Critical Intelligence

The crystal-clear picture on the screen changed to a swirling mesh of colors based on radiant heat. On the screen the figures beneath camouflage netting showed up immediately. Roughly two dozen individuals moved about, spread over an area the size of a soccer field.

Several bright spots indicated where industrial furnaces were active, and in one section of the field several large vehicles sat clustered in parallel rows. Cool rectangular blobs revealed Quonset huts and long, narrow buildings of concrete and wood.

The tension in the room grew as they waited for the field teams to strike. Barbara Price leaned forward and grabbed the backrest on an office chair. She squeezed it hard until her knuckles shone white from her grip.

Then, on the screen, all hell broke loose.

CONTENTS

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

CHAPTER THIRTY

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

PROLOGUE

The CV-22B Osprey hung over the South American landscape like a nocturnal bird of prey.

The CV-22B was the Air Force version of the more famous Marine Corps Vertical Take Off Landing troop transport. Outfitted with extended-capacity fuel tanks, the CV was designed for long-range reconnaissance work or deep-penetration raids.

Jack Grimaldi and Charlie Mott worked the controls of the aircraft, navigating it across the jungle at the upper range of its flight ceiling. In the cargo area were the men of Phoenix Force and Able Team, elite commandos from Stony Man Farm, the ultrasecret extrax legal agency based in Virginia.

The Stony Man warriors were outfitted with military free-fall parachutes. They would be the advance force for phase one of the assault operation.

Grimaldi’s voice came over the intercom. “Boys, we’re rolling hot over the LZ. Commence final prejump checks.”

Both tactical teams rose from their sling seats and began, for the third time, to check the harness and fittings of their jump buddy’s parachute.

Once his check of Gary Manning was done, David McCarter looked to Carl Lyons, who gave him a thumbs-up. Around them the air was rich with the smell of engine heat and the noxious scent of aviation fuel.

“We’re up and ready, Jack,” McCarter said into his throat mike.

“Copy,” Grimaldi replied. “Line up. Charlie’s dropping the ramp now.”

Gary Manning finished off a chocolate bar in two bites and fell in behind McCarter as Calvin James and T. J. Hawkins lined up after him. Able Team took point position next to the exit, where a Stony Man jumpmaster stood ready.

Outside, the night sky, a cloudless color of indigo, stretched away into the horizon. Above the jumpers and to their right an indicator light blinked from amber to green.

The jumpmaster’s hand came down on Carl Lyons’s shoulder, slapping it hard enough to make a pop over the drone of the Osprey’s engines. Like a sprinter out of the blocks the ex-LAPD detective surged forward.

In a modified waddle against the bulk and weight of his parachute, rucksack and weaponry Lyons hit the ramp fast, rushed to the edge and plunged off without hesitation. Behind him in a line resembling lethal penguins the night fighters of Able Team and Phoenix Force followed.

The updraft struck Lyons hard enough to push his goggles against his face. He went into a spread-eagle position and carefully spun around so that he could get a visual on the circling Osprey. The Stony Man commandos shot out of the back, one after the other like Olympic cliff divers going for gold.

The jump was a down-and-dirty and within seconds the Cypress II electronic automatic activation devices began deploying the parachutes. Lyons grunted softly as his harness jerked up tight into his body under the brake of the opening chute. His feet swung out wide and he let his rucksack fall to the end of its tether.

Below him he quickly identified the lights of their initial target.

“Ironman to team,” Lyons said into his throat mike, using his nickname. “I have eyes on objective Alpha to southwest,” he finished.

“Copy,” each man answered in reply.

McCarter fell through the quiet with only the rush of wind and the rustle of silk to break the silence. On his wrist altimeter the meters dropped off at the speed of gravity. He felt like a meteorologist in the deceptively peaceful eye of a tornado.

At the one-thousand-foot mark the details of the objective resolved into sharper relief. The landing strip was suitable for small planes and had been carved with a powerful bulldozer out of the jungle.

