Don Pendleton - Critical Intelligence

The grenade explosion filled the space behind the man. Suddenly a thin red syrup splashed the windowpane just as the glass burst outward from the concussive force, spraying shrapnel out in a deadly arc.

Manning and James automatically shifted the muzzles of their weapons and let loose with a long series of 3-round bursts, tearing the rear door to shreds and throwing a wall of lead into the trailer to cut off retreat for the terrorists trapped inside.

From the other side of the trailer came the distinctive sounds of M-4 carbines firing as McCarter and Hawkins moved in to mop up.

Smoke rolled out of shattered windows as the firing stopped.

“Clear!” McCarter barked.

“Clear!” James shouted.

“Phoenix has seized objective,” McCarter announced.

“Able is clear,” Lyons confirmed through the com link.

“I copy.” Jack Grimaldi’s voice broke in from where he circled the Osprey CV-22B overhead. “Airfield secured. We’re coming in.”

Barbara Price opened her eyes.

She awoke clearheaded and alert, knowing exactly where she was and what she needed to do.

There was a war being fought in the shadows and as the Stony Man mission controller, she was at its epicenter. Her eyes went to the window of her bedroom. It was dark outside. She looked over to her bedside table and read the time on the glowing red numerals of her digital clock.

She had been asleep for a little over four hours. She sat up and pushed a slender hand through her honey-blond hair. She felt revitalized after her power nap, and with a single cup of Aaron “Bear” Kurtzman’s coffee, she knew she’d be ready to face another day.

She got up and smoothed her clothes before picking up the copy of the Washington Post she had placed by the bed. Before stepping out into the upstairs hallway of the Stony Man Farm main house, she reread the headline that had jumped out at her.

Government Accounting Office Finds Fraud

A GAO investigation led by Deputy Director Hammond Carter has led to a senate investigation of funding for several “black op” Pentagon units…

Disgusted, Price stopped reading. The mission controller had too much on her mind at the moment to worry about politics as usual in Washington, D.C.

She frowned. The name “Hammond Carter” was unfamiliar. If there was a new player trampling through intelligence and special operations playgrounds, then she needed to be on top of it. She resolved to have her computer wizard Akira Tokaido see if Stony Man had any files on the man.

As she walked down the hall and then the stairs to the main floor of the farmhouse she began mentally clicking through options and categorizing her tasks. She had men in the field, preparing to go into danger and, like the conductor of a symphony, it was her responsibility to coordinate all the disparate parts into a seamless whole.

She was in the basement and headed for the rail system to the Annex when the cell phone on her belt began to vibrate. She plucked it free and used the red push-talk button to initiate the walkie-talkie mode on the encrypted device.

“This is Price,” she said, voice cool.

“Barb,” Carmen Delahunt began, “the teams are in jump-off mode.”

“Thanks, Carmen,” Price told the ex-FBI agent. “I’m in the tunnel and coming toward the Annex now.”

“See you in a minute.” Delahunt signed off.

Price put her phone away and got into the light electric rail car. The little engine began to hum and she quickly picked up speed as she shot down the one thousand-foot tunnel sunk fifteen feet below the ground of Virginia’s Blue Ridge Mountains.

Things were starting to come together, and Price could sense the tingle she had first felt as a mission controller for long-range operations conducted by the National Security Agency. It was there she had made her bones in the intelligence business before being recruited by Hal Brognola to run logistics and support at the top secret Stony Man Farm.

It had been quite a promotion, she reflected as the rail car raced down the subterranean tunnel past conduit pipes and thick power cables toward the Farm’s Annex, camouflaged underneath a commercial wood-chipping facility.

Stony Man had operated as a clandestine antiterrorist operation since long before the infamous attacks of September 11 had put all of America’s military, intelligence and law-enforcement efforts on the same page. Stony Man operated as it always had—under the direct control of the White House and separate from both the Joint Special Operations Command and the Directorate of National Intelligence.

Stony Man had been given carte blanche to operate at peak efficiency, eliminating oversights and legalities in the name of pragmatic results. It also, perhaps most importantly, offered the U.S. government the ability to disavow any knowledge of operations that went badly. Sometimes the big picture could be a very cold and unforgiving snapshot.

This left Stony Man and its operators particularly vulnerable to certain types of exposure. One hint of their existence in a place like MSNBC or the New York Times could lead to horrific outcomes.

The electric engine beneath her seat began to power down, and the rail car slowed to a halt. She pushed the morose reflections from her mind as it entered the Annex building.

Things were ready to roll hot; she could not afford to be distracted now. She stood and stepped out of the car. Fluorescent lights gleamed off linoleum floors and a sign on the whitewashed wall read Authorized Personnel Only. Beside the sign a member of the Farm’s security staff nodded to her and reached over to the keypad that controlled the door to the tunnel. The fit, broad-shouldered man wore a black uniform and carried a 9 mm H&K MP-5 submachine gun.

Coming through the door, she was met by the wheelchair-bound Aaron Kurtzman. The big man reached out a hand the size of a paw and gave her a steaming mug of coffee. She eyed the ink-colored liquid dubiously.

“Thanks, Bear. That’s just what I’ve been missing—something that can put hair on my chest.”

The pair of them had exchanged that exact same greeting so many times it was like a Groundhog Day moment. Both took comfort in the repetition.

Kurtzman turned the wheelchair and began to keep pace with the female mission controller as they made for the Communications Center.

The former Big Ten college wrestler lifted a massive arm across a barrel chest and pushed his glasses up on his nose beneath a high forehead with a deep horizontal crease. Price had once teased him that the worry line was severe enough for him to be awarded a Purple Heart.

After he’d earned his Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota, Kurtzman had been a computer programmer in one form or another. He was a Stony Man veteran who had been with the Farm since the beginning, and his wheelchair was a constant testament to his dedication.

“McCarter just called for Phoenix,” he said, his voice a low rumble. “They’re set up with Grimaldi at the secure helipad. Lyons did the same for Able Team. They’re in place and ready to execute.”

“Good,” Barb said. She took a drink of the extrastrong coffee and pulled a face. “I’ll alert Hal, then. All we need is the go-ahead from the President.”

The pair entered the massive Communications Center and into a maelstrom of activity. Price paused at the door like a commander surveying her troops. She liked what she saw.

Kurtzman glided over to his work area, where it looked as if a bomb had gone off. His desk was covered in faxes, paperwork and the exposed wiring of a half dozen devices. Behind his desk a coffeepot, stained as black as the mud that filled it, bubbled like a tar pit.

Next to Kurtzman’s desk, fingers flying across a laptop while monitoring a sat link, Akira Tokaido bobbed his head in time to the music coming from a single earbud. The lean, compact hacker was the youngest member of Stony Man’s cybernetics team and the heir apparent to Kurtzman himself. The Japanese American cyber wizard had at times worked virtual magic when Price had needed him to.