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Mack Bolan
Stony man #37 Triple Strike


CHAPTER ONE

Eastern Bosnia

United States Air Force Major John Hammer was
cruising at twelve thousand feet through the night
skies over eastern Bosnia. Hammer was a third-
generation Air Force pilot. His grandfather had flown
P-51 Mustangs against the Messerschmitts of the
Third Reich, his father had blasted North Vietnamese
convoys on the Ho Chi Minh Trail and Hammer had
gotten his licks in during the Gulf War. He'd been
an Eagle driver back then and had blasted two Iraqi
air force MiG-29s out of the sky on the first day of
the air war.
    Now he was flying the world's most advanced spy
plane on a top-secret mission over Bosnia, and he
was digging it. He knew that Bosnia wasn't much of
a war zone, but it was the closest thing to combat
flying there was for an American pilot right now.
And though his subsonic TR-3 Night Owl stealth
plane was a far cry from the Mach 2 F-15 fighters




TRIPLE STRIKE                                      TRIPLE STRIKE

he had flown in the Gulf, it was the hottest thing in
the air in this part of the world this night.
    The mission that had dragged him out of his bunk
back at Aviano Air Force Base in Italy wasn't all
that exciting. Flying a snoop-and-poop wasn't the
same as flying MiG CAP with his weapons hot, no
matter how classified it was. But it was a real mis-
sion, and it was sending him in harm's way again
and that was the only thing that counted.
    Hammer's eyes swept across the Night Owl's in-
struments and digital readouts again. His recon data
links were on-line and hot, transmitting everything
his sensors were picking up to the satellites and
ground stations that were tracking him. He hadn't
been told exactly what he was looking for, only that
it had something to do with a guy with an SAR im-
plant. He had been instructed to fly over an area of
several hundred square miles with all of his sensors
hot and let the mysterious black boxes in the belly
of his bird do their thing. If whoever it was that the
brass wanted him to find was down there, he'd find
him or her.
    Checking his nay screen, he saw that he was ap-
proaching the end of this leg of his search pattern
and got ready to make his next scheduled turn. It was
a moonless night, which made his matte black air-
craft invisible to sight, as well as to radar, but at
twelve thousand feet, Hammer really didn't have to
worry about anyone on the ground seeing him any-

way. He was in his own world with only the stars
for company.
    "Zero Seven Five," the voice of the airborne mis-
sion controller orbiting to the west over the Adriatic
Sea came over the earphones in his helmet. "This is
Blue Bell Control, over."
    "Seven Five, go." Hammer felt his adrenaline
surge as he clicked in his throat mike. On this kind
of mission, the AWACS plane wouldn't be talking
to him unless it was important. One of the rules of
stealth on this kind of mission was that he didn't use
his radio except in an emergency. Radio transmis-
sions could be detected and used to track his flight
path the same as radar.
    "This is Control," the AWACS answered. "Be
advised that we have picked up a bogey heading your
way, vector two-eight-niner. Over."
    Hammer automatically looked out of the curved
canopy as he reached over to switch on his own air-
borne radar. Per SOP, Night Owl pilots made their
recon runs with their radars shut down so enemy air-
craft or ground stations couldn't pick up their emis-
sions and track them, either.
    "Seven Five. Do you have an ID on him, over?"
he asked as his radar screen flickered on.
    "That's a negative," Blue Bell answered. "But
he's coming on fast, Mach 1.4. Over."
    Suddenly Hammer saw a shadow block out the
stars in front of him, and he knew he was screwed
big-time. Slamming the control stick forward, he put




TRIPLE STRIKE                                                  TRIPLE STRIKE

his plane into a steep dive, but it wasn't fast enough.
The other pilot apparently saw him at the same time
and put his plane into a dive to avoid him, as well.
    The two aircraft didn't hit head-on; in fact they
barely touched. But as light as it was, the collision
tore the vertical stabilizers off of the TR-3, throwing
it into a fiat spin. Hammer barely had time to reach
for the ejection handle to his bang seat before the
Night Owl started coming apart around him.
    The rocket motor in the bottom of his Lockheed-
Martin ejection seat blew him through the closed
cockpit canopy, sending him six hundred feet into
the air. At the top of its trajectory, the seat automat-
ically separated from the pilot and the spring-loaded
parachute deployed.
    Fighting to get his parachute canopy under control,
Hammer watched his multimillion dollar, high-tech
spy plane turn into aerial junk below him. He looked
for the other plane, but didn't see anything, not even
the blue flame of its exhausts. But if it was flying as
fast as the AWACS had said it was, it would be out
of sight by now. Alone in the night sky, he fell with
only the sound of the wind in the chute's risers for
company.
    Checking the altimeter on his parachute harness,
Hammer saw that he was getting close to the ground.
With no moon to illuminate the terrain below him,
he decided to take his chances with what fate had
given him rather than trying to pick out a safe land-
ing spot. In the dark, everything down there looked

