LITMIR.BIZ

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Encizo called. He pulled out his knife again and rushed to the railing where the anchor rope was visible. “The rest of you, make sure there’s no more booby traps on this tub. If you’ve got a multiband communicator, check to see if there’s surveillance equipment aboard, too.”

      Johnstone stood frozen for a moment, then waved for his men to follow the Phoenix Force vet’s orders. Encizo chopped down on the anchor mooring, the sharp edge of the Cold Steel blade easily cleaving though the thick hemp.

      The engine struggled to turn over and James gave the outboard another pull. When that failed, he opened the casing on the engine, slowly and carefully. Encizo rushed over to his side.

      “Anything?”

      James lowered the casing back down. “I felt a wire hooked to the lid.”

      “Booby trap?”

      “I’m not taking a chance. Rafe, get the other launch,” James said.

      “Got it,” Encizo responded, and he leaped over the side, spearing into the water like a dolphin.

      With the leap he made, and a few powerful kicks, he was at the other launch in moments. James assembled the survivors of Johnstone’s team on the deck after heaving the possibly booby-trapped engine over the back. Just because it looked like a dud didn’t mean that it couldn’t still be dangerous. Even as Encizo pulled himself into the motor launch, the water shook and bubbled, an explosion ripping through the inky depths.

      He glanced over at his friend and partner.

      “Good call, Cal,” Encizo said as he reached for the outboard.

      James gave his friend a thumbs-up. “Hurry up, the patrol’s getting close.”

      The stocky Cuban fired up the electric motor and zoomed the craft, much quicker and more agile without the weight of a full load, over to the side of the junk. James plunged into the water, rather than come aboard the craft, while Johnstone and the others clambered over the railing.

      “Where’d he go?” Johnstone asked.

      “Checking to see if our raiders left a mine attached to our hull,” Encizo answered. He looked across the water, seeing the Hong Kong harbor patrol closing in. A spotlight splashed across the opposite side of the junk, throwing it into stark silhouette. Encizo and the strike force survivors ducked down so they wouldn’t be visible.

      James popped up to the surface and started to crawl in.

      “Nothing?” Encizo asked.

      “No,” James answered as the powerful Cuban hauled him over the edge and into the boat. “Let’s get out of here.”

      “You don’t have to tell me twice,” Encizo answered.

      Cutting between the larger junks and parked ships, the Phoenix Force pair wove through the thickest accumulation of craft. Even if the patrol boat had noticed them, unlikely in the harsh shadows of the junks and over the sound of their diesel engines, they would not have been able to follow them.

      Encizo turned to James as he pulled into the dock where they had launched from. They’d managed to save some lives, but too many good people died that night, and they were no closer to getting a clue than before.

      But the gauntlet had been thrown down, and Phoenix Force was always up to the challenge.

      AARON KURTZMAN, his beard scruffy, his build round, yet powerful, certainly lived up to the descriptive nickname “The Bear” in looks. Still, there were times when he thought that he might be living like a bear, practically living in the cave known as Stony Man’s Computer Room. Here, in the nerve center of the Farm, he was able to access an array of supercomputers and processing servers that combined to create one of the most powerful search engine bases on the planet.

      Barbara Price, the Farm’s mission controller, strolled over to check the big board. So far, there hadn’t been much news from the boys in the field, but Kurtzman knew that didn’t mean anything yet. Pretty soon, unless they found themselves cut off from all outside contact, information would start to pour in.

      All the while, the Bear was busy in his cave, listening to Internet whispers, news articles, rumors, field reports, arrest records, all of which might allow the cyberteam to give their friends in the field some hook, some angle that might give them the edge. They were down in force, Carmen Delahunt having gone in person to San Francisco on a promised trip to meet up with an old friend and a valuable resource in her research.

      What should have been a reunion, however, was a trip of mourning. Amanda Cash and her staff at HedSpayce were murdered, possibly due to their investigation of Ka55andra and AJAX.

      No, not possibly. There were times when coincidence factored heavily into Kurtzman’s life, but when someone involved in an investigation ended up murdered in a spectacular massacre, then that meant something was up. Huntington Wethers, the tall, pipe-chewing African-American member of the cybercrew, was going over HedSpayce’s data with a fine-toothed comb. If anyone could methodically plod his way through mountains of information, it was the coolly analytical and highly organized Wethers. He could spend hours looking at lines of code in the hope of finding a single misplaced character, a single stretch of data that could be the fingerprint of a virus or a worm, and not grow tired.

      Conversely, Akira Tokaido, the long-haired, young Japanese-American cyberpunk, was listening to wild music on his iPod and plowing through the transmission information regarding the final hours of Knight Seven and the mysteriously overridden Predator UAV drone. Tokaido, as opposed to Wethers, was more an instinctive, imagination-driven programmer and hacker. Bear assigned him to the matter of what happened to the slaughtered Knight Seven Special Forces team and how they had been lured off course into their trap.

      It wouldn’t go easy. Carmen Delahunt was brilliant at being the in-betweener for the pair, able to bridge the deliberate, painstaking methods of Wethers and the off-the-cuff, wild energy of Tokaido. Kurtzman had managed without her efforts before, though, and he could handle it now.

      “We’ve got an incoming call,” Price stated, pointing to the main board. “San Francisco.”

      “Able has a lead already? “ Tokaido asked. He looked up from his monitor and slid his headphones off his ears, the tinny rattle of heavy-metal music issuing from the foam-covered speakers.

      “It’s Carmen,” Wethers corrected as he went to the fax. “And you were right. Lyons got some case-head impressions from the HedSpayce massacre.”

      “I’ll get on it. You keep looking through their investigation data about Ka55andra,” Kurtzman volunteered. Wethers came to him, handing the man the pages of the fax.

      “All right. I’m starting to pick up a pattern, but I’m only a fifth through the data that they gave us,” Wethers said.

      Delahunt’s face appeared on the screen, her Web cam transmitting her tired features across the expanse of the country.

      “Damn, Carm, you look like…” Tokaido began before catching a glare from Kurtzman.

      “Don’t worry about it, Bear,” Delahunt answered. “I know I’ve had a rough time. Carl gave me a list of names you might find interesting.”

      Wethers spoke up, his deep timberous voice filling the computer center. “You know, you could tell him that the Farm has its own investigative resources.”

      “You’d like to tell the Ironman to drop what he’s doing?” Delahunt asked.

      “My apologies,” Wethers offered.

      “No offense taken,” Delahunt replied.

      “Besides,” Kurtzman noted. “Able Team and Phoenix Force weren’t hired for their pretty looks. These are smart, dedicated people. This is a two-way street. Any information they uncover only gives us more to help them with.”

      Price looked at the faxed list of names. “Keller. Haggar. Cannon. Pretty impressive group of killers if Carl’s right.”

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