LITMIR.BIZ

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forbid. I leave the loud, unearthly sounds to Ironman,” Blancanales said, referencing Carl Lyons, Able Team’s third and final member.

      “Good choice.”

      “How’d you find me?”

      Schwarz held up the coffee, made a face. “I figured either you or a hog farmer cooked up this swill. I didn’t see you in the house, so I figured you might be outside.”

      “You need something?”

      Schwarz shook his head. “Nah, just nosing around. I was already up. Up all night, in fact. I got caught up in hotrodding my laptop. I added more memory, upgraded the wireless fidelity capabilities, added some dandy new encryption software.”

      “Have my eyes glazed over yet?” Blancanales asked, grinning.

      Schwarz arched his upper lip in mock disdain. “Savage. My great genius cannot be appreciated by one such as you.”

      “Right.” Blancanales swallowed more coffee.

      “So you dodged me long enough. What the hell are you doing out here?”

      “Not sleeping.”

      “And not answering my questions.”

      Blancanales opened his mouth to reply, but a vibration on his left hip cut him off. In almost synchronized movements, he and Gadgets unhooked their pagers from their belts, brought them closer to their faces and studied the liquid-crystal displays.

      “War Room,” Blancanales said.

      “Not good,” Schwarz replied. “Not at this hour.”

      Blancanales nodded his agreement. A tickle of excitement passed through his stomach, followed by a sense of relief. Just what he needed—a little action to distract him. He gestured toward the house. With a nod, Schwarz pivoted on his heel and started for the front door. Blancanales fell into step behind him.

      ENTERING THE WAR ROOM, Blancanales swept his gaze over its occupants, smiled at them. Barbara Price, Stony Man Farm’s mission controller, Aaron “The Bear” Kurtzman, chief of Stony Man’s cybernetics team and Lyons were seated at the oval-shaped table. Price, her honey-blond hair pulled back in a ponytail, skin bare of makeup, and Kurtzman, thick body settled in his wheelchair, big hands wrapped around a steaming mug of coffee, returned Blancanales’s smile. Lyons looked up from his coffee long enough to nod at his teammates before returning his attention to the mug’s swirling contents.

      Hal Brognola stood at the head of the table, arms crossed over his chest. His white cotton dress shirt was open at the collar, the sleeves rolled up to the middle of his forearms. An unlit cigar jutted from between the big Fed’s lips.

      “Nice breakfast, Chief,” Blancanales said as he dropped into a chair.

      “Beats your coffee,” Brognola shot back.

      “Oh, Lord,” Blancanales said. “Hal’s tossing out jokes. Isn’t that a sign of the apacolypse?”

      “Could be in this case,” Brognola said.

      “Okay, you’ve got our attention,” Lyons said. “Elaborate.”

      Plucking the cigar from his mouth, Brognola studied it for a moment as he collected his thoughts. When he spoke, his voice sounded weary. “Within the past few hours, the country took a double-barreled gut shot. Both home and abroad. I have Phoenix Force working things overseas. I need you folks to defuse the homeland threat.”

      “Which is?” Schwarz asked.

      “Nothing short of mass murder,” Brognola said. He turned and looked at Price. “Barb?” She pressed a button on her laptop and an image of middle-aged man with black hair and a dark complexion came into view on the wall screen.

      “Name’s Abdul Rashid,” Brognola said. “He heads a lovefest called Arm of God. As far as terror groups go, it’s fairly new, surfacing a year ago. But it seems well connected and well funded. And, as of this morning, it moved to the top of our must-hit list.”

      “How so?” Blancanales said.

      “Some of Rashid’s men seized our embassy in Liberia this morning,” Brognola said. “They have a couple dozen hostages, including a handful of Marines working security at the facility. From what we’ve gathered, Rashid’s not there.”

      “Casualties?” Blancanales asked.

      “Six dead. All Marines. They went down defending the place.”

      “How could this happen?” Schwarz asked, his face flushing with anger. “I mean, a dozen Marines in a walled compound ought to be able to kick serious ass. I take it these guys didn’t just scale the walls and storm the building.”

      Brognola nodded. “Right. Initial reports indicate that someone lobbed a live hand grenade over the wall. When it exploded, some of the Marines went to investigate, while the rest tried to secure the embassy.”

      “Divide and conquer,” Schwarz stated.

      “Precisely,” Brognola said. “At least two Marines were shot inside the embassy, even as the others were going outside to investigate the blast. And the terrorists didn’t need to scale the wall. The gate was open, a dead guard lying next to it. The smart money says that someone inside the embassy either opened the door or at least left a key under the mat, so to speak. The State Department security guys are checking the staffers again, looking for possible traitors. But if they didn’t find them during the initial screening, they probably won’t now, either. Our cyberteam is doing likewise, but again, I’m not too hopeful.”

      “I beg your pardon?” Kurtzman asked.

      “Sorry, Bear, but my guess is that, if it was an inside job, then that person covered his or her tracks pretty well. Embassy security hasn’t exactly been lax since the World Trade Center attacks. These creeps probably coerced someone into helping, someone without previous ties to the group, making them harder to trace.”

      Kurtzman nodded. “Makes sense. Just the same, we’ll keep bird-dogging this thing, in case someone else missed something.”

      “I’d expect no less. I sent Phoenix Force to handle the embassy seizure. The group was already in Africa, fresh off another mission, and I could have them there within a matter of hours. And, according to our intel, Rashid is hanging his hat somewhere in Africa. So we’ll likely send Phoenix in to take him out, once they free the embassy.”

      “So you got us out of bed why? To tell us that Phoenix Force will be late for dinner?” Lyons said.

      Brognola gave Lyons and the others a weary smile. “I wish. Unfortunately we have trouble here on the home front, too. That’s why I’m depriving all of you—especially you, Carl—of your much-needed beauty sleep. From your standpoints, the African situation is necessary background for what needs handled in the United States. Barb will explain.”

      “The point, finally,” Lyons muttered. Draining his mug, he stalked over to the coffee machine to refill it.

      In the meantime Brognola fell into his chair, chomped on his cigar while Price got to her feet. Price hit a button on her laptop and a new picture flashed on the projection screen on the far wall. As everyone took a moment to study the image, she wordlessly handed out mission packets to Able Team.

      Flipping through the file folder, Blancanales came across a photo of a man sprawled on his back, his uniform shirt darkened by blood. Most of his head had been torn away, apparently by a bullet. Blancanales recognized a U.S. Border Patrol insignia on the guy’s shoulder patch. In a second photo, he saw a woman patrol agent, her throat savaged by a bullet, curled up on a floor. Her pistol lay several inches from her fingers.

      Blancanales held up the pictures. “Where did this happen?”

      “California-Mexico border,” Price said. “Near Tijuana, Mexico. The exact location is listed in the mission packet. The woman’s name was Jennifer Drew. She was

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