the same, so trying to change direction might well
take him into something worse than what waited be-
low.
    The landing shock took Hammer by surprise and
drove the wind out of him. Looking around, he saw
that he had landed in a cleared area. He couldn't see
much beyond that as he hit the release to drop his
parachute harness. He was reaching into the pocket
of his flight suit for his survival radio when he felt
a blow to the head and everything went black.

Stony Man Farm, Virginia

HAL BROGNOL^, Barbara Price and Yakov Katze-
nelenbogen were crowded into Aaron Kurtzman's
computer room at Stony Man Farm watching the
real-time readouts that were being sent from the
TR-3's satellite data link. The spy plane was trans-
mitting a full range of infrared video, magnetic im-
aging, electronic emissions, terrain-mapping radar
and everything else in its sizable bag of tricks.
    This electronic information was all encoded, and
usually only the top-secret ann of the government
known as the National Reconnaissance Office re-
ceived it. In their headquarters outside Washington,
D.C., electronic and photographic intelligence from
spy satellites and aircraft such as the TR-3 flowed in
to be decoded and analyzed.
    Stony Man Farm didn't need a multimillion dollar
facility and a staff of hundreds to decode and study




I KIFL~ ~ I KIl~l[

this classified information. All it needed was Aaron
Kurtzman and his small cybernetics staff. He had
long since worked out a decoding program for the
NRO transmissions and could read the data from the
TR-3 as it fed in. The Farm would get the informa-
tion anyway sooner or later, but Kurtzman wanted to
know what was happening now.
    "We lost him," Kurtzman said, turning in his
wheelchair to look up at Brognola.
    "What do you mean, you lost him?" Brognola
growled around the stub of the unlit cigar stuck in a
comer of his mouth. As part of his duties as special
liaison to the White House, the Justice Department
official was the director of the Sensitive Operations
Group, the official name of the Stony Man Farm
team. Whenever the President activated Stony Man
for a mission, Brognola traveled from Washington as
often as possible to oversee the operation.
    "I mean that he's gone," Kurtzman replied.
"Vanished. My best guess is that he got shot down."
    "But that's impossible. That's a TR-3 Night Owl,
the most sophisticated spy plane in the world. It's
invisible to radar, infrared and everything else they
could think of. It's impossible to shoot it down."
    "Impossible or not," Kurtzman stated, "he
stopped transmitting suddenly. Unless he's had a cat-
astrophic electrical failure, which is not too likely,
he's down somewhere over Bosnia."
    Brognola's hand automatically reached for the roll
of antacid tablets in his coat pocket.

TRIPLE STRIKE

    "Wait a damned minute," Kurtzman almost
shouted. "I'm getting something. I'm getting an
SAR response from one of the Sky Watch satellites."
"How did that happen?"
    "I'm not sure." Kurtzman's fingers flew over his
keyboard, locking in the signal. "But I'd say that the
TR-3 passed close enough to activate the SAR im-
plant, and it's responding now."
    After the near crisis that arose back in 1996 when
U.S. Secretary of Commerce Ron Brown died in a
plane crash while attempting to land at Dubrovnik,
all high-ranking U.S. officials visiting the Bosnian
region had been given one of the new military
SAR--Search And Rescue--implants.
    These were subminiature electronic beacons that
would respond to a coded signal that could be sent
by a satellite, a search aircraft or by the radios of
ground-search teams. Designed to be practically in-
destructible, the implants had a battery capable of
sending the signal continuously for seven days. Since
the signal was sent only in response to an activation,
the implants could stay "hot" for several weeks, if
not months, after their first remote activation.
    Hammer's TR-3 had been sent to see if it could
activate a SAR implant that had failed to respond to
satellite activation. The man who was wearing that
implant was down over Bosnia, and the President
was anxious to get him back with as little fanfare as
possible. Stony Man Farm hadn't been officially




