Neutron Force

The President ran his hand through his hair in frustration. “But if another government had such a weapon, they could never use it. And if terrorists had a neutron cannon, the death toll would already be in the millions.”

“Unless this was a field test,” Hal Brognola stated. Taking out Air Force One in midflight would certainly make a statement. “What can my people do to help?”

“Stopping these people is more important than getting our hands on the cannon. It has to be top priority. Kill them with extreme prejudice. No mercy.”

Other titles in this series:

#23 THE PERISHING GAME

#24 BIRD OF PREY

#25 SKYLANCE

#26 FLASHBACK

#27 ASIAN STORM

#28 BLOOD STAR

#29 EYE OF THE RUBY

#30 VIRTUAL PERIL

#31 NIGHT OF THE JAGUAR

#32 LAW OF LAST RESORT

#33 PUNITIVE MEASURES

#34 REPRISAL

#35 MESSAGE TO AMERICA

#36 STRANGLEHOLD

#37 TRIPLE STRIKE

#38 ENEMY WITHIN

#39 BREACH OF TRUST

#40 BETRAYAL

#41 SILENT INVADER

#42 EDGE OF NIGHT

#43 ZERO HOUR

#44 THIRST FOR POWER

#45 STAR VENTURE

#46 HOSTILE INSTINCT

#47 COMMAND FORCE

#48 CONFLICT IMPERATIVE

#49 DRAGON FIRE

#50 JUDGMENT IN BLOOD

#51 DOOMSDAY DIRECTIVE

#52 TACTICAL RESPONSE

#53 COUNTDOWN TO TERROR

#54 VECTOR THREE

#55 EXTREME MEASURES

#56 STATE OF AGGRESSION

#57 SKY KILLERS

#58 CONDITION HOSTILE

#59 PRELUDE TO WAR

#60 DEFENSIVE ACTION

#61 ROGUE STATE

#62 DEEP RAMPAGE

#63 FREEDOM WATCH

#64 ROOTS OF TERROR

#65 THE THIRD PROTOCOL

#66 AXIS OF CONFLICT

#67 ECHOES OF WAR

#68 OUTBREAK

#69 DAY OF DECISION

#70 RAMROD INTERCEPT

#71 TERMS OF CONTROL

#72 ROLLING THUNDER

#73 COLD OBJECTIVE

#74 THE CHAMELEON FACTOR

#75 SILENT ARSENAL

#76 GATHERING STORM

#77 FULL BLAST

#78 MAELSTROM

#79 PROMISE TO DEFEND

#80 DOOMSDAY CONQUEST

#81 SKY HAMMER

#82 VANISHING POINT

#83 DOOM PROPHECY

#84 SENSOR SWEEP

#85 HELL DAWN

#86 OCEANS OF FIRE

#87 EXTREME ARSENAL

#88 STARFIRE

Neutron Force

STONY MAN®

AMERICA’S ULTRA-COVERT INTELLIGENCE AGENCY

Don Pendleton

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

EPILOGUE

PROLOGUE

“What was that?” the pilot of the 747 demanded, leaning forward in his seat.

For a split second the man could have sworn that he saw a flock of birds tumbling out of the night sky alongside the speeding jumbo jet. In an instant they were gone, left far behind. But the image remained in his mind. Hundreds of falling bodies, wings spread wide.

“Trouble?” the copilot asked, looking up from the clipboard in his hands. He had been busy working on the fuel consumption figures.

“Not sure,” the pilot replied, looking over to check the radar. They were flying low enough for birds to reach the 747, only ten thousand feet, but the scope was clean, and the flight plan showed that no other planes should be near them for a hundred miles. Aside from the flight of F-18 fighters flying escort, the nighttime sky was clear with only a few sporadic clouds on the horizon and the infinite heavens above. Then what the hell knocked down a flight of birds? he wondered.

There was no moon. Below the speeding plane, the world twinkled with the city lights of the villages and towns of Ohio. The digital clock blinked into midnight, and the pilot saw the map on the plasma screen monitor shift position slightly. Okay, make that Pennsylvania.

