LITMIR.BIZ

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impossible, for there were still citizens who sided with the government and military personnel who sympathized with, and even fought for, the disorganized PSOF rebel forces.

      The cause was as old as mankind itself: should the people of a nation be governed neutrally, and be free to practice the religion of their choice, or should theocracy rule the land, creating all laws and demanding that each individual adhere to that belief system?

      And to confuse things even more, there were rumors of more and more al Qaeda troops crossing the border into Radestan every day. They were reported to be pouring fuel on the fire of both government and rebel forces, lying in wait for the time when both sides had weakened each other enough to give the terrorists the chance to take over themselves.

      All of these thoughts flashed through David McCarter’s brain as he free-fell through the sky just outside of Ramesh, Radestan. Below, the former British SAS commando turned Phoenix Force leader could see the capital city several miles away from where he and the other members of Stony Man Farm’s crack counterterrorist team, Phoenix Force, would land.

      The city looked peaceful enough from two thousand feet in the air. What he knew to be a mixture of ancient mud-and-clay structures with more modern houses, soaring office buildings and other structures appeared now only as tiny indiscernible spots. But McCarter knew that even if violence was not in progress beyond his limited vision, it only meant the government and rebels had taken a brief respite to rest and regroup before plunging back into gunfire, explosions and other attacks and counterattacks.

      McCarter turned his eyes upward as he continued to fall. The aircraft that had brought Phoenix Force to Radestan was now only a tiny speck in the distance as Jack Grimaldi, Stony Man Farm’s ace pilot, steered the plane out of the country’s airspace. McCarter shifted his eyes to four other, closer, spots in the sky. Rather than moving away from him like the plane, these spots followed a descent similar to his toward the ground.

      The sight brought a hard grin to McCarter’s face. He believed firmly in the adage that a true leader led from the front—which meant he had jumped from Grimaldi’s plane first. And that fact, in turn, meant he could see the other four members of Phoenix Force still above him.

      Rafael “Pescado” Encizo was a Cuban refugee who had earned the Spanish name for “fish” due to his expertise under the water.

      Calvin James, a former Navy SEAL, could kill enemies faster with a knife than most men could with a machine gun.

      The barrel-chested Canadian, Gary Manning, could bench press close to five hundred pounds—on a bad day—and his expertise with explosives had saved Phoenix Force and thousands of innocents countless times since the inception of Stony Man Farm.

      Thomas Jackson Hawkins—better known simply as “Hawk” or “T.J.”—was the youngest and newest member of the attack team. A man with a family military history he could trace back to the Revolutionary War, Hawkins spent what little time they ever had between missions engaged in any danger sport he could find.

      McCarter felt his chest fill with pride as he watched the spots in the air gradually become larger. He was proud of his men. And he loved them like the brothers that they were.

      The Phoenix Force leader glanced at his altitude gauge and saw that he had a few more seconds before he pulled the ripcord and allowed the parachute canopy to shoot out and fill with air. He had chosen a HALO—High Altitude Low Opening—jump to keep his team’s entry into the war-ravaged nation as low-key as possible. There would be shooting before this assignment was over, he knew. Lots of it. But the thought of his team drifting slowly down beneath open chutes—silhouetted against the sky as clearly as shooting range targets—held little appeal to him. There was nothing, McCarter knew, more vulnerable than a paratrooper as he neared the ground.

      Another glance down and the Phoenix Force leader could make out more details of the city buildings in the distance. They were approximately ten miles from Ramesh, Radestan’s capital city. He twisted his neck to look straight down and saw what was obviously a small house and a larger barn.

      It appeared that Phoenix Force would be landing exactly where they’d planned to do so.

      A weathered, wooden-fenced corral stood adjacent to the barn’s own aged wood, and a dozen or so undernourished cattle stood inside that fence. As McCarter dropped closer, several of the bovine heads, their mouths moving up and down, back and forth, as they chewed their cud, looked up to watch him as intently as he watched them.

      The Briton didn’t have to check his altitude gauge again to know it was time to pull the cord.

      The sudden jerk as air filled the canopy lifted McCarter back up in the air. Then he leveled off and began to fall again—this time much slower. He took a quick inventory of the other members of Phoenix Force to make sure they had experienced no equipment failures, and mentally ticked them off in his head as he continued to glide to the ground.

      His men were fine.

      McCarter flipped a switch on his belt and activated the two-way radio. The team had all tuned in to a secure frequency while still on the plane, and now he made use of it. “Phoenix One,” McCarter said into the headset microphone positioned in front of his mouth. “Sound off, mates.”

      One by one, the men known on the airwaves as Phoenix Two, Three, Four and Five, checked in.

      McCarter looked down again at the cattle inside the corral and immediately steered his canopy toward a flat area outside the fence and away from the barn. “I’m nearing the ground,” he said into the mike. “And I’m angling away from the animals. I suggest you blokes do the same.” No sooner were the words out of his mouth than David McCarter’s boots hit the hard dirt and sparse grass. Landing hard after the lower-than-usual opening of his parachute, the Briton automatically threw himself forward into a shoulder roll to spread the impact across his body. Then he popped back to his feet in time to watch the others return to Earth a few seconds later.

      All except T. J. Hawkins, who had been the last to jump out of the plane, While his chute had opened fine, he seemed to have had some sort of trouble with his steering toggles. Instead of landing outside the corral with the rest of the team, Phoenix Force’s airborne ops expert touched down inside the rustic wooden fence, barely missing one of the cows.

      McCarter couldn’t help but chuckle. Neither could the other three Stony Man Farm operatives who were gathering up their chutes next to him. The three men under McCarter’s command knew why their leader had suggested they sail clear of the corral.

      It was ankle-deep in cow manure.

      Hawkins had seen what was on the ground where he would land, too. And he’d chosen a bone-jarring “stand-up” landing over a roll-through in the cow dung. Even then, his boots sank as if he’d landed in some muddy, foul-smelling swamp.

      With a look of disgust on his face, Hawkins pulled in his chute, doing his best to avoid the manure that had clung to the light material. Once he had control of the mess, he climbed over the rickety fence.

      “Be sure to walk downwind of me, would you, Hawk?” Gary Manning said.

      “Yeah, you probably should keep about a hundred yards behind us on the way into town,” said Calvin James. Rafael Encizo nodded and smiled.

      Hawkins was irritated. “Unless things have changed since our briefing,” he said, “we’re due to change clothes anyway before we head into town.” He reached down and pinched the material of his combat blacksuit, pulled the stretchy material out, then let it snap back into place. “These things just might draw a little unwanted attention. They practically scream, ‘We’re Westerners—shoot us.’”

      James sucked in a deep breath of air, which caused his nostrils to flare in, then out again. “I’m thinking about shooting you right now myself,” he quipped. “I’m not sure just changing clothes’ll be enough to disinfect you.”

      “Of course every cloud has a silver lining,” said Encizo with a straight face. “If we come across any Radestani bomb-sniffing dogs, you’re sure to end their careers.”

      Hawkins

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