Jntrt. c otmr~r-                                   lElYLb ~11~IKE

tasked with the mission yet, but Brognola knew that
it was coming.
    "But," Brognola asked, "can you tell which im-
plant is squawking? Wouldn't that Night Owl pilot
have been wearing one, as well?"
    Kurtzman looked at the electronic code on his
screen. "It matches the SAR code we were told to
look for."
    "It's Richard Lacy, then. He's in Bosnia, right?"
Brognola growled around his cigar. He wasn't in the
mood to listen to more bad news right now. The dis-
appearance of Richard Lacy on a diplomatic helicop-
ter flight over Bosnia had the Oval Office in an up-
roar. Not only was the retired State Department
official a valued adviser to the White House, but he
was also a close friend of the President. Brognola
wanted to be able to report that he had been found.
    "It's Bosnia, all right," Katz confirmed. "But it's
coming from the Muslim section--the part of Bosnia
that's not too happy with us right now. In fact, nei-
ther we nor NATO have any PROFOR troops in that
area anymore."  "Why not?"
    "We don't have anyone stationed there because
they kept getting shot at, and rather than starting the
war again, the UN decided to pull them all out. It's
a no-go zone for several hundred miles around that
signal location."  "Damn."
  "And," Katz continued, "along with Richard

Lacy, we now have the presumed wreckage of a su-
persecret spy plane and maybe even a pilot down in
the area, as well. I think that the President might
want to get that back, too. Even wrecked, it's a little
too valuable to leave laying around."
    "What's the status of Phoenix Force?" Brognola
asked Barbara Price.
    Though she didn't look like anyone's idea of an
operations officer, Price was the mission controller
for the Stony Man action teams. The Farm was the
world's premier intelligence-gathering operation, but
simply gathering the data would be meaningless
without having the means to act upon it. What made
Stony Man different than all the other federal intel-
ligence agencies was that the Farm could call upon
Phoenix Force and Able Team to act on the infor-
mation they developed. They also had the services
of a very special man--Mack Bolan.
    "They're standing by," she answered. "I alerted
them as soon as you called me about this SAR
search. I also contacted Mack, and he's available.
Grimaldi has a C-141 on ramp alert at Andrews, and
I can have them in the air in under two hours. With
a'Lr-to-air refueling they can be on the ground at the
air base in Aviano, Italy, in a little over nine hours."
    "I almost hate to bring this up," Katzenelenbogen
said, "but we're going to need to play this one real
close to the vest."
  "What do you mean?"
  "Well, if we stage out of Aviano, we're going to




be in the middle of a lot of unfriendly, prying eyes.
Every UN bozo and his brother will be there as well
as the operatives of the so-called Bosnian republics.
Even if we try to stay inside the U.S. compound on
the base, there are too many people wandering in and
out. We won't be able to scratch without someone
watching us. And as sensitive as this operation will
be, we can't afford that."
    "Do you have a better idea?" Brognola asked. "If
you'll remember, we don't own a hell of a lot of real
estate in that part of the world anymore. We're lim-
ited to the number of bases we can use to stage out
of."
    "Well, I was thinking of creating a Stony Man
annex in the middle of the U.S. part of the Aviano
base. That way, at least we can keep the prying eyes
on the other side of the fence. I'll set up a CP and
comm center and take Able Team with me to run
it."
      Brognola turned to Price. "Do you have Lyons
doing anything important fight now?"  "They're on stand-down."
    "Okay, I'll talk to the Man and see what he
thinks."
    "We need to get this rolling as soon as possible,"
Katz reminded him. "So we need a decision now."
    As the Stony Man tactical adviser, it was Katz's
job to point out the best way to get the job done even
when it meant pushing the boss.

II~11"LI- OII~II~E

  "How so?"
    "That State Department guy's been on the ground
for a couple of days now and the longer he's there,
the less chance we'll have to recover him. If they get
it in their heads that he's a spy, they're not going to
treat him all that well, and since he's an older man,
he might not last very long. Any delay at all is too
much."
    Brognola knew only too well that Katz wasn't ex.
aggerafing the danger to Lacy. None of the Bosnian
factions was known for its humanity. No matter
whose hands Lacy was in, if he was in Bosnia, he
was in danger.
    "Alert Able Team, too," Brognola replied. "And
I'll get the clearance."
  "They're already at Andrews with Phoenix."




