LITMIR.BIZ

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it sure wasn’t whoever snatched Dratshev,” Encizo replied. “That wouldn’t make any sense.”

      “Unless they were trying to divert our attention.”

      McCarter shook his head. “I’d have a lot of trouble buying that, Hal. First, it would imply that our own people snatched Dratshev. Second, it wouldn’t make sense to put good resources as such risk for the purpose of creating a smoke screen.”

      “That would be an expensive diversion,” Price conceded with a nod.

      “And we’re not dealing with idiots or amateurs in any case,” Manning remarked. “That much is obvious.”

      Price said, “Well, we figure Able Team will be able to tell us something soon enough. Meanwhile, we’re sending you to Belarus. You’ll pick up whatever clues you can.”

      “Are we sure that’s the best place to start?” McCarter asked.

      Price nodded. “We have a CIA contact there who’s been shadowing the FSB team sent to retrieve Dratshev when he contacted his handler and reported he’d been compromised. An insider told our contact there was a significant delay notifying the backup team.”

      “So this was an inside job,” Hawkins observed in his typical Texas drawl.

      “It would seem so.”

      McCarter scratched his jaw in consideration. “Any possibility the Russians staged this whole thing?”

      “It’s always possible,” Price said with a shrug. “But to what end?”

      “Maybe they wanted to throw everyone off Dratshev’s trail? Think about it. They fake his abduction and then everybody starts looking for him in all but the obvious place. His own backyard.”

      “We posed that as a potential scenario to our CIA contact and he didn’t think it was likely,” Brognola said. “He’s convinced the kidnapping is real and the threat is viable, mostly due to the amount of scrambling the FSB’s doing. They’ve apparently crawled under every rock and into every crevice of the city.”

      “Okay, then I guess it’s off to Minsk we go,” McCarter said.

      “If there’s any more intelligence that comes our way while you’re en route,” Price said, “we can always divert you.”

      The five warriors nodded in concert.

      “Good luck, men,” Harold Brognola added.

      * * *

      CARL LYONS WAS enjoying an icy swim through a Mississippi tributary in northern Minnesota when the waterproof GPS device around his wrist sent a very mild tingle along his skin.

      Lyons pushed his body against the strong current, his muscular arms and shoulders propelling him through choppy waters that would have bested a lesser man. This was just one of the many feats that had earned Lyons his Ironman nickname.

      Lyons reached shore and climbed from the water onto the trunk of a fallen tree. He swung his legs over it and planted his feet on terra firma. Beads of water dribbled from every part of skin that had taken on a golden-bronze tone under three days of the early summer sun.

      Lyons checked the device as it signaled him again and then set off into a half-mile trot until he reached the spot where he’d left his two companions. He found them both fast asleep, a rock pit smoldering with red-orange wood coals the only remainder of the campfire they’d started the night before.

      Lyons put his hands on his hips and shook his head. “Pathetic.” He then walked over and kicked the soles of their feet.

      The first man, husky and muscular with gray-white hair, awoke with a start. “What’s the big idea, Ironman?” Rosario “Politician” Blancanales demanded. “That’s no way to wake up a friend.”

      The other man had barely stirred, although that hardly fooled Lyons. He knew that both of them were trained well enough they’d probably detected his approach while he was still out of sight. Those same instincts, forged from years of combat and training, were the ones that had registered Lyons as an entity that didn’t pose any threat.

      Hermann “Gadgets” Schwarz yawned. “Yeah. Really, Ironman, you have no class.”

      “Shape up, boys,” Lyons said. “I got buzzed.”

      Schwarz looked at Blancanales and rubbed one eye. “He’s not a very nice person.”

      “Old age has made him cantankerous,” Blancanales replied.

      “Stuff it,” Lyons muttered as he reached into his backpack and retrieved his cell phone.

      Lyons issued a voice-coded command and the phone automatically dialed the secure satellite uplink to the communications center at Stony Man Farm.

      When Price answered on the second ring, Lyons said, “You rang, Mizz Daisy?”

      “I did,” she replied. “I’m sorry to cut your vacation short but we have big trouble. We just finished briefing Phoenix Force and they’re getting ready to depart for Belarus. We need you guys to head to the location I’m sending to your phone via secured traffic.”

      “Can I have a clue?”

      “North of Des Moines, Iowa. A research facility belonging to the USDA.”

      “Understood. We’ll head for the car now.” He looked at Blancanales and Schwarz and grinned as he added, “Tweedledee and Tweedledum were only sleeping.”

      “Probably trying to catch up.”

      “We’ll get all the sleep we need when we’re dead.”

      “Not funny, Carl.”

      “Yes, Mother.”

      “Get moving and call me back when you’re on the road. I can talk to all of you via the car phone.”

      “Roger that. Out.”

      Blancanales watched expectantly as Lyons disconnected while Schwarz had simply rolled over and started to drift. “Where we headed?”

      “Some USDA facility in Iowa,” Lyons replied.

      * * *

      “AMERICAN MERCS OPERATING on American soil?” Lyons said into the roof-mounted speaker once they’d returned to their car. “That’s bizarre.”

      “I think you’ve understated it,” Blancanales said from behind the wheel.

      From the backseat Schwarz asked, “So I assume you think they were after something in the data vaults, Barb?”

      “That’s our thought,” Price said. She explained their theory as it related to the disappearance of Dratshev.

      “The timing does seem noteworthy,” Blancanales agreed.

      “So what’s our approach?” Lyons asked. “I assume the FBI and NSA are already knee-deep in this. Are we going to run into territorial dick flexing?”

      “Probably,” Price replied. “But you’d hardly be able to avoid it, no matter what. We did manage to put in a good word with the FBI’s SAIC, who’s been appointed as the lead in the investigation.”

      “And who is this FBI Special Agent In Charge?”

      “You’ll want to make contact with a guy named Robert Higgs. He’s a veteran investigator and one of the FBI’s most decorated agents.”

      “What’s our cover?”

      “Use your BATFE credentials,” Price replied. “If you come in expressing only interest in the weapons that were used, that should buy you at least some partial good will. Learn what you can and then funnel the information back to us.”

      “Understood,” Lyons said. “We’ll get the info out of them.”

      “Just

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