Don Pendleton: Critical Effect

“A radical Arab group like Hezbollah and mercenaries of the Germanic Freedom Railroad working together? It almost seems absurd, and yet all the evidence so far points to it,” Price announced.

Brognola shrugged. “We just got the data from the computers at the OME in St. Louis, and one of the deceased that ran up against Able Team earlier was positively identified as not only Hezbollah, but a known associate of the Kadils Tarif bin Nurraji sect.”

“I’d say that’s proof positive,” Price agreed. “So what do you think it means?”

“Because Burke’s operation has always been small, I think he bit off more than he could chew at this time. I think it ended up costing him every dime he had, and he stole the LAMPs either in the hopes of selling them to the highest bidder, or configuring them for use against some target.”

“Yes, but what target?”

Other titles in this series:

#30 VIRTUAL PERIL

#31 NIGHT OF THE JAGUAR

#32 LAW OF LAST RESORT

#33 PUNITIVE MEASURES

#34 REPRISAL

#35 MESSAGE TO AMERICA

#36 STRANGLEHOLD

#37 TRIPLE STRIKE

#38 ENEMY WITHIN

#39 BREACH OF TRUST

#40 BETRAYAL

#41 SILENT INVADER

#42 EDGE OF NIGHT

#43 ZERO HOUR

#44 THIRST FOR POWER

#45 STAR VENTURE

#46 HOSTILE INSTINCT

#47 COMMAND FORCE

#48 CONFLICT IMPERATIVE

#49 DRAGON FIRE

#50 JUDGMENT IN BLOOD

#51 DOOMSDAY DIRECTIVE

#52 TACTICAL RESPONSE

#53 COUNTDOWN TO TERROR

#54 VECTOR THREE

#55 EXTREME MEASURES

#56 STATE OF AGGRESSION

#57 SKY KILLERS

#58 CONDITION HOSTILE

#59 PRELUDE TO WAR

#60 DEFENSIVE ACTION

#61 ROGUE STATE

#62 DEEP RAMPAGE

#63 FREEDOM WATCH

#64 ROOTS OF TERROR

#65 THE THIRD PROTOCOL

#66 AXIS OF CONFLICT

#67 ECHOES OF WAR

#68 OUTBREAK

#69 DAY OF DECISION

#70 RAMROD INTERCEPT

#71 TERMS OF CONTROL

#72 ROLLING THUNDER

#73 COLD OBJECTIVE

#74 THE CHAMELEON FACTOR

#75 SILENT ARSENAL

#76 GATHERING STORM

#77 FULL BLAST

#78 MAELSTROM

#79 PROMISE TO DEFEND

#80 DOOMSDAY CONQUEST

#81 SKY HAMMER

#82 VANISHING POINT

#83 DOOM PROPHECY

#84 SENSOR SWEEP

#85 HELL DAWN

#86 OCEANS OF FIRE

#87 EXTREME ARSENAL

#88 STARFIRE

#89 NEUTRON FORCE

#90 RED FROST

#91 CHINA CRISIS

#92 CAPITAL OFFENSIVE

#93 DEADLY PAYLOAD

#94 ACT OF WAR

Stony Man ®

AMERICA’S ULTRA-COVERT INTELLIGENCE AGENCY

www.mirabooks.co.uk

Special thanks and acknowledgment to

Jon Guenther for his contribution to this work.

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

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

EPILOGUE

High above the fertile fields of northeastern France—altitude approximately 24, 223 feet—engines No. 1 and 2 suddenly quit and threatened to send the SOF C-141 Starlifter into a nosedive.

Only the quick thinking of the two British RAF pilots prevented the giant special-operations cargo plane from plunging to an unforgiving end. Warning alarms and Klaxons screamed through the cockpit. Every circuit board demanded attention. Lights flashed asynchronously as the shimmies nearly shook the crew to death. The pilot and copilot joined hands on the throttle in an effort to coax more power from the remaining pair of engines. The sheer weight of their cargo testified to the futility of the effort.

Welby Blythe, Group Captain, tuned his radio to the emergency band and issued a Mayday while his copilot, Flight Lieutenant Graham Little, made every effort to control their descent. The joint operations center at NATO’s Northern Command Office had accounted for the possibility of a single engine failure and taken precautions to ensure the plane could still make a “short” hop from Geneva, Switzerland, to Portsmouth. They had never even considered the disastrous consequences of a double-engine burnout.

Blythe received no response to his hails and gave up the radio for the moment. He tried to quell the shock and terror that rode through him with the same intensity and fearsomeness of his charge. Blythe had logged more successful missions than practically any other officer of his rank in the RAF, a record he’d remained quite proud of through his years as an airman. Now, however, it appeared the Devil had stacked the odds against him on this one. Blythe couldn’t recall having faced a grimmer situation in all his time behind the stick.

The captain clenched his teeth. “If we get her down in one piece, boys, it’ll only be a bloody damn miracle!”

A few alarms continued to chatter incessantly, although the first officer and two navigators had cleared most of them to reduce noise and confusion. After all, they knew they were losing altitude and didn’t really need the sensitive instruments to point out the fact.

Both the digital and mechanical altimeters continued to plummet in concert with their descent as the remaining pair of operable Pratt & Whitney turbofan engines groaned in protest. Blythe considered other options. He first thought about ordering the cargo haulers seated in back to dump as much of the payload as necessary to keep the craft airborne, but he knew the risk of such equipment falling into the hands of a potential enemy. Terrorists or other criminal elements might not realize the value of that cargo, but at minimum they could make use of the armament. He also recalled the accompanying detail of Special Air Service operatives assigned to protect that cargo at any cost. Their orders would include immediate termination of even a crazed, military pilot desperate to save his own ship.

With no other real options at their disposal, Blythe and Little continued to guide the C-141 toward its inevitable course.

That course eventually put the belly of the cargo plane just yards above a copse of trees. Blythe engaged the landing lights and then coordinated with his copilot to execute their landing. Above the strain of engines they could feel the vibrations of the nose landing gear as it rolled downward and locked into place. The basso thrumming of engines ceased in favor of the high-pitched whine when they opened the throttle to maximum to raise the nose, followed by immediate dissipation to stall speed. The belly just scraped the tree line but reached a point of long, open field beyond it.

The soft earth proved an almost demonic force, its spongy resilience pronouncing death on the landing gear supporting the heavy aircraft. The tail of the plane performed a violent sashay, uncontrollable from the cockpit with the nose gear still airborne. All four men leaned forward simultaneously in their seats, subconsciously hopeful the additional weight would bring the NLG in contact with the ground. When it finally touched earth, the vibrations became doubly vicious. Blythe felt as if his teeth might literally dislodge from his gums. A wash of mud, grass and weeds instantly coated the cockpit windows and all but eliminated visibility. The plane continued for about another 150 yards or so, then jolted the crew in their seats with a sickening crack to port that could only have been a tree taking out the wing. The sensation of centrifugal force took over as the plane began an almost lazy spin.