CHAPTER TWO

Eastern Bosnia

Dragan Asdik waited impatiently for the morning
prayers to end so he could talk to the commander of
the Iranian freedom fighters who were based out of
his castle. Asdik was the lord and master of his valley
high in the mountains of Muslim Bosnia and the mil-
itary commander of the troops in the region. Now
that the war for Bosnia wasn't being fought--he
knew that it wasn't over, but had just been put on
hold--he had been ordered back to his fortress in the
mountains to prepare for the next phase of the con-
flict.
    When the words of the last prayer echoed away, a
thin man with intense eyes rose and approached him.
    "God calls the faithful to prayer five times a day,"
Major Ari Naslin of the Iranian Ministry of Intelli-
gence and Security reminded the Bosnian.
    Asdik gritted his teeth but remained silent. He
needed the Iranian troops far more than he needed to
speak his mind. In the three-way battle for Bosnia,

I I~11 I.I.. ~,1 I I~11~1..

the Iranian Security Commandos were the unseen
trump card waiting to be played. These Islamic free-
dom fighters, as they liked to style themselves, were
a potent weapon that would be brought into full play
very soon. And they were a weapon that no one in
NATO even knew existed.
    The United States-sponsored Dayton Accord,
which had been signed in 1995, had been intended
to end the war between the Serbs, Croats and Mus-
lims. One of the more prominent issues of the peace
agreement concerned the Iranian freedom fighters
who had been sent to aid their Bosnian brethren in
their fight against the Serbian and Croatian infidels.
Under the terms of the agreement, these forces were
to be immediately disarmed and returned to Iran.
    In apparent compliance with the Dayton Accord,
several hundred unarmed, teenage freedom fighters
had marched through the streets of Sarajevo on their
way to the airport. They had all worn the same kind
of uniforms and had carded English and Arabic signs
proclaiming that Muslim Bosnia would always re-
main Muslim. With great media fanfare at the airport,
they had boarded chartered jetliners for the trip back
to their homeland.
    Any experienced military observer watching this
carefully orchestrated charade, however, would have
immediately noted how young those men were and
that none of them appeared to have seen field duty.
None of them bore scars, none of them had the thou-
sand-yard stare that marked a veteran of fighting as




savage as the Bosnian campaigns had been, and their
boots had all been brand-new. In a struggling nation
that could barely equip its own forces, why had al-
most four hundred pairs of new combat boots left
Bosnia on the feet of these young men? And that
was to say nothing of the uniforms, field belts and
other essential gear they had worn. The war was
over, yes, but the Muslim Bosnians' resolve to build
up their army had been greater than ever, and they
needed every scrap of military equipment they could
lay their hands on.
    When these men boarded the jets and flew away,
the Western media observers considered the problem
of the Iranian volunteers in Bosnia to be over. Now
they could concentrate on other, more-important mat-
ters like the persistent rumors of sexual impropriety
in some of the villages in the American zone of con-
trol. It was being said that young American GIs were
trading cigarettes and videos to the local women for
sex and alcohol. If these stories were true, they were
scandalous and needed to be investigated immedi-
ately.
    Several days later, older men who were undeniably
veterans of the fighting started to disappear from
Bosnian army units in twos and threes. Considering
the desertion rate in all of the Bosnian forces, how-
ever, this wasn't seen as being unusual. Anyone fol-
lowing these men, however, would have wondered
why all of them made their way to Asdik's fortress
in the mountains.

  But no one from the media followed them.
    "It is time to talk to the prisoners again," Asdik
said. "The Bosnian Agency for Investigation wants
a report on them immediately."
    Asdik was forced to share his command with the
Iranian, and that included sharing whatever infor-
mation he obtained from the two Americans in the
basement cells of his castle.

