Don Pendleton - Incendiary Dispatch

Gus screamed.

Blancanales landed both knees on either side of Gus’s spine. All the air in Gus’s body seemed to explode out of his mouth and he mustered no more noise or resistance.

“Need a hand?” Schwarz asked as he and Lyons arrived. Schwarz’s unfired 93-R covered the lifeless technician.

“No, I got this.” Blancanales gave Schwarz and Lyons a wicked grin. “Leave me in the car, will ya?”

“Able One?” Price said in the headsets. “What’s the status?”

“How should I know?” Lyons growled. “I’m just Pol’s sidekick.”

“Able Three here,” Blancanales said. “Listen, we have a backpack full of cell phones. These guys were going to swap them out. They’re just changing out cell phones, for God’s sake. This one was about to call somebody. If we make the call, we can trace it, right?”

“Yes,” Kurtzman said. “Give me the serial number.”

Schwarz snatched Gus’s phone and pulled a miniature screwdriver out of a small leg pack. He spun the screws off and recited the serial number.

“Here’s my thought,” Blancanales said quickly. “We place the call, get the trace, then detonate some of the old phone devices. We take the new phones and the rest of the devices with us. Maybe whoever was in charge of having them placed, will think this pair screwed something up. Then we get these quick to the Farm and figure out whatever we can from them.”

“It can’t hurt,” Price said.

“But I doubt they’ll buy it,” Schwarz said. He was now holding one of the devices—the one that the explosive chisel had sliced off the side of the railroad track. “They’re using some kick-ass adhesive. Some sort of modified cyanoacrylate, I’d guess. Unless you’re packing nail polish remover, we’re not getting these things off the rails in a hurry.”

“We can’t risk it,” Lyons said. “If these guys are expected to report in and don’t—they might risk blowing these devices.”

“No way,” Schwarz said. “They’re replacing the phones for a reason. To avoid using the old, traceable signal.”

“How sure are you of that, Gadgets?” Blancanales demanded. “Sure enough to stick around?”

“No way to that, either,” Schwarz conceded.

“We’ve got the phone online,” Kurtzman said. “When you make the call, we’ll trace it.”

Schwarz removed the old-system cell phone from the device in his hands. He jogged up the track and snatched out the new-system cell phone that the Technical Man had put there. He had the backpack over one shoulder.

“Dead,” Lyons announced after a quick check of the technician with the cratered skull. He gave a bark of disbelief when he saw Blancanales about to hoist Gus onto his shoulders. “I’ll get that one,” Lyons said. “I think your nerve endings must’ve fried out, Pol. Your guts should be screaming at you by now.”

“They’re a little achy,” Blancanales admitted.

In fact, the burn wound was throbbing. He could count the sutures by each individual needle of pain emanating from his side.

Lyons tossed groaning Gus over his shoulder and plodded with him up the steep berm. Schwarz had stayed behind to plant the phone in the ignition device adhered to the track, then he hustled after Lyons and Blancanales.

“I’m set,” Schwarz said. “But I don’t think this is gonna fool anybody.”

* * *

A SMALLER GROUP had gathered in the War Room. Phoenix Force was absent, now en route to Europe. Able Team was on hand, as was Stony Man armorer John “Cowboy” Kissinger, a tall man with broad shoulders and narrow hips. Kissinger was well-known for his expertise with almost every type of weapon. He could dismantle and rebuild any firearms system put in front of him.

Kissinger was—like almost everyone at the Farm—a veteran of bigger, more public organizations in the outside world. He had spent years with the U.S. Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs. When it was restructured as the Drug Enforcement Administration, or DEA, Kissinger went freelance for some time before finding a home at Stony Man Farm. He maintained the Farm armory, often upgrading and improving the standard-issue equipment.

“Explosives,” Kissinger said, “are not my primary focus, but I read the research. Including the stuff the military researchers don’t know I’m reading. So I know what the state of the art is in weaponized nanothermites.” He set the device on the table, now in pieces, and waved a hand at it. “This is beyond what we thought of as state of the art.”

Hal Brognola, sitting at his desk in Washington, edged forward in his seat and adjusted a camera on one of his displays to focus on the device. “Weaponized nanothermites aren’t new.”

“No way,” Schwarz said. “They’ve been tested for years. They’re looking at using MICs as primer in small arms. Not even for performance improvements. They want primers that won’t release vaporized lead every time a round is fired.”

“And this is an MIC?” Price asked.

Kissinger shook his head. “It’s not.”

“It’s not?” Schwarz echoed.

“It’s not a composite—not in the way everyone thinks of an MIC, a Metastable Intermolecular Composite,” Kissinger said. “The standard assumption is that MICs are laminated composites. It puts an ultrathin, nanoscale layer of aluminum or some other metal fuel atop a layer of an oxidizer. The two materials are exothermically reactive, and the proximity is so close that the diffusion of the oxidizer and fuel happens much more quickly and energetically. The rate of reaction is much, much faster. We’ve been working on tuning nanolaminated pyrotechnics to achieve different results. Different metals used in the nanolayers, different fillers used to separate and encase the laminates, give you interesting results. And the reaction time is far superior to a simple mixture of the old powders used in more standard incendiaries.”

“So how’s this different?” Schwarz demanded.

“Particle size, for one. We’re working with 100 to 200 nanometer-diameter particles when making the MICs. The particles in these devices are much, much smaller. They’re in the range of one-quarter to one-half of one nanometer in size.”

“They can do that?” Schwarz asked.

“Can we do that, you mean?” Kissinger asked. “Yeah. Maybe. Maybe in a lab. Or maybe not.”

“So layers of particles that fine,” Price said, “would be that much closer together. The reaction is that much faster.”

“Much faster,” Kissinger confirmed. “Here’s where it gets interesting. There are no layers in this device. Instead of a layer of fuel and a layer of oxidizer, the particles are conjoined.”

“Conjoined?” Price queried.

“No way!” Schwarz said. “They can do that?”

“Can we do that, you mean?” Kissinger repeated. “No way. They can, obviously. And they did.”

“Conjoined—layers?” Kurtzman asked. “I think I’m a few steps back.”

“You’re not the only one,” Brognola muttered loudly. “I’ve been lost for the past five minutes.”

“Conjoined particles. Take one particle of fuel—at 0.5 nanometer in diameter. Take one particle of oxidizer, same size. Adhere them so they’re conjoined. They’re glued together. The reaction time is far faster than any incendiary device we’ve seen before.”

“And this is not something that has been accomplished before?” Brognola challenged. “Not by the U.S.? Not by anybody?”

Kissinger shrugged. “Not by anybody as far as I know.”

“This is good news, right?” Carl Lyons said, speaking for the first time. “Specialty item needs special people or special equipment to be made. Now we have something to go on. Right? So let’s get going.”

“You’re right, Carl,” Kissinger said. “This is indeed specialty technology. There are a few companies out there working on nanoparticles in this range, and a few university labs, as well. One of them is here in the United States. Company in Texas. Name is—get this—NanoPlasPulse LLC. Brains behind the operation is the CEO, Harry Envoi. They’re using his patents.”