Utilized by narcoterror cells operating out of the coca fields of South America, the runway had a prefabricated home at one end and a 4x4 Nissan pickup outfitted with a roll bar of lights at the other end.

All a pilot had to do to land an illicit load was to put his plane down between the two illuminated spots. The runway itself was guarded by narcoguerrillas affiliated with FARC commanders.

And, unbeknownst to themselves and Stony Man, the global network known simply as Seven.

McCarter eyed his altimeter. At the appropriate height he initiated the command. “Phoenix, we are at mike mark. Execute!”

“Copy.” The team reply sounded off simultaneously.

Instantly, the other four members of Phoenix Force pivoted hard and pulled their risers against the drag of their parachutes.

The four-man detachment split off from Able Team and turned toward the lights of the mobile home on the covert runway below.

They descended, death from above.

Carl Lyons craned his neck above and checked the position of Rosario Blancanales and Hermann Schwarz. Both men were strung out in a loose half circle from him, deftly maneuvering their canopies toward the landing zone.

Lyons looked back down after checking the GPS readout next to his altimeter. The ground beneath his dangling feet rushed up toward him. The landing zone was a table-flat stretch of dirt road behind a knife edge of hills half a mile to the east of the runway.

An NRO satellite image series from a month before showed a lightning-strike brush fire had ripped through the area, clearing the light foliage cover and further opening the spot up to an airborne insertion.

Lyons, Blancanales and Schwarz landed in sequence, rolling feet, thighs, shoulder and absorbing the impact in a smooth roll that brought them up to their feet. They functioned quickly, without words, going through a choreographed routine each man knew intimately.

“Ready?” Lyons asked.

“What did Mr. Spock find in the toilet?” Schwarz asked, clicking his safety off.

“Swear to God,” Lyons hissed. “Not another poop joke.”

“The captain’s log,” Schwarz finished. “And don’t trample on my First Amendment rights.”

Blancanales put a restraining hand on Lyons’s arm. “Don’t,” he said. “That crazy son of a bitch has all the explosives on him. If you punch him, he might explode.”

“Let’s just move out, please,” the ex-cop growled.

PHOENIX FORCE crouched in the ditch.

Across the dirt road, light blazed from the trailer’s windows. Occasional shadowed silhouettes passed before the windows. In the front yard two light pickups were parked in a loose L formation in front of the doorway.

A single sentry smoked a cigarette, AKM slung casually over one shoulder.

In the gully, Hawkins laid his crosshairs on the man.

Looking through a pair of light-enhancing binoculars, David McCarter, the Phoenix Force leader, scrutinized the far end of the field where Able Team was slated to remove the vehicle-based sentries. Targets moved in his optics but he caught no sign of Able Team, which was good.

“You good, Hawk?” McCarter whispered.

“Five by five,” the Texan drawled. “Give the word and this ass clown goes down.”

“Phoenix to Able,” McCarter said into his throat mike. “We are in position and prepared to execute.”

There was a moment of silence, then Able Team’s leader responded.

“Copy that, Phoenix. We’re in position. I count three bad guys out here about to go to sleep,” Lyons said.

“Common?”

“I have eyes on one sat phone. That appears to be all, unless they have more equipment inside the vehicles.”

“Roger,” McCarter acknowledged. “Target at will. Phoenix commencing.”

“Able out.” Lyons signed off.

“YOU GOT A CLEAN SHOT on all of them?” Lyons asked in double-check.

The three men lay belly-down on the ground sixty yards out from the terrorist sentry post. Ahead of them the unconcerned trio lounged with a casual sense of security that belied their deadly trade.

“Dead-on,” Blancanales confirmed.

“Ready when you are,” Schwarz said, voice cool as a kitten purring.

Lyons drew himself up to his hands and knees. “Let’s do it,” he grunted.