1VIAJOR JOHN HAMMER HUNG from ropes holding his
arms above his head in his stone cell. "John T. Ham-
mer," he repeated for the tenth time since he had
been captured the night before. "Major, United
States Air Force. Service number 385-63-9081. I re-
quest that you inform the nearest American embassy
of my status."
    The hulking Bosnian the pilot had nicknamed
Godzilla's Little Brother smiled, but it wasn't a
pretty sight. "You do not have any 'status,' as you
put it, Major Hammer," he said in accented English.
"You fell from the sky like a spy, and we do not
like spies here."
    "I'm not a spy," Hammer said wearily. "I'm an
American Air Force pilot assigned to the UN PRO-
FOR mission and my plane was damaged in a midair
collision. I had to eject to save my life, that's why I
parachuted to earth."
    "A real pilot would have tried to save his air-
plane," the Bosnian said with a sneer. "But you
abandoned your plane, so you are a spy."




    "Look," Hammer said, trying one more time, "if
you'll just get hold of the U.S. mission in Sarajevo,
they'll tell you who I am."
    "Of course they will," Godzilla's Little Brother
replied. "They will tell me that you are a pilot, but
I know that you are a spy. Do you think that I am a
stupid Serb?"
    Hanuner wisely refrained from telling his tor-
mentor exactly what he thought he was; he wasn't
ready to die yet. When the time came that he was
ready to check out, however, he would explain it to
the big bastard in great detail.
    The Bosnian leaned even closer to Hammer, and
the pilot held his breath. Godzilla's Little Brother
had breath to match his name. "You will confess to
being a spy sooner or later, then I will deal with you.
We will not shoot you if that is what you are worried
about. In fact my government will be glad to release
you, but we have to know what you were doing
first."
    Reaching up, the Bosnian took the rope from the
hook and released Hammer's arms. "I will give you
a little more time to think about it," he said. "But
sooner or later, I will find out what I want to know."
    Throughout the interrogation, the man Hammer
had nicknamed the Spider on the Wall again stayed
out of the way and let the Bosrdan handle the ques-
tioning. The second man's silence was probably a
matter of language, as the two of them spoke to each
other in what sounded like Arabic. The Spider looked

Arabic, as well, so he might be an Islamic military
adviser. Hammer wasn't a linguist. But he had picked
up a little of the language during his Gulf War tour
in Saudi Arabia and, during their conversations, he
had caught a couple of words he thought he recog-
nized.
    As soon as he was alone, Hammer lay on his nar-
row pallet and waited for the feeling to return to his
arms. Each time they hung him up that way, it took
longer for him to recover. As he waited, he looked
around his cell one more time in case there was
something he had missed the first few dozen times
he had looked. Unfortunately there was nothing he
had missed. Four stone walls without windows, a
vaulted ceiling and a thick wooden door. It would
take more than a Swiss Army knife to get out of
there, and he didn't even have the knife.
    Since his earliest days in the Air Force Academy,
he had been known as the Jackhammer. Part of that
was a play on his name and some was because of
the way he had dealt with the traditional hurdles of
his plebe year. He had battered his way through his
first year at the academy, and the nickname had
stuck. But since he hadn't brought a real jackhammer
with him, his nickname wasn't going to do him much
good. If push came to shove, he could always beat
his own brains out against the stone walls to escape.
But he was keeping that as a last resort if things got
too tough.
  So far, though, his jailers hadn't gone beyond




hanging him by his arms while he was being ques-
tioned. Though the pain was slowly taking its toll,
he could handle it for a while. Compared to what the
pilots had suffered in the Hanoi Hilton, it was a cake-
walk. He also knew that there was still the off chance
that his SAR implant was working and that some
other guy was up there in the second Night Owl look-
ing for him.
    He wondered what had happened to the guy he
had been sent up to look for. Since he had been in
the middle of the primary search area when that MiG
came out of the night, maybe the guys who were
holding him also had the owner of the other SAR
implant in the cell next door. What they wanted with
either of them was beyond Hammer. He didn't think
for a minute that Godzilla really thought that he was
a spy. That was a line out of a bad forties movie.
    But beyond the fact that his jailers were Bosnian
Muslims, he had no idea what political faction they
belonged to or what they wanted out of him. Under-
standing the tangled politics of the region wasn't his
strong point. In fact he could barely name the three
major ethnic groups, and the various subfactions in
those groups were completely beyond him.
    Now he wished that he had stayed awake more
often in the political-orientation classes back in Italy.
All he had been interested in had been the know-
your-enemy classes. He had soaked up the details of
the weapons he would face, their characteristics, their
limitations and the men who would be using them

against him. There had been nothing in those classes,
though, about midair collisions with stray MiG fight-
ers.
    Since he had been blindfolded most of the time
after his capture, the pilot hadn't been able to see
much when he had been brought to this place. But
from what he could tell, he was being held in some
kind of old castle or fortress. Considering the history
of the region, he wasn't surprised. Before the war,
the most recent war that was, there had even been
Roman buildings still in use in some of the cities.
Turkish castles dotted the landscape, and there were
hundreds of old stone structures still inhabited. It was
fitting that he was being held in a stone castle: it went
with the ancient politics that had brought him here.