Briefly the pilot considered contacting the Secret Service agents in the rear of the plane, but decided against disturbing the men. What could he say? Some dead birds fell out of the sky? How could that possibly be a threat to the armored 747 and its august passengers?

Ever since 1995, there were three Boeing jumbo jets that bore the designation VC-25. The planes only assumed the call sign Air Force One when the President was on board. The three planes were in constant service, sometimes flying empty across the continent, to make it all but impossible for an enemy of America to precisely track the whereabouts of the nation’s political leader. Thankfully, the current flight from Los Angeles to Boston was a milk run. The jumbo jet was almost empty, bearing only a couple of Homeland Security agents, a civil servant, an elderly scientist and a dozen Secret Service agents. Nothing to attract a terrorist attack.

Adjusting the trim slightly, the pilot couldn’t shake the feeling of dread. Those birds had only been in sight for a moment, yet he felt certain that they had been dead and not merely knocked unconscious from the wash of the turbojets. A former combat pilot in the first Gulf War, the man had learned to trust his instincts. And there was definitely something odd about a hundred birds tumbling from the nighttime sky.

“What’s wrong, Chief, see a UFO?” The navigator chuckled as he poured himself a cup of coffee from an insulated carafe.

“Maybe you’ve finally burned out your brain on caffeine,” the pilot suggested with a wane smile.

The navigator laughed. “With Jamaican Blue? Not possible.”

“Coffee that sells for more than cocaine.” The copilot sadly shook his head, placing aside the clipboard. “Waste of money, if you ask me.”

“If I gave you a sip, you’d never say that again,” the navigator said, holding the cup in both hands to savor the delicious aroma. Then he took a taste, the thick rich Jamaican coffee filling his mouth with scalding flavor.

“Really? Okay, so pour me a cup.”

“Ha! I said a sip, besides…” Pausing in the middle of the sentence, the navigator stopped talking and slumped in his seat. The hot coffee splashed across the console, seeping into the banks of controls.

“Bob, are you okay?” the copilot asked, looking over a shoulder. Then he shuddered and went limp, easing down in his seat as both hands dropped to his sides. The clipboard on his lap slipped away to clatter on the deck.

Instantly alert, the pilot flipped the alarm switch and the autopilot at the same time. One odd thing could be ignored, but two always spelled trouble. First dead birds falling from the sky, now this. Was the plane being attacked?

“Report,” said a brusque voice over the intercom.

Reaching for the hand mike, the pilot suddenly felt a tingling warmth engulf his body, then an infinite blackness swelled to fill the universe.

“I smell Jamaican Blue!” a flight attendant called out jokingly, opening the hatch to the flight deck. Just for a split second the man saw the still bodies of the crew before he also crumpled into a heap, dropping a tray of sandwiches.

In the main galley, the other attendants turned at the noise, then reeled and toppled over, one of them splashing hot soup everywhere.

From their seats, the Secret Service agents looked up at the commotion and started to rise when they also paused, then limply collapsed back into their seats.

The door to the private washroom swung open and the director of special projects for the Department of Defense stepped into the aisle. The man gasped at the sight of everybody sprawled in their seats, and felt the hairs at his nape rise in warning. Something was horribly wrong.

“Get Himar off the plane!” the man shouted, lurching toward a rack of emergency parachutes. But that was when a wave of warmth filled his body and the director tumbled onto the carpeting.

At the aft of the 747, Himar glanced up at the sound of his name, then the scientist slumped in his seat, both hands motionless on the keyboard, the plasma screen filling with lines of total gibberish.

Unstoppable death swept through the 747, touching everybody on board. In moments, the jumbo jet was a flying coffin, totally devoid of life. The only sounds were the drip of the spilled coffee, the hushed whisper of the air vents and the muted thunder of the powerful engines.

Staying a loose combat formation, the wing of jet fighters kept a careful watch on VC-25. As per standing regulations, the Air Force pilots stayed in constant communication with SAC headquarters, and through them, the situation room of the White House. But there was nothing to report. The flight was on course, and on schedule. Everything was normal.