The deadly three-man squad leaped to their feet and began moving forward. Their M-4 carbines were up and tucked tightly into their shoulders as they stalked ahead, moving heel to toe.

Ahead of them one of the narcoterrorists leaped forward, waving his hand in the air and loudly braying like a donkey. The man thrust his hips forward in a piston action and brought his swinging hand down in a spanking motion.

The other three South Americans began laughing uproariously at the theatrical antics of their comrade in arms. One of them turned sideways, folding over at the waist, and began slapping the hood of his truck.

Lyons filled his sight with the wildly undulating comedian.

His finger took up the slack on his carbine and from thirty yards out the 5.56 mm round cracked as he fired. The back of the man’s head exploded, spraying bits of blood, brain and bone into the air.

The man crumpled forward like a rag doll into the dirt between the vehicles.

Beside Lyons, in a loose flying-wedge formation, both Blancanales and Schwarz triggered their weapons. The rifles cracked in unison and the flanking guerrilla sentries were thrown backward, 3-round bursts slinging loops of blood into the air.

The terrorist who’d been convulsing in laughter on the hood of his truck looked up in surprise at the weapons discharging.

The Able Team warriors sprinted forward, long strides eating up ground at a furious pace. The terrorist cast around him in bewilderment, his expression wavering between terrified and incredulous.

He fumbled for the AKM on a shoulder strap, the weapon shaking in his frightened grasp. Some sense of impending danger alerted the FARC death merchant and he looked up. His eyes grew wide as he saw the three blacked-out commandos charging toward him.

“Dios mio,” he whispered, rifle forgotten.

Three M-4 carbines fired as one from a distance of less than fifteen yards.

“TAKE HIM,” McCarter instructed.

Hawkins fired before the Briton finished his sentence. His silenced M-4 chuffed once. A single smoking 5.56 mm casing popped out of the weapon’s breech and arced through the air.

The sentry staggered backward as if he had just been punched in the chest. The man looked down, shock on his face, and his cigarette tumbled from his lips.

The man toppled over backward and disappeared from view behind one of the trucks. Hawkins’s spent shell casing hit the ground of the drainage ditch and came to rest.

“Go! Go! Go!” McCarter barked. The ex-SAS veteran jumped up, carbine at the ready, and charged toward the trailer. Behind him the remaining three members of Phoenix Force instantly followed.

Fifty yards back, Rafael Encizo covered their rear security.

As they sprinted forward the unit automatically split off into two teams of two. McCarter and Hawkins ran for the front door, while Calvin James and Gary Manning peeled off to target the rear door of the structure. As they ran closer they could make out the faded white paint and black lettering reading Doctors Without Borders.

In a bitter twist of irony the mobile home was the stolen remnant of some forgotten humanitarian mission.

McCarter hugged the front of the trailer as he ran, weapon up and sighted in on the front door. Behind him Hawkins jogged with his weapon at a higher angle, covering the windows.

From down the runway the sounds of Able Team firing could be clearly heard.

McCarter ran up to the metal steps suspended below the front door of the trailer and spun around them. He kept the light carbine up and ready with the muzzle covering the entrance as his left hand went to the suspender of his H-harness web gear and jerked an M-67 fragmentation grenade free.

Hawkins put his back against the trailer, muzzle of his own M-4 pointed upward as he reached out with his left hand and put it on the doorknob. He met McCarter’s eyes. The fox-faced Briton nodded once.

Hooking the ring of the safety clip to the thumb of his trigger hand, McCarter pulled hard and threw the pin into the dirt. He opened his fingers and let the spoon fly free, igniting the fuse.

Hawkins nodded back. His fingers twisted the handle all the way back and he yanked the flimsy door open. McCarter leaned forward and tossed the grenade through the opening at ankle level.

The OD-green metal sphere flew inside the door and bounced.

McCarter and Hawkins both turned away from the opening, throwing shoulders up against the coming blast.