DRAGAN ASDIK HAD CUT short his interrogation of
the Yankee spy so he could examine the wreckage
of the crashed spy plane the man had been flying.
He didn't know much about aircraft, and the plane
was smashed to pieces, making it difficult to see how
it had looked when it had been intact. But even so,
he could see that it didn't look like anything he had
ever seen before.
    "According to my superiors in Tehran," Naslin
said as he surveyed the crash site, "the Yankee's
airplane is very valuable, even in the condition it is
in. They say that it is one of the radar-invisible
stealth fighters that bombed Baghdad without being
seen and they want to examine it."




    When the Bosnian didn't immediately answer,
Naslin added, "They say that it will be a sign of
your goodwill if you turn it over to them."
    The Iranian's words didn't contain a threat, but
Asdik knew that the threat was there and that this
wasn't the time for him to antagonize his erstwhile
allies. The Iranians had proved to be a great help to
the Bosnian cause, and he needed them too much.
Particularly right now.
    The Western media's attention was focused on sex
scandals in the PROFOR units and other headline-
grabbing gossip. Because of that, little notice was
being given to the fact that Serb and Croat leaders
in Bosnia were dying in larger numbers than would
normally be expected, even by the local standards.
They were dying in car crashes, house fires and, in
the all-time favorite of the region, ambushes in re-
mote areas. The UN investigations of these incidents
always turned up complete blanks. It was true that
these deaths all benefited the Bosnian Muslim cause,
but there was nothing pointing to Muslim hit squads
being responsible for them.
    Asdik had to admit that the Iranian commandos
were good at what they did. They had been well
trained, then they had been tested in battle to weed
out the weak and the unlucky. The survivors were
some of the best troops he had ever seen, particularly
for missions like this. The Western world called them
terrorists, but to Asdik they were freedom fighters,
and the Bosnian cause needed them right now.

    He had no use for a wrecked airplane, though,
even one of the famous American stealth fighters.
And if the Iranians wanted it, they could have it. For
a price, of course. They thought they were the mas-
ters of the marketplace, but they had never seen a
Bosnian Muslim haggle in a village market. He
would give them the Yankee plane, but they would
pay for it with even more weapons and ammunition
and maybe more of those small but reliable Japanese
trucks.
    "Tell your leaders that they can have it," Asdik
said. "I am glad to do anything I can for the final
victory of the revolution. But--" he shrugged
"--we are poor here in Bosnia. As you know, we
have been cut off from everything that we need to
defend ourselves, and the faith, from the incursions
of the infidels."
    Naslin was a religious fanatic, but he wasn't a stu-
pid man. He had worked with the Bosnians long
enough to know that they had been completely cor-
rupted by the West. Rather than willingly work to
bring the revolution to further God's regime on earth,
they did it only when they were paid. It offended
him to have to haggle with them like a woman in the
marketplace, but he, too, had his orders and he would
obey them.
    "You will be paid for it," he said. "I will have
my men remove the wreckage and put it in the caves
until Tehran can send a plane in to pick it up."




Stony Man Farm, Virginia

HAL BROGNOLA WAS back at the Farm within a few
hours. Stony Man was only a ninety-minute helicop-
ter flight from Washington, D.C., so the commute
didn't take long. Neither had his meeting with the
President. As the leader of the Sensitive Operations
Group, he had the Man's ear, particularly when a
mission was on. Nonetheless, he was racking up
more flight time than a seagull and spent more time
in the unmarked courier chopper than he did in his
own car.
    While he had been gone, the Stony Man team
hadn't been idle. Yakov Katzenelenbogen had
packed his bags and taken the Stony Man chopper to
Andrews Air Force Base to join the action teams for
the flight to Italy. By now, they were winging their
way across the Atlantic.
    Aaron Kurtzman and his cybernetics team had also
been hard at work. For Phoenix Force to successfully
rescue Richard Lacy, they needed to know as much
as they could about the place he was being held.
    "What have you been able to come up with on
the objective?" Brognola asked Kurtzman.
    "Not a lot." Kurtzman's expression was sour.
"As usual, we've been handed another can of
worms. We don't have anything at all on file on the
target area. All we know is that it's a stone fortress
several hundred years old that probably dates back
to the Turkish conquest of the region."

