LITMIR.BIZ

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relief as he saw the unmistakable bulk of Gary Manning among the policemen following the riot-squad phalanx.

      “I hope that’s him,” the first cop said. “When the shield men passed him, he’d wound two of the rioters up in those hulking arms of his.”

      “Yeah, that’s him,” McCarter confirmed. “How is the suppression going?”

      “Well, thanks to the two of you hammering this end of Haymarket Road, we were able to divert the fire hose trucks that would have been here to other approaches,” the second lawman explained. “A good rinsing is taking the piss out of these drunken louts.”

      “Looks like you’ve got them all well and kettled up,” McCarter said.

      “You sound like you know a little of what the Met likes to do,” the first police constable noted.

      McCarter shrugged. “I’ve been around the Met and worked alongside the Sweeney a few times in a professional capacity.”

      The other PC sized the Phoenix Force leader up. It had been a while since McCarter had worn the short, close-shorn haircut of a professional military man, his hair naturally feathered and flowing down over his ears. Still, even through the layers of his windbreaker and shirt, it was easy for the lawman to notice that McCarter was fit and muscular in the way that a professional soldier would be, lean with very little bulk to get in his way. “Professional but unofficial?”

      McCarter nodded curtly, indicating that further discussion along those lines was no longer open.

      “Who are you and the barrel-chested bloke?” the first constable asked.

      McCarter sighed. “Friends. Concerned friends. That’s all I can say.”

      “Well, you’re a right geezer in my book,” the second constable said. “Anyone who can take on that many hooligans with only a few bruises…”

      McCarter wondered what the lawman was talking about, but then he noticed that he was starting to feel stings along his face and arms. He’d been so wrapped up in battling the riot, he hadn’t noticed where glancing impacts had connected with him. Had he been less quick and skillful, he would have suffered broken bones and muscle tears from the melee.

      “You still with us, friend?” the first bobby asked.

      “Yeah,” McCarter replied. “Just taking inventory on all my bits and pieces.”

      The two officers studiously ignored the sight of McCarter’s holstered pistol and the shotgun that hung through the tatters of his windbreaker, but their nonchalance only lasted so long.

      “Would you want us to take those for you?” the first lawman asked.

      “I’m keeping my Browning,” McCarter said. “But you can take the riot gun.”

      The two officers looked at each other, then thought about the orders, the description they’d been given. They also looked at the stunned and battered dozens left in the wake of the riot police, men who had been knocked down mostly by the efforts of the man with the Browning and his partner. If McCarter was a threat to the peace they’d sworn to protect, he could easily have gunned down countless more of the soccer hooligans as opposed to leaving them alive but hurting. They could trust the Phoenix Force commander with his sidearm.

      “Thank you for your assistance,” the second of the officers said. He took McCarter’s hand and shook it.

      The “concerned friend” waved Manning over, and the pair disappeared down Haymarket Road. They had to contact Stony Man Farm.

      MCCARTER AND MANNING lurched through the door of their hotel room, running on fumes from the energy they’d exerted in dealing with the Piccadilly riot. Manning secured the door while McCarter turned on the television, flicking it to the news. As it hadn’t taken them more than a few minutes to get back from Haymarket Road, the news media was still in the dark about what was going on, putting up rumors as true information.

      McCarter could see the news cameras focused on one arm of the riot for a moment. He could see himself and Manning amid chemical smoke and tear gas battling against a throng. Luckily, the quality of the camera images was too grainy and jumpy to be of any use in identifying them, and by then, Stony Man Farm would have grabbed extant copies of the video footage from where the files had been stored across the internet and doctored them to make any attempts at clarifying their features totally impossible.

      Price and Brognola, back at the Farm, would be gnashing their teeth that McCarter and Manning may have exposed their identities on international television.

      Manning picked up the phone as McCarter continued to scan the channels, looking for more information on the riots. If he was going to risk the privacy of the Sensitive Operations Group, he might as well know the extent of the damage.

      “Barb wants to talk to you, David,” Manning said, holding out his cell to McCarter.

      “Tell her it’s not my fault,” McCarter replied, checking the television.

      “It’s not that,” Manning corrected him. “Besides, the Farm’s running its own scans of local news.”

      McCarter looked over his shoulder, then held out his hand to accept the cell phone. “What did I do now?”

      “Aside from risk exposing Phoenix Force’s existence?” Barbara Price asked. Stony Man Farm’s mission controller sounded only mockingly reproachful, which eased McCarter’s nerves somewhat. The Briton was a man of action, but he dreaded paperwork and he also hated the subterfuge necessary to keep him on the front lines, battling against the forces of evil. He was a doer, not a politician who needed to massage the egos of law enforcement agencies or foreign governments.

      “Any time Phoenix Force and a riot are in the same city, you know we’ll bump into each other, even if we’re outnumbered,” McCarter answered.

      “Luckily this time you bumped hard enough to stop the riot’s spread in one direction,” Price told him. “We have to keep you on station in London for a little while, but Cal and the others won’t be coming to assist you. We need to spread out in order to deal effectively with the nature of this threat. You might also have to go elsewhere in Europe.”

      “The other states in the G8 have been threatened, most likely,” McCarter responded.

      “Exactly, which is why we can’t keep Phoenix Force as one contiguous unit. If it’s any consolation, Lyons and his men are splitting up, as well,” Price confirmed.

      “Things are getting bloody serious if that’s the case,” McCarter muttered. “More riots?”

      “We think that the riots and the orbital bombardment attacks are tied in,” Price said. “The Russian soccer gangs went wild in full force. We’re fairly certain that they’ve also been backed by the neo-Nazi movement in Moscow.”

      “Neo-Nazis,” Manning muttered, listening in as the phone was set on speaker mode. “Now that there’s been an influx of other people from the Middle East and other countries, the Russians are putting aside the bad memories of the battle of St. Petersburg and embracing racial purity.”

      “It doesn’t hurt that the Russian economy is in the shitter,” McCarter added. “White, young and jobless people tend to congregate and cast hairy eyeballs at the nonwhites who are taking jobs that the whites would normally turn their noses up at. It happened a lot in London with Jamaican, Indian and Pakistani immigrants. Bigots like picking at the edges of groups of disenchanted youth.”

      “It just so happens that the Moscow neo-Nazi sympathizers are well-organized, and they have a lot to pick from on the streets,” Price said.

      “Cal’s going to be bloody useless in that venue. Rafael, too,” McCarter pointed out.

      “Cal’s not going to Moscow. We’ve activated an old friend or two to deal with Japan and China,” Price explained. “Hope you don’t mind if he’s hanging out with Mei.”

      “No.

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