Manning and James cut around the end of the trailer and ran up to the back door. Like the front, this rear entrance was serviced by three metal stairs inside runner struts welded to the bottom of the trailer frame.

Windows broke the surface of the mobile home, spilling bars of light out into the desert night. From this close to the structure it was easy to discern the hum of the generator placed next to the back door.

James cut wide around the generator housing and took a knee at an angle to the back door, weapon up as he provided security.

He and Manning saw the terrorist at the same time. The Hispanic man was adorned with a shapeless black beret and a full black beard that obscured most of his face in a tangle of knotted hair.

He stood over a kitchen sink and casually looked outside as he washed his hands. Manning drew a tight sight bead directly between the man’s eyes at the center of his beetled brow.

Both Phoenix Force commandos paused for a moment. Suddenly, the man’s eyes jerked wide in surprise and James tightened his finger on his trigger.

The grenade explosion filled the space behind the man. Suddenly a thin red syrup splashed the windowpane just as the glass burst outward from the concussive force, spraying shrapnel out in a deadly arc.

Manning and James automatically shifted the muzzles of their weapons and let loose with a long series of 3-round bursts, tearing the rear door to shreds and throwing a wall of lead into the trailer to cut off retreat for the terrorists trapped inside.

From the other side of the trailer came the distinctive sounds of M-4 carbines firing as McCarter and Hawkins moved in to mop up.

Smoke rolled out of shattered windows as the firing stopped.

“Clear!” McCarter barked.

“Clear!” James shouted.

“Phoenix has seized objective,” McCarter announced.

“Able is clear,” Lyons confirmed through the com link.

“I copy.” Jack Grimaldi’s voice broke in from where he circled the Osprey CV-22B overhead. “Airfield secured. We’re coming in.”

CHAPTER ONE

Barbara Price opened her eyes.

She awoke clearheaded and alert, knowing exactly where she was and what she needed to do.

There was a war being fought in the shadows and as the Stony Man mission controller, she was at its epicenter. Her eyes went to the window of her bedroom. It was dark outside. She looked over to her bedside table and read the time on the glowing red numerals of her digital clock.

She had been asleep for a little over four hours. She sat up and pushed a slender hand through her honey-blond hair. She felt revitalized after her power nap, and with a single cup of Aaron “Bear” Kurtzman’s coffee, she knew she’d be ready to face another day.

She got up and smoothed her clothes before picking up the copy of the Washington Post she had placed by the bed. Before stepping out into the upstairs hallway of the Stony Man Farm main house, she reread the headline that had jumped out at her.

Government Accounting Office Finds Fraud

A GAO investigation led by Deputy Director Hammond Carter has led to a senate investigation of funding for several “black op” Pentagon units…

Disgusted, Price stopped reading. The mission controller had too much on her mind at the moment to worry about politics as usual in Washington, D.C.

She frowned. The name “Hammond Carter” was unfamiliar. If there was a new player trampling through intelligence and special operations playgrounds, then she needed to be on top of it. She resolved to have her computer wizard Akira Tokaido see if Stony Man had any files on the man.

As she walked down the hall and then the stairs to the main floor of the farmhouse she began mentally clicking through options and categorizing her tasks. She had men in the field, preparing to go into danger and, like the conductor of a symphony, it was her responsibility to coordinate all the disparate parts into a seamless whole.

She was in the basement and headed for the rail system to the Annex when the cell phone on her belt began to vibrate. She plucked it free and used the red push-talk button to initiate the walkie-talkie mode on the encrypted device.

“This is Price,” she said, voice cool.

“Barb,” Carmen Delahunt began, “the teams are in jump-off mode.”

“Thanks, Carmen,” Price told the ex-FBI agent. “I’m in the tunnel and coming toward the Annex now.”

“See you in a minute.” Delahunt signed off.