I I~11- LL. ,..)11XIt'Xt

    Brognola wasn't surprised that even Kurtzman's
worldwide cybernetic operation hadn't been able to
pin this one down. Even though Stony Man had been
in business for a long time, the world was a big place
and bad guys kept popping up where you least ex-
pected them. Someday the entire world would be re-
conned, the information reduced to cyber-bytes and
he would be out of work. Until then, however, he
still had to send men in to do the job.
    "By the time the teams reach Italy, though,"
Kurtzman continued on a more optimistic note, 'TII
have more information on the target. I'm diverting a
Keyhole 12 satellite to make a mn over the area. I'll
have maps and photos waiting for Phoenix when they
land."
  "Are you still getting that SAR squawk?"
  "Loud and clear."
    Brognola suppressed a yawn. He didn't know
when Kurtzman slept, or even if he did. Every time
he came into the computer room, no matter what the
hour, night or day, the man was there behind his
keyboard. He couldn't pull that iron-man drill; he
had to get some sack time while Phoenix was in the
air. "I'm going to grab a nap," he said. "But wake
me if anything comes up."
  "Will do."




CHAPTER THREE

Aviano, Italy

Aaron Kurtzman was as good as his word. By the
time the Lockheed C-141 Starlifter carrying Bolan,
Phoenix Force and Able Team touched down at the
NATO air base in Aviano, Italy, he had a mission
pack prepared and waiting for them. As soon as the
plane taxied to its secured ramp area, a courier
handed Jack Grimaldi the package.
    A small team of men with two, two-and-a-half-ton
trucks were also standing by to unload the plane's
cargo and carry it to the small building that had been
reserved for the Stony Man command post. The work
crew had been instructed to do its job without asking
questions, but its members were used to having
strange cargos fly into the base. Aviano was the op-
erational center for the NATO and UN PROFOR ae-
rial missions being flown in support of the shaky
Bosnian peace mission. All sorts of aircraft on all
sorts of missions landed there every day.
 The Stony Man commandos stayed out of sight on

board the Starlifter while its cargo was off-loaded.
As soon as Katz and Able Team left with the CP
gear, the USAF ground crews moved in to service
and refuel the plane.
    While the crew did its thing, Mack Bolan and Da-
vid McCarter, the Phoenix Force leader, went over
the information Kurtzman had sent in the mission
pack. The Farm had been able to get them optical
and digital shots of the target area, including close-
ups of the stone fortress where the SAR signal orig-
inated. Several possible drop zones had been marked
for the team to choose from. After looking over all
of the routes into the target, they made their choice
and briefed the other men.
    When dark fell two hours later, the C-141 lifted
off and banked to the east for the flight across the
Adriatic Sea to Bosnia. During the flight, the Stony
Man warriors went over their weapons and jump gear
one last time. No parachute jump was without its
risks. But jumping at night added a certain fillip to
the exercise, particularly on a moonless night like the
one they were flying into.
    The bat-wing parasail chutes the commandos were
using were night black, as were their combat clothes,
but black wasn't enough when the moon was out.
This night, though, no one would be able to see them
unless they were smart enough to look for a shadow
momentarily blanking out the stars. But that added
measure of security worked both ways. With no
moon, they would have a more difficult time seeing




their drop zone. But considering where they were
going, it was a good trade-off.

