Don Pendleton - Ramrod Intercept

“And disrupt,” Brognola said. “There is nothing wrong with your television sets, NORAD. We are in complete control.”

“In a worst-case scenario,” Kurtzman went on. “What our three AWOL contacts told us is called Ramrod Intercept is currently on the drawing board and is designed to shut down early warning of ballistic missile launches or air attacks. Akira and Hunt get all worked up when they start talking about excimers, carbon dioxide molecular transfers and gas exits, but it’s essentially pulse radiation from what I can understand.”

“I get something of the picture,” Brognola said. “We’re talking about the next step in silent, invisible warfare. Warfare directed from space.”

“Or even from the ground,” Kurtzman said, “if you have the microchips, a computer, the component parts of what the missing informants called a roving command center.”

“We still have three more civilian brain suits who hacked into the Pandora’s box, right? These college playboys running scared?”

“Carl,” Price informed Brognola, referring to Carl “Ironman” Lyons, the leader of Able Team, “states he has them under constant surveillance. Alive and well, I might add.”

Kurtzman grunted. “Carl’s on a short leash, I have to tell you, Hal. Well, you know the guy’s bulldog style. He says if he has to go into one more gentlemen’s club and order soda water and watch everyone else having a grand old time while he’s playing a poor man’s Magnum with his thumb up his—”

“I get the drift,” Brognola said. “He’s about to go apeshit. And this is where, once again, I get the long hard pauses from the Man to the point where I nearly have to ask him if he’s still there. He tells me, item—DYSAT is a legitimate Air Force–run classified project, funded, of course, by Congress. Bottom line he wants absolute, one hundred percent concrete proof there’s a conspiracy before I send Lyons and Able Team crashing down the front door, kicking ass and taking no names.”

“They’re working on it,” Price said. “And we have enough suspicion, handed to you by way of the FBI, that there is a conspiracy to get these weapons and the Ramrod Intercept technology to both the Sudan and the Iranians.”

“Which brings me to Striker’s status. Well?”

Brognola read into the anvil of silence. Mack Bolan, also known as the Executioner, was Stony Man’s lone wolf operative. There would be no Phoenix Force or Able Team this time out watching his back. They all knew that, days ago and going in.

“Limbo, to quote you, and holding,” Kurtzman said, “at a U.S. air base in Saudi.”

“I haven’t quite gotten the particulars yet on what he’s supposed to do or how he’s prepared to get into Sudan, a country hostile, to understate it, folks, to the West.”

“Once we receive the green light,” Price volunteered, “Striker will be air-inserted inside the Sudanese border, a HALO jump from a Starlifter C-141.”

“I’m waiting for the good news.”

“I’ve arranged for a CIA contract agent to meet him, roughly twenty kilometers northwest of Port Sudan. One call on a secured satlink from the Company, and the contract agent will be there to pick Striker up, on-site and waiting. Striker will have a passport stating he’s an Iranian businessman who deals in Persian rugs and jewelry, if he finds himself facing down Sudanese soldiers while in-country.”

“That’s thin, Barbara. Especially if he’s confronted by the Sudanese authorities at a roadblock and they decide to lock him up until they can check him out. They tend to skin Western spies over there alive and feed them their own flesh.”

“It was the best we could do, Hal,” Kurtzman offered. “Since we have an ongoing situation in Port Sudan, and since we strongly suspect DYSAT is funneling the high-tech goodies through the country—”

“And with the Company contract agent as an escort,” Price quickly put in. “It’s dicey, I know, but Striker insisted he go. Shake some trees and see what falls. He said…he’d figure it out.”

Brognola had to smile at Bolan’s balls-to-the-wall philosophy. “Tell me why I’m not surprised he said that.”

He and the others dropped into silence as each of them hashed over the enormity of not one, but three separate missions. Just the same, three or five doors to bulldoze through, Brognola could see the dots beginning to connect all over the map.

The only thing left was to take decisive action, start putting the old boot through some doors and find out what waited on the other side.

The clean-and-simple approach.

“Is he dropping in with a full bag of necessities, Barbara?”

“One commando knife, his Beretta, just in case.”

“God knows…”

“Once he’s inside Port Sudan, the contract agent will land him the requisite hardware.”

Brognola rubbed his face. “Okay, so I guess we just work it out as we go along.”

“The usual,” Kurtzman said.

“Right. What’s new?”

Brognola found Kurtzman studying the world map on a monitor, suddenly as grim as hell. “What is it?”

Kurtzman cleared his throat. “Well, we have a window for about, well, another two hours, tops.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning if we don’t get the call, we’ll have to wait another full twenty-four hours—or rather Phoenix will have to wait. If we’re going for a dawn strike it has to get under way ASAP, according to the timetable we’ve laid out. And there’s another piece of bad news, Hal.”

Maybe it was nerves or just plain weariness, but Brognola sounded off a grim chuckle. “Oh, this is getting better by the minute. Do tell.”

“At roughly six o’clock, Madagascar time, the ONI-1 satellite is going to have to get moving on. Akira tells me there’s a Russian satellite moving in the same orbital path.”

“A collision course with a Russian satellite? How in the…? Never mind. I never understood how the Russian mind works anyway. You’re telling me no one on either side can move either satellite’s orbital path from down here?”

“Not can, but will they?” Price posed. “I’ve been stonewalled at Langley, and no one at the DOD has an answer.”

“So,” Brognola said, “Phoenix is on their own, and we’re blind to what they’re up against because the Russians…unbelievable. It’s outer space, folks. You mean to tell me…they can’t…or won’t…”

“We’ll still have the satlink,” Kurtzman said, but his grim expression told Brognola that was little comfort.

The silence was hanging for long moments, thick enough to reach out and grab it, when the red phone trilled. The big Fed nearly bit his cigar in two as he felt their eyes boring into him. A deep breath, expecting more bad news, and he lifted the receiver.

Brognola recognized the voice as the Man said, “A few items we need to go over first, and I want to make certain we are crystal…”

He wasn’t sure if high anxiety hit the air or relief was lighting up their faces, but he knew they were reading the gleam in his eyes, stone-cold frozen and watching. Brognola didn’t even hear the next few words, but he knew enough, reading into the Man’s tone. He gave them the thumbs-up.

“Every day’s just one big party for these guys. Cars, broads, blow, not a care in the world. One big tits-and-ass joyride. I tell you what—”

“Oh, shit.”

Rosario Blancanales knew that god-of-thunder voice for what it signaled. Trouble was on the way, mayhem imminent and aplenty and just around the corner, but so far Carl Lyons was keeping his temper reined in.

Barely.

Blancanales was edged out some himself, all the waiting and watching eating at nerves demanding action. Still he regretted the slip, not wishing to incite Lyons to blow before the time was right for a real showdown.