Price put her phone away and got into the light electric rail car. The little engine began to hum and she quickly picked up speed as she shot down the one thousand-foot tunnel sunk fifteen feet below the ground of Virginia’s Blue Ridge Mountains.

Things were starting to come together, and Price could sense the tingle she had first felt as a mission controller for long-range operations conducted by the National Security Agency. It was there she had made her bones in the intelligence business before being recruited by Hal Brognola to run logistics and support at the top secret Stony Man Farm.

It had been quite a promotion, she reflected as the rail car raced down the subterranean tunnel past conduit pipes and thick power cables toward the Farm’s Annex, camouflaged underneath a commercial wood-chipping facility.

Stony Man had operated as a clandestine antiterrorist operation since long before the infamous attacks of September 11 had put all of America’s military, intelligence and law-enforcement efforts on the same page. Stony Man operated as it always had—under the direct control of the White House and separate from both the Joint Special Operations Command and the Directorate of National Intelligence.

Stony Man had been given carte blanche to operate at peak efficiency, eliminating oversights and legalities in the name of pragmatic results. It also, perhaps most importantly, offered the U.S. government the ability to disavow any knowledge of operations that went badly. Sometimes the big picture could be a very cold and unforgiving snapshot.

This left Stony Man and its operators particularly vulnerable to certain types of exposure. One hint of their existence in a place like MSNBC or the New York Times could lead to horrific outcomes.

The electric engine beneath her seat began to power down, and the rail car slowed to a halt. She pushed the morose reflections from her mind as it entered the Annex building.

Things were ready to roll hot; she could not afford to be distracted now. She stood and stepped out of the car. Fluorescent lights gleamed off linoleum floors and a sign on the whitewashed wall read Authorized Personnel Only. Beside the sign a member of the Farm’s security staff nodded to her and reached over to the keypad that controlled the door to the tunnel. The fit, broad-shouldered man wore a black uniform and carried a 9 mm H&K MP-5 submachine gun.

Coming through the door, she was met by the wheelchair-bound Aaron Kurtzman. The big man reached out a hand the size of a paw and gave her a steaming mug of coffee. She eyed the ink-colored liquid dubiously.

“Thanks, Bear. That’s just what I’ve been missing—something that can put hair on my chest.”

The pair of them had exchanged that exact same greeting so many times it was like a Groundhog Day moment. Both took comfort in the repetition.

Kurtzman turned the wheelchair and began to keep pace with the female mission controller as they made for the Communications Center.

The former Big Ten college wrestler lifted a massive arm across a barrel chest and pushed his glasses up on his nose beneath a high forehead with a deep horizontal crease. Price had once teased him that the worry line was severe enough for him to be awarded a Purple Heart.

After he’d earned his Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota, Kurtzman had been a computer programmer in one form or another. He was a Stony Man veteran who had been with the Farm since the beginning, and his wheelchair was a constant testament to his dedication.

“McCarter just called for Phoenix,” he said, his voice a low rumble. “They’re set up with Grimaldi at the secure helipad. Lyons did the same for Able Team. They’re in place and ready to execute.”

“Good,” Barb said. She took a drink of the extrastrong coffee and pulled a face. “I’ll alert Hal, then. All we need is the go-ahead from the President.”

The pair entered the massive Communications Center and into a maelstrom of activity. Price paused at the door like a commander surveying her troops. She liked what she saw.

Kurtzman glided over to his work area, where it looked as if a bomb had gone off. His desk was covered in faxes, paperwork and the exposed wiring of a half dozen devices. Behind his desk a coffeepot, stained as black as the mud that filled it, bubbled like a tar pit.

Next to Kurtzman’s desk, fingers flying across a laptop while monitoring a sat link, Akira Tokaido bobbed his head in time to the music coming from a single earbud. The lean, compact hacker was the youngest member of Stony Man’s cybernetics team and the heir apparent to Kurtzman himself. The Japanese American cyber wizard had at times worked virtual magic when Price had needed him to.