Neutron Force - Don Pendleton

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to land hard on the roof of the garage.

      As he rushed along the sloping expanse of shingles, Blancanales arrived, then Lyons. Going to the edge, they jumped into the rosebushes, uncaring of the thorns, and fought their way to the front lawn. A heartbeat later, the roof of the garage collapsed, writhing flames licking at empty sky.

      Returning to the van, the bedraggled Stony Man commandos piled inside and divested themselves of weapons before driving away. Oddly, there was no wail of incoming fire trucks, police or ambulance. The men solemnly realized that was because there was nobody alive in the neighborhood to report the mounting blaze.

      Breaking out bottles of water, the men of Able Team drank deeply, clearing their sore throats, the clean air pouring through the vehicle slowly washing the stupefying effects of the cooking drug from their brains.

      “At least we got this,” Schwarz croaked, inspecting the hard drive.

      “And even if that is blank,” Blancanales wheezed, “we now have a name. Ravid.”

      “Any terrorists called that?” Lyons asked, lowering their speed as he headed for Logan International.

      Tucking away the hard drive, Schwarz shrugged. “None that I know.”

      “I do,” Blancanales said, pouring water into his open palm and rubbing his face clean. He shook himself dry like a dog coming out of the rain. “Two, actually. There’s a Ravid in Hamas and another in Tiger Force. But it couldn’t be them. Neither group has resources to put a satellite into orbit.”

      “Unless they got some major-league assistance,” Lyons returned, settling back into the seat. Anybody who hired thugs to do their fighting, might also have been hired as mercenaries in the first place. Hamas or Tiger Force, were they the real foe? Or was Stony Man facing a cartel of terrorist organizations this time? That would be a nightmare come true. And there was no way to know for sure until the hard drive was downloaded. Hopefully, that could be done on the Hercules.

      Changing his mind, Lyons angled onto a highway and went straight past Logan to head for downtown Boston. If they could find the office where George and his crew worked before the word spread of their demise, Able Team might be able to find out exactly who Ravid was. Definitely a long shot, but worth the effort.

      Merging with the thickening flow of honking traffic, the Able Team leader just hoped that Phoenix Force was having better luck at the Wake Island laboratory.

      CHAPTER SIX

      Wake Island, Pacific Ocean

      About six hundred miles off the coast of California, Phoenix Force landed its Learjet on the deck of the USS Kitty Hawk aircraft carrier. Quickly transferring to a Black Hawk helicopter, the team continued its journey across the Pacific Ocean.

      According to the U.S. Army records, the landing strip on Wake Island was too short to handle a Lear, and the helicopter gunship gave them the option of landing wherever they wished, possibly avoiding an ambush. Or worse, the deadly beam of the orbiting satellite.

      Wake Island was an atoll, the crested rim of an ancient underwater volcano. The three curved islands barely covered one and a half square miles. But because of their position, the islands had been an invaluable refueling spot during World War II. In its time, the atoll had been heavily armed with anti-ship cannons hidden in the thick palm trees.

      But these days the atoll was all but forgotten. The big guns were long gone, and all that remained of the refueling station was a small airfield for emergency landings that was used only once, or twice, a year. The only paved road was slowly returning to nature, the Quonset huts removed, the tiny jungle allowed to grow freely over the circular atoll. For a while, it had been a U.S. Army weapons research facility for an antimissile program, but the funding disappeared, and so did the Army. These days, two of the tiny banana-shaped islands were tangles of unfettered growth, while the third contained only the short, cracked landing strip, and a heavily fortified concrete laboratory. Code name: Prometheus.

      The Black Hawk helicopter moved low across the Pacific Ocean, flying over some pleasure craft, a cruise liner and a fat oil tanker bound for Alaska. Halfway to the isolated atoll, it began to rain, soft and gentle. Wisely, the Black Hawk stayed below the cloud layer. What couldn’t be seen, hopefully couldn’t be attacked. Passive radar was clear, and the active radar revealed no hostile aircraft, only rumbling storm clouds and rain.

      The five members of Phoenix Force were jammed into the jumpseats lining the walls, the open space in the middle filled with trunks of ammunition, explosives and assorted supplies. The team needed to be ready for anything.

      “Anybody know a Ravid?” Calvin James asked, lowering the radio headphones. His accent was pure southside Chicago. Tall and lanky, the former Navy SEAL was the field medic for the team, and one of the best underwater demolitionists the soldiers had ever seen.

      “The head of Tiger Force is Ravid something or other,” T. J. Hawkins said.

      “Tiger Force?” Rafael Encizo asked scornfully. “No way those backwater grunts could launch a bottle rocket, much less a freaking satellite.”

      A stocky man with catlike reflexes, Encizo was less than handsome, his face carrying the scars of too many battles. But the looks beguiled the razor-sharp mind inside. Slung across his chest was an MP-5 machine gun. Stun grenades festooned his web harness and a compact Walther PPK .38 rode in a high belly holster. A Tanto combat knife was sheathed upside down on his shoulder for fast access, and plastic garrotes dangled from a breakaway catch on his belt.

      “Himar comes from India,” David McCarter said from the copilot seat. “Was born there if I remember correctly, and now a south India terrorist group appears from the shadows.”

      The leader of Phoenix Force, McCarter was a former member of the elite British SAS. The Briton radiated controlled strength, and every man present owed their lives to McCarter a dozen times over. The bonds of friendship between the Stony Man warriors had been forged on the bloody fields of combat.

      Hawkins grunted. “Hell of a coincidence.”

      “What kind of files do we have on Tiger Force?” Encizo asked, inspecting the razor-sharp edge of his combat knife for any feathering. Satisfied, he slid the knife into its sheath.

      “Pretty sketchy,” James admitted. “They’re small-timers, not really on the world radar.”

      “So far,” Gary Manning retorted, working the bolt of his titanic Barrett .50-caliber sniper rifle, then adding a drop of lubricant to the slide. “However, if these guys have a neutron cannon, then I’m really looking forward to meeting them.”

      Thunder rumbled outside the craft, the concussion buffeting it slightly.

      “Fifteen minutes to the island, David,” the blacksuit pilot announced crisply.

      “Anything on radar?” Hawkins asked, checking the clip in his 9 mm Beretta.

      “We’re clear,” the blacksuit reported from the front of the craft.

      A moment later the blacksuit announced, “There it is.”

      McCarter looked hard through the rain-smeared window, but there was nothing to be seen below but endless ocean. “Better be sure,” he demanded, unbuckling his seat belt. “The atoll has three islands, with a lot of water around them. We want the north island, just past the deep water cove.”

      “The instruments read dead center, sir,” the pilot said confidently. “I’m on target.”

      “Fair enough.” Strapping on a harness, McCarter went to the hatch, slid it back and stepped out of the helicopter.

      A few yards down, the catch on his harness engaged and his descent along the rope rapidly slowed. With the downpour blurring the landscape, the leader of Phoenix Force couldn’t see anything. It was like rappelling into an abandoned well.

      A shiny refection swelled beneath his boots and McCarter braced for an impact into

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