Don Pendleton - Power Grab

“Are you saying,” Lyons asked him, “that the bombs could go off because they sense us coming?”

“That’s exactly what I’m saying,” Schwarz confirmed. “Also this device is one of a kind. There isn’t time to build more, nor to test this one. So nobody drop it.” He looked at Blancanales and then back to Lyons.

“Wonderful,” Lyons said.

“Phoenix,” Price said, “will deploy to Iran. The CIA has operatives placed within Iranian security who will conduct you from there. You’ll enter the country as Canadian journalists and then fall off the radar to conduct your operation covertly with the CIA’s assistance. Able Team will use the Warlock surveillance feed to perform terrorist interdiction here.”

“The goal,” Brognola said, “is to stop the terrorist attacks centered in Tehran and, if possible, uncover Ovan’s network there. We also want to prevent an outright assassination of Khan if we can. If you can expose the terror connection there, we’ll redeploy you to deal with Ovan directly. If you can’t get anything on him, however, there’s little we can do except find and destroy the source of the Iranian bombs so that Ovan cannot continue to make use of them. Able, meanwhile, will deal with the threat at home using the more direct approach.”

“At least there’s that,” Lyons said.

“Jack Grimaldi is standing by,” Price said, referring to Stony Man’s senior pilot, “and he’ll hop you from target to target. The Warlock network has produced a priority list, and the signals we receive will help redirect you once you get closer to each potential strike point.”

“All right, then,” McCarter said. He stood. “What are we wasting time here for?”

“Good luck,” Brognola said. “And good hunting.”

Price lingered as the rest of the teams filed out, their conversations growing louder and more businesslike as they began to discuss the missions ahead of them. Kurtzman shot a salute to Brognola as he wheeled in front of the screen, and Brognola nodded in acknowledgment.

“You okay, Hal?” Price asked, stopping Brognola as he reached for the disconnect button.

“I’m always okay, Barb,” Brognola said. “You know how it is. This job is never easy.”

“I do,” Price said. “Just…take care of yourself, Hal. We all count on you.”

“And the country,” Brognola said, “counts on them.” He pointed at his camera, and Price knew he meant the soldiers who had just left. Brognola’s extended finger came down on his unit’s disconnect button. His screen went blank.

“Another day,” Price said to the empty room, “another mission to save the world.”

She shook her head. Enough introspection. There was a lot of work to do.

Ithaca, New York

The twin rotors of the massive Boeing MH-47G Chinook helicopter flattened the grass of the field in which ace pilot Jack Grimaldi brought the big bird down. With a top speed of close to 200 miles per hour, the heavy chopper was overkill for ferrying Able Team around—the helicopter could lift and transport a bulldozer or an M-198 howitzer—but it had been readily available while time was of the essence. The chopper had a 450-mile range, and with the Warlock network and U.S. intelligence projecting their targets to be clustered in the New England area, this Special Operations Aviation version of the Chinook would serve well to hop them from site to site. The chopper boasted an advanced avionics system, a fast-rope rappelling system and was no slouch as an assault chopper. A single Chinook so equipped could, Grimaldi had told Able Team enthusiastically, replace multiple UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters.

Carl Lyons just wished the damned thing was a little smaller.

It was no small feat to land a chopper somewhere other than an airstrip or helipad, that much he knew. The wires and telephone poles, not to mention the trees, that dotted their landing zone made Lyons decidedly nervous as Grimaldi deftly fitted the machine into the space available.

The members of Able Team filed out of the chopper, weapons at the ready. There was no attempt at subtlety here, and there would be no hiding in plain sight in civilian clothes, trying to keep those around them from seeing what they were doing. No, there was no time for niceties of that kind. The Warlock network indicated that one of the Iranian bombs was online in the area, and Carl Lyons could see why terrorists might have selected this location.

Men and women dressed for spring gasped and backed up as Lyons, Schwarz and Blancanales approached. All were dressed in combat boots and black BDUs, although Lyons had foregone the BDU blouse for a brown leather bomber jacket over a black T-shirt. Each man carried web gear or, in Lyons’s case, a canvas shoulder bag bearing extra magazines and other weaponry. Lyons’s bag was stuffed with 20-round polymer drum magazines for the Daewoo USAS-12 select-fire 12-gauge assault weapon he favored. In a leather shoulder holster under his left arm, he carried his .357 Magnum Colt Python. Schwarz and Blancanales both carried M-16 rifles, although Schwarz also had his Beretta 93-R machine pistol in shoulder leather, and Blancanales had a Beretta M-9 in a dropped thigh rig.

Each member of Able Team wore a microtransceiver earbud in his ear. The processors in the little devices cut the sound of gunfire but transmitted even a whisper from the owner, amplifying such sounds so that each member of the audio network could hear them. The effective range of the little earbuds wasn’t very great, but it was more than enough for the typical combat ranges in which the team typically fought.

Schwarz moved out in front as Blancanales and Lyons flanked him, weapons at the ready. Somebody in the crowd screamed. The three men of Able Team found themselves among the hedgerow parking lot of the Ithaca Farmer’s Market, which would have been a peaceful scene if not for the roar of the Chinook’s rotors, the artificial windstorm caused by its presence and the rushing crowds hurrying to avoid the armed men now approaching them.

Lyons wasn’t happy about terrifying civilians in this way, and he was keenly aware of the danger presented by a spooked crowd. As the three advanced, each one of them shouted, “Government agents. Remain calm. We are authorized Justice Department agents. Do not panic.”

He wondered if an armed man shouting “Do not panic” was likely to produce the desired effect. He doubted it.

Still, there was nothing they could do about it. There was a job to do, and Schwarz, in front with his whiz-bang techno-remote, was following some sort of sine-wave graphic on its tiny LCD screen. Carl Lyons didn’t care how it worked; the device was the domain of Gadgets Schwarz. As long as the device kept them from exploding when they got near the bomb, he was satisfied.

Someone shouted to call the police, and Lyons shot the woman a baleful glare. “We are the police,” he said.

She just stared at him, then repeated her appeal to call the police.

Well, that figured, and some part of him was proud of her for not simply bowing to asserted authority. Too many people could be fooled into doing what they were told by people who meant them harm, simply because the predators of the world counted on bullying their victims into submission.

The farmer’s market was an open-air covered pavilion that stretched in two different directions, forming an L-shape. It was quite large, and secondary sections containing booths and display tables jutted out at different points along the building. There was food for sale, some of it obviously still cooking as those preparing it fled their posts. There was also a ton of flea-market-style junk. Everything from garage-sale electronics to new, Chinese-made tourist-trap merchandise was arrayed for sale on line after line of folding tables.