Don Pendleton - Gathering Storm

“I already have my people pulling in all the data they can. Soon as we get it all together, maybe we can pin something down.”

“Hal, this is priority. Find out what’s going on and shut it down. Any problems over anything you need, call me. I’ll leave contact details so you can access me at anytime.”

Brognola recalled some of the hot spots the information had indicated. They were widespread across the Middle East and Europe.

“Glad you mentioned that, Sir.”

Stony Man Farm, Virginia

BROGNOLA HEARD the War Room door open. He glanced around to see the men of Able Team entering and making their way across to the conference table.

Carl Lyons, the team commander, Rosario Blancanales and Hermann Schwarz, were skilled, seasoned individuals. Each man had his own unique personality. For the most part, Able Team handled missions within the borders of the U.S. With the spread of terrorism, the associated threats and the expansion of the playing fields, Able Team was sometimes to be found taking trips well beyond the territorial boundaries of the U.S. mainland. In the end they went where the mission dictated.

Blancanales took himself to the coffee station that held the simmering pot of coffee and poured himself a mug.

“Hey, anyone want coffee?”

“I’ll have one,” Brognola said, recalling Kurtzman’s promise to bring his own. “Black. No sugar.”

“That it?” Blancanales asked. No one else spoke.

Lyons dropped into a seat close by Brognola, studying the big Fed closely.

“You okay?”

“I could do with a couple of days somewhere quiet and deserted. Apart from that, I’m doing fine, but thanks for asking.”

Schwarz, sitting a little distance away, leaned forward. “Why don’t you go with him, Carl? A break would be helpful right now.”

“I don’t need a break.”

“I was thinking about me and Pol,” Schwarz said, his face blank.

“One day, when I’m really gone, you’ll remember all the things you said.”

Blancanales placed Brognola’s coffee on the table, then took a seat. He glanced across at Lyons.

“No, we won’t. We’ll be too busy having f-u-n.”

The War Room’s door opened and Aaron Kurtzman rolled his wheelchair across the floor. He was carrying the familiar coffeepot he kept brewing 24/7 in the Computer Room. Behind the broad-shouldered cyberexpert was Barbara Price. Tall, blond and utterly capable, Price was Brognola’s mission controller. She thrived on a crisis alert, remaining calm and in control, whatever the situation. She moved ahead of Kurtzman, reaching the conference table and depositing a stack of files in front of her seat.

“Phoenix has arrived,” she informed them as she took her place. “Be down any minute.”

Kurtzman had moved across to the coffee station. He placed his pot down and plugged it into one of the power sockets.

“Never leave home without it,” he said as he took his place at the conference table, in front of the panel of controls he used to illustrate his findings on the large TV wall screens. He tapped the keyboard and the screens snapped to life. Images and data were displayed in sharp profile.

“Any new material?” Brognola asked.

“Try this.”

Kurtzman brought up a report from the Arabic TV network Al-Jazeera. The station, broadcasting all across the Middle East, had become known for its strong, uncensored images during the Iraq war. It had come under some criticism for the way it showed the news, but countered that it was primarily there to broadcast to the Arab nations and to depict the incidents as they happened, not in the sanitized versions shown to Western audiences.

“Say what you like about these guys,” Kurtzman remarked, “but what you get is what you see.”

The item showed a bullet-riddled car skewed across a street. Doors were open and bodies were seen in the vehicle or hanging half out of it. There were also three bodies on the road. The whole scene was familiar to the Stony Man crew. An ambush, the car riddled with autofire and the passengers killed before they could react.

“Do we know who the victims are?” Price asked.

“UN personnel based in Baghdad. The three on the ground outside the car were Iraqi police. They were in the car just showing on the right side of the picture.”

“Did this actually happen in Baghdad?” Schwarz asked.

Kurtzman nodded. “Our mystery players are starting to get confident. No more hiding in dark alleys. They’re showing they can do this with impunity. In broad daylight.”

Phoenix Force came into the War Room at that point, taking their places at the table.

“We miss anything?” David McCarter asked.

Brognola indicated the screen image. “Aaron was just showing us the latest incident in Baghdad. UN team ambushed and shot. Three Iraqi police officers, as well. That’s on top of the Kurdish attack on a Turkish military post.”

“From intel reports we’ve been monitoring there seems to be a lot of activity in the Middle East region,” Price said. “Now, I understand there’s always something going on, but in the last week or so, this activity has gone up a notch. There’s a concentration around Iraq. Attacks on U.S. and U.K. personnel. The UN. Covert intelligence suggests there’s a deal of background rumblings in the major Iraqi cities. And we’ve all heard about the renewed incidents in Israel and Palestine. We have information on recruitment in the Mideast and Europe of hard-line Ba’athist supporters. Loyalists of Saddam’s regime. All low-key at the moment. We were hard put to get a trace on the who and the why, but these photos have kind of got us on track.”

Price spread out copies of Abe Keen’s prints.

“Khariza?” Manning said. “He’s supposed to be dead.”

“Looks anything but deceased to me,” Calvin James remarked.

“The journalist—who took these—Abe Keen, was found murdered in his apartment in London the same night he got back from Italy where he had taken the photos,” Brognola said.

“Aren’t those others from his old group?” Blancanales asked, glancing up from examining the prints.

Brognola nodded. “They’re all there except one. And we know where he was.”

“Kamal Rasheed. Brokering a deal for arms in Santa Lorca,” McCarter said by way of explanation.

“Phoenix broke up the connection in Santa Lorca and got a name. Luiz Santos. Aaron ran a make and it seems he’s been in the business some while. The information we got was that the weapons Rasheed has previously bought went via Santos into the U.S. What we need now is where they went after that and what they are going to be used for. The organizer Phoenix found in Rasheed’s attaché case may give us some answers about Rasheed’s dealings.”

“Anything from it yet?” James asked.

“Most of the entries were in Arabic script. They’re being translated now. If and when we get anything useful, it will be sent to the appropriate team,” Kurtzman said.

“Are we looking at anything significant time-wise?” Gary Manning asked. “What I mean is, are we looking at a special date? A reason to launch any possible attacks on a particular day?”

Price shook her head. “There is a significant Iraqi election of provincial leaders coming up. It’s taking time to build the permanent inner council to run the country. You all know the timetable. A couple of less-than-successful attempts. Clashes between political and religious thinking. Intertribal rivalry. Only this time ’round, everyone is hoping the various parties can reach an amicable working agreement. If these incidents keep occurring they could throw the various groups into doubt. And that would go down a treat with Khariza’s group.”

“So an incident on the day of the election would give cause for concern,” Manning said.