, McCarter jumped. He landed much closer to shore than he’d originally anticipated, the water coming only past his boots. The Briton gained two steps and then crashed through the brush just as his quarry got to his feet.

McCarter took the offensive and delivered a roundhouse kick that connected, although he lost a bit of force as he wrenched the knee of his planted leg in the spongy ground. His opponent took the kick in the ribs, grunting with pain on impact, but then managed to get an arm wrapped around McCarter’s calf and trap the leg. The guy turned inward and jammed an elbow in McCarter’s knee, but not being fully planted himself, the blow was weak and saved the Phoenix warrior’s leg from debilitating injury.

McCarter leaned in full-force, grabbed fistfuls of the man’s collar and then pulled back, a move that took his enemy off balance. The Briton landed in a backward shoulder roll and used the impetus of his weight to bring his opponent with him in a Judo sacrifice throw that sent the man sailing overhead and into a nearby tree trunk.

Encizo and Manning crashed through the brush a moment later, both panting with the exertion. They immediately took control of McCarter’s opponent and wrestled him to his feet. The Phoenix Force leader looked into the man’s dark eyes for a moment.

And a mask of pure hatred stared back at him.

“H IS NAME’S Siraj Khatri,” Barbara Price said.

The men of Phoenix Force were gathered in one of their two apartments. The speakerphone echoed in the room but they were the only ones in that particular unit, so being overheard was hardly of concern. Not that the Panamanian government didn’t have the phones tapped anyway. For all they knew, half the cabinet could be listening in right at the moment.

“He’s a native of Pakistan,” Price continued. “He was born and educated there, although he did do a year on an exchange program at UCLA back in 2004.”

Lounging on a love seat with his leg propped and his knee on ice, McCarter replied, “Any known terrorist affiliations?”

“None we know of,” she said. “He returned to Pakistan as scheduled and completed his final year of schooling there as a software programmer. Then he just seemed to disappear until surfacing again in Mexico a few months ago.”

“What for?” Encizo inquired.

“He took a programming job there, apparently for some start-up company. Telemarketing and call center services of sorts, serving locations in both North and Central America.”

“Well, he’s a long way from Mexico,” Hawkins pointed out.

“Barb, do we have any other information on this guy?”

“I’m afraid not,” Price said. “Apparently he has no credit cards and no other links we can follow. Both parents were killed accidentally in 2002 during a shooting incident that occurred on the Afghani-Pakistan border during the very early phases of Operation Freedom. They were apparently Muslim missionaries of some sort.”

“Well, that would surely give him a motive to seek out al Qaeda,” Manning remarked.

“We also have some news to report,” Brognola chimed in. “It concerns Able Team’s mission in Texas. It appears there was a breach of the border a couple of hours ago, and one of the crossers had an Arabic symbol tattooed on his hand. It looked familiar to me but I couldn’t place it at first. It took us some time but we finally identified it after Aaron ran it through the database. The symbol dates back to a tattoo fire-branded onto the arms of mujahideen fighters meaning ‘struggle.’ They wore this during the liberation of Afghanistan from the Soviets.”

“Too bloody right,” McCarter replied. “A liberation movement that received plenty of manpower and funding from bin Laden.”

“And we’re back to al Qaeda,” James said.

“We’ve just passed the information on to Able Team, so they’ll be running this down from their end. Two things we know for sure now, though, are that terrorists have entered the country and that this most recent incident with Panama must contain a link. There’s no way these were coincidences.”

“Rafe has developed a pretty good theory about that,” McCarter said. He looked at the Cuban and said, “You want to elaborate?”

Encizo ran it down for the Stony Man logistics crew, including his theory about the sub being in Panama to subsidize terrorist personnel requirements, and concluded with, “I’m guessing this is some sort of pipeline.”

“Sure,” Brognola agreed. “Plant Islamic radicals in Central America to set up connection points, then smuggle in personnel and feed them up the chain into America using the illegal immigration network. It’s nothing short of brilliant.”

“Well, al Qaeda’s been harping about something big, bigger than the attacks in New York and Washington, for years,” Hawkins pointed out. “It seems to me this would qualify.”

“And they would certainly need a lot more players to top 9/11.”

“They’re holding this guy under armed guard by the locals right now,” McCarter stated. “Since he’s obviously in the country illegally, they’re telling us this falls to the jurisdiction of the Panamanian government.”

“Yeah, what’s the deal with that, Hal?” Hawkins said. “I thought they wanted our help.”

“I’m not sure, guys, but we’ll get on it immediately. You’ll get their cooperation one way or another, I guarantee it.”

“What about your CIA contact?” Price asked. “Have you met with him yet?”

“Not yet,” McCarter replied. “We—”

A steady rap at the door cut him short.

“Speak of the devil, that’s probably him now.”

McCarter nodded to Manning, who crossed the room to answer the door, James on his heels as backup. They were probably secure in this location but in light of recent discoveries that might point to the fact the place was crawling with al Qaeda terrorists, there wasn’t any point in taking chances.

Manning opened the door after verifying James was in position and stood aside to admit a tall, well-dressed man with short red hair and a strong jaw. The man’s gray eyes darted from man to man, and he took in the entire room with a natural pause. He didn’t wait but a second before he began speaking.

“Hey, fellas,” he said in a deep, scratchy voice with a Southern twang. He tossed a salute and said, “The name’s Herndon. I’m with the Panama desk.”

Their CIA contact.

“We’ve been waiting on you,” McCarter said tightly. “You were supposed to meet us here over three bloody hours ago.”

“Yeah, sorry about that. I got held up.”

Before anyone could reply, Nativida burst into the room with a flushed face and sweat soaking through all the usual places on his nice suit.

“Gentlemen, please come now! The man you captured is about to escape!”

It didn’t take long for Able Team to find the bodies of the two immigrants who’d been shot. As soon as they arrived, the trio took charge and formed a skirmish line. Two sheriff’s deputies located the bullet-riddled pair nestled between a large patch of sagebrush. Able Team ordered the teams to continue walking their skirmish line to search for any clues while they checked the bodies for identification. To no one’s surprise, they didn’t find any.