LITMIR.BIZ

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to find a finger nicked. That had been close.

      Going to an open passageway, Nasser eased into the darkness, only to reappear a minute later.

      “Clear,” she announced.

      Assuming the lead, Armanjani surged forward, making sure that he never removed his hand from the left wall. The antiradiation maze twisted and turned countless times through total darkness before there was a distant haze of light that grew steadily brighter.

      Stepping into bright sunlight, the three people quickly scanned the ruins of a large greenhouse, but they seemed to be alone. The plastic windows, designed to withstand the worst possible sandstorm, were intact, but sandblasted dead-white, so that it was impossible to see what lay outside. Dust hung heavy in the air, and they stirred up small clouds shuffling past the rows of empty shelves and ornate pots. Dead plants lay underfoot, and their boots softly crunched on the desiccated foliage.

      “Sir, why did we not simply go back out the front door?” Hassan asked in a terse whisper.

      “Didn’t you see the man on the balcony activate a remote control?” Nasser demanded impatiently. “What else could it have been but an antipersonnel device?”

      “And where would you place such a thing?” Armanjani asked, peeking around an ornate column to check the next wing of the huge greenhouse.

      “Front door, the exact way we got in,” Hassan replied tightly. “Sorry, sir.”

      “Not to worry, old friend,” Armanjani said, glancing at the hulking goliath. “That’s why we’re here.”

      Continuing on through the dusty buildings, the trio finally reached the last structure. Creeping along the sandy floor, they dimly heard voices discussing the battle.

      “What do you think happened?”

      “We’ll find out soon enough.”

      “Give them another few minutes?”

      “Let me finish this cigar first, eh?”

      “Fair enough. Got one for me?”

      “Of course!”

      Rising in unison, the members of Ophiuchus aimed at the unseen enemy on the other side of the white plastic and fired in unison. The plastic windowpanes splintered under the furious assault, and several men screamed in pain, then went silent.

      Kicking open the flimsy door, Armanjani moved out of the greenhouse with the others in flanking positions. A dozen bodies were sprawled on the sand, a few of the men still alive and choking on their own blood.

      Parked nearby were a pair of Cadillac SUVs, the engines softly purring. The closest vehicle was missing all of the tinted windows along one side, and a corpse, missing most of his face, was slumped over the steering wheel. The second SUV was undamaged, the driver’s door open, the man running for his life along the bank of the lake.

      Taking careful aim, Armanjani stroked the trigger of his gun, and the fleeing man flipped over sideways to splash into the water.

      With Nasser standing guard, Hassan used his 9 mm Tariq to shoot everybody on the ground twice in the face just to make sure they were dead.

      Yanking open the door to the intact SUV, Armanjani wasn’t surprised to find an old man huddled on the floor in the rear compartment.

      “Please don’t hurt me!” he begged, tears flowing down his cheeks.

      Blowing the man away, Armanjani hauled out the body, then removed the corpse’s white kaffiyeh to mop the fresh blood off the leather seats.

      “Think there are any more hidden about?” Hassan asked, reloading the pistol.

      “No, they were overconfident,” Nasser said with a sneer as if that was the worst crime it was possible to commit.

      Checking the trunk of the first Cadillac, the major found only the shipping case for the .50-caliber machine gun and some spare belts of ammunition. Useless. However, the other SUV contained extra fuel, military rations and a small arsenal of handguns, assault rifles and ammunition. But there was no money. The major stiffened in rage. Obviously, al Qaeda had never planned on paying for the weapon, even if a deal could have been reached. How could he have been so foolish as to trust them?

      Slamming the hatch closed, Armanjani glanced across the lake to see that the abandoned palace was on fire, red flames licking out the shattered windows to slowly expand along the balconies.

      “That secret exit was why you chose this palace for the meeting. Am I right, sir?” Nasser asked unexpectedly.

      “Knowing where to fight is half the battle,” Armanjani replied, holstering his weapon. “All right, let’s go.”

      As Hassan got behind the wheel, Nasser took the passenger seat and Armanjani climbed into the rear, carefully avoiding the damp patch of sticky leather.

      Taking a minute to familiarize himself with the controls of the new vehicle, Hassan then turned on the air conditioner and slowly drove away, following the double set of tire tracks in the sand.

      “What now, sir?” he asked, turning onto the access road and accelerating. A wide dust cloud rose behind the speeding vehicle that soon obscured the view of the burning palace.

      “We return to base and try to find more reasonable customers,” Armanjani replied, removing his sunglasses and tucking them into a pocket.

      Nasser scowled. “Sir, what if we can’t find any reasonable customers, just more dogs like these fat fools?”

      “Then we create some,” the major said, pulling out a cell phone to start thumbing a text message.

      CHAPTER FOUR

      Washington, D.C.

      Tugging his necktie loose, Hal Brognola used the heels of his palms to rub his eyes, and then poured himself yet another cup of strong black coffee from an insulated carafe. Only a few drops came out, so he rose from behind the desk and crossed the office to start making a fresh pot.

      The office was orderly and neat, the walls decorated with pictures of his wife and children and law-enforcement certificates. His suit jacket was hung across the back of a chair, and an old police-issue .38 revolver was holstered at the small of his back. The grip was worn from decades of use in the field, and long hours at the shooting range every weekend. It had been a while since Brognola had drawn a weapon, but he knew that when the need arose there would be no advance warning.

      The big Fed returned to his desk with a fresh cup of coffee. Tapping some keys on a keyboard, Brognola reviewed the fact sheet he had been assembling for Mack Bolan and the President on lightning. The voltage and wattage widely varied, but generally they were around a hundred-million volts, which was more than enough to kill a bull elephant, much less a human being. The earth was hit by roughly 50,000 lightning bolts a year, and an average 3,000 people died every year from being struck.

      Single-strike, multistrike, forked, chain, sheet, sprite, elves, trolls, Brognola hadn’t heard of half of the forms of lightning bolts he’d researched, and he had been startled to discover the old joke about a bolt from the blue was horrifyingly true. Blue lightning could arc in from five miles away. The sky would be perfectly clear, the wind calm, and a split second later you were a pile of ash in the grass.

      “Good night, Chief!” his secretary, Kelly, called out from the other side of the office door. “See you tomorrow!”

      “Drive safely!” Brognola answered back, casting a nervous glance out the window at the cloudy sky. It wasn’t raining in D.C. yet, but it would soon, at which point all bets were off.

      On top of everything else, the list of possible targets hit by these snake charmers, as they used to call people who claimed to be able to make it rain, was getting longer all the time, and the death toll was rising faster than Brognola could keep track of. At first, it was mostly meteorologists and weather scientists. Now, it was financial experts, bank computers

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