Don Pendleton: Power Grab

“On the world stage, meanwhile,” he said, “the Man is worried that we can’t simply hit Ovan and cut this off at the source, because all of the evidence we have is covert intelligence. We can’t afford to point to any more satellite photos of WMD factories that turn out to be anything but…and we can’t afford to move against Turkmenistan in an official capacity, not even as a black operation, unless we can turn public opinion against Ovan and show the world he’s got his hands in the terror attacks in Iran. If his involvement is exposed, the Iranians will scream bloody murder about the interference, and Magham’s fate will be sealed. That’s especially true if his own involvement in the plot is outed.”

“So what are we doing?” Lyons asked.

“A WMD-equipped Ovan would be a nightmare for us all,” Brognola said. “His terror network, at this point, quite possibly rivals al Qaeda. But more years of hard-line rule under Magham does no one any favors, either. We need to expose the terror link in Iran and do what we can to ensure an honest victory for Khan while putting a stop to Ovan’s terror network and removing him from power.”

“Oh, is that all?” McCarter said.

Stony Man ®

America’s Ultra-Cover Intelligence Agency

www.mirabooks.co.uk

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

EPILOGUE

Rochester, New York

“Quiet!” Nargoly Pyragy ordered. “He is coming!”

The three men watched, crouched behind the concrete-and-faux-marble planter from which projected fake trees covered in plastic leaves. Pyragy, painfully thin, his dark hair thinning, was the oldest and smallest of the trio and was painfully aware of the responsibility he bore. The two others, Kanzi Nihemedow and Gandosi Burdimedezov, were still in their prime and only too eager to strike a blow against the Great Satan. Pyragy would have scoffed had he been alone. He had long since seen the emptiness of such rhetoric. The rest was simply a job, a dangerous job, left to him to conduct.

Nihemedow, who was built like Pyragy but much more handsome, saw himself as the dashing hero of some fantasy. To him the dirty, risky business of such raids was something from a storybook he would read his many children one day. Burdimedezov, the big one, thicker by half through the shoulders than even the second-biggest man Pyragy had ever met, was at least more realistic, though perhaps a bit too willing to rush headlong into danger. That would fade, leaving a skillful operator in its place, for Pyragy knew the large man had in him the ability to go far in intelligence services.

Too many underestimated a fellow Burdimedezov’s size, believing him slow-witted muscle. Gandosi Burdimedezov, Pyragy had no doubt, liked it just so. Such a man preferred to be underestimated. Yes, he would go far…and most likely outlive a veteran like Pyragy by decades.

But then, such a thing was never certain in work like this.

Pyragy placed the metal case gently in position. As had been explained to them, the mechanism was perfectly safe until it was armed. Even then, it should not be fully active, as the technicians explained, until they were well clear. Pyragy wasn’t sure how much faith he placed in the pronouncements of men who wouldn’t be in the field, next to the bomb, betting their lives on these assurances. He didn’t have any choice. At times like these he envied those whose religious faith told them a glorious death in battle against the West would guarantee them a path to Paradise. Pyragy had long ago given up on any such fantasies; he had seen too much, done too much and killed too much to believe in anything but the finality of a bullet or the cold touch of sharpened steel.

He pressed the buttons of the external keypad in sequence. There were five, all blank, lined up for the fingers of a man’s hand. He tapped the combination from memory. There was a chirping acknowledgment from inside the box, loud enough for only Pyragy to hear, and he jerked despite himself when he heard it. Glancing left, then right, making sure the two men with him had not seen, he turned his attention back to the case.

The lid opened slowly on small hydraulic pistons, as if the box wished to reveal its contents dramatically. Inside, the flashing lights of the computerized status board blinked slowly as text scrolled across the three backlighted LCD screens in the machine’s face.

At the front of the case, dominating the lower half of the hinged mechanism, three stainless-steel orbs were set half flush with the midline of the case. These were the explosives themselves, the warheads. Each was the size of a baseball and each was staggeringly deadly—a shaped plastic explosive core covered in hexagonal shrapnel plates that were in turn layered with solid toxins. On detonation, the shrapnel would excite the toxic resin layer and produce a poison cloud that would linger over the blast radius.

Knowing that there would be no turning back after he pressed the buttons, Pyragy entered the start-up sequence. The machine hummed. Its status readouts responded immediately. Pyragy moved as far from the bomb as he could, which was not very far. Again he hoped that neither of the other two men noticed his actions.

Nihemedow, who was never truly still, began to peer around the side of the planter. Grateful for the chance to focus on more concrete concerns, Pyragy poked him with two fingers and made a sharp gesture of warning. Nihemedow returned the look with one of dire portent but withdrew his head just as the security guard’s footsteps grew louder. The man had rounded the corner and would soon pass by their location.

In planning this step of the operation, it was of course Nihemedow who suggested the guard be killed. There was a single night guard known to patrol within the shopping mall at night. There were options for dealing with him. They could wait for him to complete his circuit, plant the device while the man was known to take a scheduled break from eleven o’clock to eleven-thirty and escape before anyone suspected. This option carried with it the risk of discovery during any point. The device would have to be tended while it went through its interminable acclimation program, during which it could not be disturbed. If the guard were to vary his routine, which Pyragy and his team had established during the previous weeks’ surveillance, it could ruin everything.

To say he had reluctantly approved the assassination of one fat American would be overstating the case. He didn’t care. He wasn’t the sort of man to leave any detail to chance or to last-minute decisions, however, so the act had been preplanned right to the man who would do it. Kanzi Nihemedow was eager to blood himself—perhaps too eager—and so he would do the deed. It seemed like such a small detail, in the grand scheme of things, but the death of any single man was no small thing. There was great power in death. This Pyragy understood.