LITMIR.BIZ

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even if it was just a working holiday. The remaining members of Phoenix Force were in England to engage in a little cross training alongside elements of the SAS, so for McCarter it felt like a homecoming, despite the bruises and aches he sported from martial arts sparring with a crew of hardheaded Cockney recruits who reminded the Eastender of himself as a man in his twenties.

      Still, the news of the French Department of Nuclear Energy headquarters break-in was a sobering splash on McCarter’s reminiscences. Right now, in the regiment’s guest barracks at Hereford, they were awaiting news from Barbara Price back at Stony Man Farm for permission to launch their Paris investigation without interference from DCRI, the French version of the FBI or Homeland Security. As a British citizen, McCarter had every right to hop on the Channel ferry or to board the Chunnel train to shoot on over to Paris without much paperwork, but he would have to undertake such a trip unarmed and ill-equipped to deal with what had been reported as a mysterious commando team raiding the DNE offices with surgical precision.

      The European Union’s views on firearms ownership by private citizens, no matter how sterling their prior military service, was at best intolerant of people with the determination to defend their lives. Of course, this meant that McCarter’s text message to a friend in Paris would be what their operation hinged on if they couldn’t get official clearance. McCarter knew people around the globe, and was able to acquire supplies of reliable weapons from them.

      His cell phone burbled with a text message answer to his initial inquiry. What he read soured his mood.

      “Can scrounge gear for you and your two friends. No Grand Puissants in inventory, alas.”

      The Grand Puissant was the French term for a Browning Hi-Power, one of David McCarter’s preferred designs and his trusted companion across the globe for his entire professional warrior career. His comfort with the reliable, accurate 9 mm autoloader enabled him to squeeze every ounce of performance out of the classic design. Naturally, his disappointment sparked interest from his younger partner.

      Hawkins read McCarter’s screen, then checked the look on his commander’s face. “Y’all make that sound like we’ll be landing in the middle of a nest of ninjas the moment we were within sight of the Eiffel Tower. So what if you have to pack a Glock for a while?”

      Gary Manning regarded the youngest member of Phoenix Force with a wry grin. “Once you’ve acclimated yourself to true perfection, attempting to cope with an egotistical Austrian’s proclaimed flawless design is a troubling disappointment.”

      McCarter chortled. “Besides, I’d be happy to have a row with a troupe of Japanese in black pajamas leaping about with swords and what have you. They’re so much fun when you head butt them and get their gobs all messy under those scarves.”

      The laptop with the teleconference software burbled to life. Stony Man’s mission controller, Barbara Price, appeared on the screen, and she wasn’t very happy.

      “I wonder if she’s grumpy over your lack of a Hi-Power, too,” Hawkins murmured.

      “Don’t make me murder you in your sleep, lad,” McCarter quipped. “What’s wrong, Barb?”

      “The big new French interior intelligence agency has been comparing notes with itself, and they decided they don’t want to play with American-sponsored Interpol investigators anymore,” Price replied. “Especially in matters of French nuclear-energy security breaches.”

      “We’ve been on good terms with both French Intelligence in the past,” Manning said. “What is the problem now?”

      “I’ll tell you what the problem is,” McCarter growled. “The head of the new amalgamated agency has his head up his arse. Though it’s not as if the bloody wankers sitting behind the desk realize that they’re telling us to sit this one out and leaving it to the second or third best in the world.”

      “Pride is unbecoming of you, David,” Price admonished.

      “Bollocks,” McCarter continued to snarl. “It’s the same ‘I know what’s best’ shit that happens every time we have to work with some department. We go somewhere and some half-wit thinks he’s the cock of the walk when he’s just a flounder in a bucket.”

      “Well, Hal doesn’t want you to get caught. And if DCRI sends someone after you, try not to maim them,” Price ordered.

      McCarter sneered. “Just a dent on their chin and a slap on the ass to run home to mother.”

      Manning pulled out his Smart phone and began the process of ordering Chunnel train tickets. “Looks like you’re going to have to grin and bear it with whatever your mate supplies you.”

      “I don’t care if it’s a wooden shoe that I have to break off in someone’s bum,” McCarter returned. “It’s time to show the DCRI how professionals deal with infiltrators.”

      Manning grinned. It was good to see a flash of the cocky McCarter. It was also an indication of how much the enemy was going to regret pulling an operation that showed up on the Phoenix Force commander’s radar.

       CHAPTER TWO

      Lyons stood in the hallway, battered forearm wrapped in an athletic bandage to secure it in case the blow it had taken had resulted in a hairline fracture. The bandage would serve as a temporary splint until the forearm could be x-rayed. The Able Team leader didn’t intend to remove himself from the crime scene until the technicians had all of the data they needed to track down the escaped robot’s murderous masters. He had seen the killer, but he didn’t know its origins and who had sent it. The evidence linking Mare Hirtenberg’s murder to the rash of security breeches at international nuclear power plants was purely circumstantial, but Lyons couldn’t dismiss the possibility that someone had used a compact mechanical assassin to penetrate the Department of Energy’s Washington, D.C., offices with the same ghostlike ability of the saboteurs at the other plants.

      Lyons’s leg was still raw from where the Taser darts had penetrated his skin and pumped twenty thousand volts through his body. The Justice Department crime scene techs had collected the contents of two Taser cartridges that had been loaded into the robot’s head section. There might have been more in the mechanism, in case the mechanism had encountered multiple opponents. A security officer, assigned to protect the DoE offices, approached Lyons, his step cautious as he caught the grim darkening of the big ex-cop’s face.

      “No sighting of the robot?” Lyons asked, putting aside his rage to speak with a fellow lawman.

      “No,” the security officer said. “It’ll take us a while to get our own camera-mount robot here, and even then, it might not fit into the air vents.”

      Lyons’s brow furrowed. “I’d get a bomb-sniffing dog team here, just to be safe. If the device did have a self-destruct mechanism, it wouldn’t do much damage to the infrastructure of this building, but it could harm a mainframe or more personnel.”

      “We’ve thought of that possibility already,” the officer replied. “But thanks for confirming that we’re not completely paranoid.”

      “My teammates think otherwise, but I appreciate the sentiment,” Lyons returned.

      The office door opened and a covered body on a gurney rolled into the hallway. The coroner walked beside the body of Hirtenberg, having claimed the corpse for release. The Justice Department medical examiner met Lyons’s gaze for a moment before the brooding Stony Man warrior looked down at the remains of a woman whom he’d befriended over the past few days.

      “Cause of death was fairly obvious,” Alicia Khan said softly. Her dark, elfin face was serene and sympathetic, large and soulful brown eyes steady in the path of Lyons’s disquiet and angry grief. “Exsanguination due to laceration of the throat by an unknown weapon.”

      “I saw it in action. It was a metal wire spun on an electric-motor-powered spool,” Lyons said. “The crime techs picked up trimmings of it with blood transfer from her.”

      Lyons didn’t want to give in to the queasiness

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