Rigidly maintaining the last heading, the 747 continued toward distant Boston, guided solely by the autopilot…

CHAPTER ONE

Washington, D.C.

Impatiently, Hal Brognola honked the horn of his car, and the armored entrance to the underground parking lot for the Old Executive Building rumbled aside.

As big Fed eased the vehicle inside, two Secret Service agents carrying M-16 assault rifles stepped out of a small brick kiosk. Two more stayed inside, one of them touching his throat as he subvocalized into a throat mike.

Flashing his federal identification, Brognola waited while one man checked its authenticity on a handheld device and the other walked around the car, looking underneath with a steel mirror at the end of a pole.

Brognola knew all of the men by name, but this close to the White House, the Secret Service wasn’t taking any chance with anybody. He had already passed through a barrage of EM scanners and chemical sniffers checking the driver and vehicle for explosives, biological agents or other illicit materials. This was an understandable precaution.

Maintaining the classic “rock face” of the U.S. Secret Service, the agent looked at Brognola without expression, then waved him by.

Driving past a line of cars, Brognola angled onto a steep ramp and proceed to a sublevel, and then another, until reaching the bottom. He paused to let a security camera get a good view of his face, then went to a far corner and parked near a construction zone, the area marked off with bright yellow cones. Bags of cement were stacked high on wooden pallets and a small portable cement mixer chugged away, blast dust puffing from the rusty exhaust. A canvas tent covered the work area, and several large men stood around adding sand to the mixer or inspecting blueprints spread across a table made of a sheet of plywood placed across two sawhorses. They wore bright orange safety vests marked with the letters DPW: Department of Public Works.

Getting out of the car, the big Fed walked over to the workers, his hands held deliberately away from his sides. Even this far away, he could see the small bulges in the clothing of the workers. They were carrying guns at the waist, small of the back and ankle. The men were heavily armed and seemed even less friendly than the Secret Service agents at the front entrance.

“How is the work coming on the foundation?” Brognola said, stopping a few yards back. “Seems like you’ve been here for an ice age.”

“This is dangerous work,” one of the men replied, looking up from the blueprint. “If we go too fast, people could die.”

“Fast as lighting?”

“Slower than a glacier.”

Sign and countersign given, Brognola used only fingertips to spread open his jacket and display the holstered weapon at his side, a snub-nosed S&W .38 Police Special.

The workers stayed where they were and did nothing. But their sharp eyes never left him for a second.

“We’ve been expecting you, Mr. Brognola,” a worker said, pushing aside the flap of the canvas tent. “This way, please.” The man was wearing a bright yellow hard hat, marking him as the foreman.

Proceeding inside, the big Fed followed the man around a large stack of crates blocking a direct view of the interior. More canvas covered the wall. The foreman agent pushed the material aside to reveal the burnished steel doors of a modern elevator.

Going to the wall plate, Brognola pressed his palm against the warm metal and kept it there until there was an answering beep that his five fingerprints had been accepted. With a soft sigh, the door parted and he stepped inside. There were no buttons.

As the foreman entered, the doors closed, cutting off the thumping of the cement mixer. A moment later the cage began to descend.

Slowly building speed, the elevator moved swiftly along the shaft until finally slowing to a complete stop. The doors opened on a wide brick-lined tunnel. Standing behind a low concrete carrier was a squad of U.S. Marines in full combat gear, M-16/M-203 assault rifles held ready in their hands. The 40 mm grenade launcher slung under the 5.56 mm assault rifle was a daunting sight to anybody, even if they were wearing body armor.

While the foreman and a Marine exchanged passwords, Brognola looked the tunnel over. Folding steel gates had been pushed back, allowing access, but this tunnel could be closed off at a dozen points. It had to be one of the private government tunnels rumored to honeycomb Washington.

Satisfied, the foreman went back into the elevator and a lieutenant waved at Brognola to follow him down the tunnel.

At an intersection, they took a side tunnel, then zigzagged twice more before reaching a plain steel door with a dozen Secret Service agents standing outside holding Atchisson autoshotguns.

