LITMIR.BIZ

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      PHOENIX FORCE SAT in an arc around a titanium laptop attached to a satellite link. David McCarter checked his watch. “The lad’s late.”

      T.J. Hawkins walked in on cue. He held an ice bucket loaded with drinks and set them on the table with a frown. “Explain to me how I became manservant for this chickenshit outfit, again?”

      “Because you’re the youngest.” Calvin James reached over and snagged a beer. The lanky black man grinned. “And it would be politically incorrect for me or Rafe to do it.”

      Hawkins considered for a half second suggesting Manning get up off his dead ass, but the big Canadian had put his feet up on the table and apparently was waiting for it with a smile on his face. Hawkins let that one die on the vine.

      “T.J.?” McCarter pulled a bottle out of the bucket and frowned. “What is this?”

      “Uh…a Coke?” Hawkins pointed at the wasp-waisted, fluted-glass bottle defiantly. “Look at that shape.”

      McCarter stared at Hawkins unblinkingly. “It’s diet.”

      Hawkins stared at the bottle. Aside from the Coca-Cola logo it was covered with incomprehensible scrawl. “You read Tajikistani?”

      “No, Tajikistan doesn’t bottle Coke. They import from bottlers in Russia and the former Soviet states. This is Ukrainian, and diet. You can tell by the gold cap and the Cyrillic writing.”

      Hawkins blinked. “You need an intervention.”

      McCarter shoved the offending soft drink back into the bucket and pulled out a beer.

      “Man…” Hawkins dropped into a chair and cracked himself a Russian brew. “How do I get transferred to Able Team?”

      McCarter hit some keys on the computer. “Khan gave us two names.”A picture of a bullet-headed man appeared. His shaved head and his face had uniform-length stubble. His flat black eyes lived up to his nickname. “Here we have Sharypa ‘The Shark’ Sharkov. He’s Russian mafiya, and represents Moscow organized crime interests in Tajikistan. Interpol has a rap sheet on him as long as your arm. Standard provincial mafyia scumbag. He breaks legs, extorts, runs guns and prostitutes, and sends a piece to Moscow.”

      “First we get ‘The Goat’ and now ‘The Shark’?” Rafe snorted in amusement. “All we need are Camelboy and the Limpet and we’ll have our own bad-guy petting zoo.”

      McCarter hit another key. A disturbingly handsome man appeared on the screen. His black wavy hair was pulled into a short ponytail and his Vandyke made him look like Satan in an Armani suit. “This is Aidar Zhol, our local boy. He doesn’t have an animal nickname. He is an animal. Name a law of nature and he’s broken it. He likes the high life, likes gambling and spends a lot of time in Moscow. If you’re a Russian general or high-ranking politician and you want a beautiful, virgin Tajik girl fresh from the hills for your rape room, Zhol’s the man you see. He also owns a piece of any Afghani heroin that comes through the capital and owns the only casino in town. If you’re transporting nukes through Tajikistan, it’s a good bet Sharkov and Zhol at least know about it if they aren’t actually extracting a safe-passage fee. We have two devices unaccounted for. I’m betting either one or both of them have them or at least know which way they went.”

      James took a long pull on his beer. “Russian nukes don’t just go missing. Someone has to deliberately misplace them.”

      McCarter nodded. “MI-6 has an informant who broke the news about the nukes. There’s no doubt a Russian general had to be involved. The question is, which one? If these were actually nuclear warheads, we could narrow the selection down to officers of the Russian Strategic Rocket Forces, but these are nuclear demolition charges. They aren’t governed by any treaty and several Russian military branches have their own small stockpiles, so tracking our wayward general is going to be tough on the Farm’s end.”

      Hawkins leaned back in his chair. “So we’re going to have to find him starting from the gutter up. Typical.”

      James echoed the sentiment. “Tell me we have some kind of in with these guys.”

      “We just might,” McCarter stated.

      James didn’t like the smile on the Englishman’s face. “Shit…”

      “That’s right. Our in just might be you.” McCarter clicked more keys. A black man with a shaved head appeared on the screen. His powerful physique strained his immaculately tailored blue-silk suit. To the trained eye it was clear that he was wearing a pistol beneath his jacket. He sat at a table with a beautiful, grinning blonde under his left arm while a second leaned over his shoulder laughing. A massive diamond adorned one ear. Dozens more glittered on the gold rings on his fingers and the custom Rolex Submariner on his wrist.

      Sitting next to him was Aidar Zhol. They both had their arms over each other’s shoulders and were smiling happily into the camera.

      “That is Clayborne Forbes.” McCarter hit another button and the same man appeared staring forward, iron-jawed and stern, wearing the dress white cap and blue jacket of the United States Navy. Service ribbons adorned his chest. “Lieutenant Clayborne Forbes. Former United States Navy SEAL. A year ago he was on operations in Afghanistan. His tour was up and he declined to reenlist. Honorably discharged. The last that was heard of him was that he was an independent contractor in Afghanistan for one of the stateside security companies.”

      “And now the brother is dripping in blondes and bling in Tajikistan.” James shook his head. “Bodyguard?”

      “Ostensibly. The name Navy SEAL has a hell of a lot of cache. Having a man like Forbes for a bodyguard would certainly enhance Zhol’s reputation,” McCarter stated. “But the Farm figures he’s probably a hell of a lot more than that. In the past year most of Zhol’s competition has wound up dead. Now, I’ll grant you, what with the civil wars, ethnic in-fighting, separatist movements, Russian mafiya and Muslim extremists, the former Soviet South Asian states are the wild, wild west. But Zhol’s enemies aren’t dying in the usual drive-by bloodbaths or car bombings, they’re—”

      “They’re getting ghosted,” James concluded. “SEAL style.”

      “That is the current conclusion we’re working with.”

      “I don’t like pulling the race card, David.” James’s eyes went hard. “But I don’t like being sent to hunt my own, know what I’m saying?”

      “I can understand that, but we’re talking about a man aiding and abetting in heroin trafficking and selling little girls. There’s also the matter of two loose nuclear demolition charges. And if his name was Nigel Ian Smythe and former SAS, I’d be the one going in.”

      James let out a long breath. “I hear you.”

      “Zhol’s casino is called the Silk Road. When he’s in town he lives in the penthouse. Intelligence says Zhol is in town. It’s Friday night, so he’ll probably be in the house and Forbes should be with him. We need to arrange a meet-and-greet.”

      McCarter gazed around the table. “Any suggestions?”

      CHAPTER THREE

      The game was Texas Hold’em. Calvin James was winning, and winning big. He stared coolly into the smoldering eyes of his remaining opponent. Everyone else had folded and it was James’s deal. The man in front of him was heavy-shouldered and wore a poorly tailored suit of local manufacture, and a short turban.

      The man was a maniac.

      In poker a maniac was a hyperaggressive player who raised, bet and bluffed big pots whether he had a great hand or nothing at all. A genuine maniac wasn’t a good player, though he or she could often dominate a timid table. Players who occasionally played maniac to confuse their opponents were quite dangerous.

      James’s opponent was positively psycho.

      The game had attracted a

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