Without a word, the big Fed showed his ID again and submitted to a pat-down. His S&W revolver was taken, then returned. Because of his position as the head of the Sensitive Operations Group, Brognola had the unique distinction of being one of the few people in the world who could be armed in the presence of the President.

“Bird Dog is here, sir,” a Secret Service agent said into his throat mike. There was a pause, then the man nodded. “Confirm.”

“Go right in, sir,” another agent said, tapping a code into a small keypad in the wall. There came the soft hiss of hydraulics and the metal portal ponderously swung aside, revealing that it was two feet thick.

Stepping through alone, Brognola heard the door close behind him as the lights came on overhead. Not surprisingly, he found himself in a kill box—an enclosed space with both doors closed. Just another layer of protection for the President. Lull the enemy into thinking that they were successfully getting past the security, then let them walk directly into the kill box and start firing through the hidden gunports. Nice and simple. And extremely deadly. A tense moment passed in silence, then Brognola relaxed slightly as the second door opened with a soft hydraulic hiss.

Stepping out of the box, he suffered a moment of disorientation as he appeared to be walking into the Oval Office at the White House: curtain-draped bay windows, massive hardwood desk flanked by American flags, the great seal of the presidency woven into the carpeting, twin couches set parallel to the fireplace filled with a crackling blaze. A Franklin clock ticked away on the mantle, and he could hear typing from a nonexistent secretary. The curtains were open, and he could dimly see the Washington Monument masked by the Potomac River mist. Obviously this was one of the many duplicate offices designed during the cold war so that the President could address the nation on television from a hidden position of safety.

Sitting behind the desk, the President was writing furiously in a black leather journal. Positioned carefully at strategic spots around the office were a dozen more Secret Service agents. These men openly wore body armor and were carrying a wide assortment of deadly weapons.

Off by himself in one corner was an Air Force colonel carrying a steel briefcase handcuffed to his wrist. In Washington slang that was the Football, the portable computer console used to activate the hellish nuclear arsenal of the United States. The colonel’s job was to carry the briefcase for the President, and to guard it with his life. No matter how peaceful the world was, the colonel was never more than fifty feet away from the President, day or night.

“Sir,” Brognola said as a greeting.

“Good to see you, Hal.” The President rose from behind his desk and offered his hand.

Respectfully, Brognola advanced and they shook. “Always glad to be of service, sir,” he stated, releasing the grip.

“Sit down, old friend.” The President sighed. “We have a major problem, and time is short. Very short.”

“How can my people help?” Brognola asked, leaning back in the chair. The fabric was warm. Somebody else had just been conferring with the President only moments ago.

“Gentlemen, if you would be so kind as to leave us for a few minutes?” the President asked politely, glancing at the armed agents about the office.

The Secret Service agents showed no emotion.

“This is a Code Moonfire situation,” the President added.

Inhaling deeply, the chief Secret Service agent nodded. “We’ll be right outside, sir,” he said, leading the others out through a side door.

As they departed, Brognola caught a glimpse through the next room, a large concrete-lined area filled with crates of MRE food packs, and a small emergency medical station. Many weapons hung on the unpainted walls.

“Are we at war?” Brognola frowned, loosening his necktie.

“If only it was that simple,” the President said, sitting again. “What do you know about neutron weapons?”

“Weapons? I thought there was only the neutron bomb,” the big Fed stated carefully, rubbing his jaw.

“Originally, yes,” the President said.

“But you suspect different?”

“Judge for yourself.” The Man slid a sealed envelope across the desk.

The dossier was covered with stamps from DOD, NORAD, SAC, FBI, CIA, NSA and Homeland. Hail, hail, the gang’s all here, Brognola thought. Breaking the seal with his thumb, he lifted out the red-striped papers inside, the edges immediately turning brown from contact with his fingers. A Level 10 document. For the President’s eyes only.

Reviewing the reports, Brognola skimmed the photos of the crashed 747 on a rocky beach, and concentrated on the autopsy reports. There was one for every passenger and crew member, including a couple for the bomb-sniffing German shepherd dogs that had been traveling in the pressurized hold.

As Brognola read the detailed analysis, the President rose to pour himself a coffee after his guest had declined. Sipping his drink, the President looked out the windows at the artificial horizon and impatiently waited. He desperately hoped that Brognola would have a different conclusion from the one that everybody in his cabinet had arrived at less than an hour ago.

Lowering the last page, the big Fed inhaled deeply, then let the breath out slowly. “Well, I’ll be damned,” he whispered. There were no bruises on the corpses. None. The dead passengers were laid out in a neat row on steel tables. Their clothing had been removed, and the bright halogen lights revealed every detail of the broken and twisted bodies in unforgiving clarity. No bruising meant the people had been dead before the aircraft hit the ground.

“When did the autopilot engage?” he asked, frowning.

“According to the black box,” the President said, “somewhere over western Pennsylvania.”

“Did the escorts report anything out of the ordinary in the vicinity?”

“Nothing unusual was reported until the 747 failed to start making course corrections over New York state. After that, they tried for a radio contact, then did a flyby and finally got a visual of the dead bodies on the flight deck.”

“And then what, sir?”

“They followed the plane, trying to contact anybody on board via the flight deck radio, cell phones, air phones, e-mail, pagers, you name it. Strategic Air Command and NORAD were still trying when the aircraft crashed into an escarpment just outside the town of Bouctouche along the Richibucto River in New Brunswick, Canada.”

Brognola suppressed a whistle. Pennsylvania to Canada was a long ride on autopilot. He checked the photographs of the bodies again. “Not much fire damage,” he noted thoughtfully. “The fuel tanks must have been bone dry.”

“That’s hardly surprising, since the original destination was Boston,” the President said. “The aircraft was supposed to be dropping off the director of special projects to talk with me about a new weapon.”

Brognola raised an eyebrow. “A neutron weapon?”

“See for yourself,” the President said, lifting a slim laptop and passing it over.

Raising the lid, Brognola saw the machine was ready to play. He hit Enter and the video file began. The screen showed three different sections of the 747, the people laughing, sleeping and playing cards. A handsome Secret Service agent was chatting with a female flight attendant, and apparently the redhead liked what he was saying. Sitting all by himself, a middle-aged man in a rumpled suit was typing on a laptop. That could be the leak right there, Brognola observed. Aside from that, everything seemed normal.

But suddenly a flight attendant carrying a tray of sandwiches opened the hatch to the flight deck and fell dead. Almost immediately afterward, so did everybody else.

Watching closely, Brognola studied the bodies, then tapped the fast-forward button and went through several hours. Nobody stirred. Then there came a whining sound that rapidly built in volume, everything shook, loose items went flying, arms and legs of the dead people flopping around loosely. Then there came a horrible crunching noise. The picture went wild, more shaking, bodies lying on the deck were tossed about like rag dolls. There was more noise, a flash of fire, a metallic thunder and then blackness.

It was distasteful, but the big Fed ran the video one more time and turned the volume all the way up. The man rushing out of the lavatory seemed to be shouting something. But his back was turned away from the video camera, and the clatter of falling dishes garbled his words.

“The natural assumption is that whomever did this got the itinerary wrong, and thought I was on board,” the President said, shifting in his chair.

“But you suspect otherwise?” the big Fed asked.

“Yes.”

“I’ll assume the Secret Service and Homeland Security have ruled out food poisoning and nerve gas—no, skip that.” Brognola massaged a temple. Not even the best neurological agent could sweep an entire plane of people dead at the same time, along with the dogs in the hold. A massive electrical shock might do it, but there would have been visible arcing and sparks, plus small fires and a lot of charred flesh. The new air cameras hidden on commercial flights weren’t very good, but the ones on Air Force One were top-notch, absolutely the best available, and the digital video had been crystal-clear. He could even hear the engines in the background. Everything alive on VC-25 had been killed without any mark of violence. And that could only be accomplished by a neutron bomb.