JACK GRIMALDI WAS cruising at twenty-two thou-
sand feet when the C-141's terrain-following radar
told him that he was approaching the drop zone. On
the short hop from Aviano, he had handled the flight
chores himself--a pilot, copilot and flight engineer
all rolled up into one---because McCarter was at the
back doing his primary job, leading Phoenix Force.
    Reaching out a gloved hand, he throttled back the
Starlifter's four TF33-P7 jet engines, and the air-
speed abruptly dropped to a liffie over two hundred
miles per hour.
    "Striker!" the pilot called back over the intercom.
"You guys had better get on your oxygen. We're
coming up on the DZ and I'm going to drop the cabin
pressure."
"Roger," Bolan called back. "We're ready."
Grimaldi reached down for his own oxygen mask
and secured it to the front of his helmet. As soon as
the oxygen was flowing, he hit the switch to depres-
surize the plane. Clouds of vapor instantly formed
inside the cargo hold as cold air from the outside
replaced the warm air inside the plane, but it quickly
dissipated.
    "The ramp's going down," Grimaldi warned his
passengers.
  "Roger," Bolan called back.
 As soon as the ramp was down and locked in

place, the six heavily laden commandos walked back
to take their places in two lines on the sides of the
open ramp. A green light was in plain view on each
side. Unlike a stoplight, in this case green meant to
stay where you were; a red light would be the signal
to jump into the cold night sky.
  "Two minutes," Grimaldi shouted.
    "Roger, two mikes," T. J. Hawkins replied. As
designated jump master for the drop, his job was to
see that they hit their DZ, and that meant that they
had to exit the aircraft at exactly the right time. Hold-
ing up his illuminated watch so he could see it and
the jump light at the same time, he counted off the
seconds.
    "Go! Go! Go!" Hawkins shouted right as the light
blinked red.
    The first two men in line, Bolan and Rafael En-
cizo, stepped off the ramp into space. Five seconds
later, Gary Manning and McCarter followed them,
with Calvin James and Hawkins jumping last.
    "We're clear," Hawkins radioed back to Grimaldi
as he went into his spread-eagled position for the
long free fall.
    "Good luck, guys," the pilot answered as he hit
the switch to pull up the ramp. As soon as the ramp
was up and locked, he repressurized the cabin and
took off his oxygen mask. Even at almost six hun-
dred miles per hour, he had a long flight back to
Aviano and he might as well be as comfortable as
he could.




    Switching the radio over to the Aviano CP fre-
quency, he keyed his throat mike. "Burger with
fries," he transmitted.
    "Roger," he heard Katz reply. "Copy burger with
fries."
    Advancing his throttles again, Grimaldi put the
Starlifter into a gradual 180-degree climbing turn to
take him back to Italy. Even with McCarter having
sat in to share the piloting duties on the long trip
across the Atlantic, he was ready for a little sack
time. If the mission went as planned, he'd be piloting
a chopper back here to extract the team within twelve
hours.

MACK BOLAN LED the other Stony Man warriors in
their long HALO free fall through the night sky over
Bosnia. High-altitude, low-opening parachute jumps
were old hat to all of them, but any time that you
were falling through the night sky at 120 miles per
hour, you needed to keep your head clear. On any
night jump, disorientation was the primary danger
and it was only increased when you were free-falling.
The other danger was that as fast as they were falling,
it would be easy for them to drift past their DZ. To
make their assault on the castle within the window
of the mission plan, they needed to hit the drop zone
exactly on target.
    There had been no way for them to mark the DZ
this time, so their free-fall navigation was critical.
Bolan was using a small inertial guidance system that

had been developed for Special Forces teams to keep
them on track. Right before exiting the Starlifter, he
had plugged the device into a computer jack in the
cabin to update it from the plane's on-board navi-
gational computer. The readout it was giving him
should be accurate to within a hundred meters.
    As the team's jump master, Hawkins was bringing
up the rear of the six-man stick. His job was to keep
an eye on his altimeter and to try to back up Bolan's
navigation. So far, everything was in the green for
this phase of the jump. Watching the altimeter wind
down, he got ready for the second phase.
    "Coming up on the release point," Hawkins ra-
dioed his teammates. "On my mark. Five, four,
three, two, one, pull!"
    Hawkins pulled his D ring, and the shock of the
opening canopy drove his crotch straps up into his
groin. As many times as he had jumped out of an
airplane, he hadn't figured out a way to keep that
from happening. If he ever retired from this line of
work, he was going to devote the rest of his life to
inventing a more user-friendly parachute harness.
    Glancing up, he saw that his triangular parasail
chute was fully deployed. Now he could go back to
concentrating on navigation again. They still had to
find that small drop zone in the middle of the moun-
tain forest. Snapping his night-vision goggles over
his eyes, he started scanning the darkness below for
the DZ.
  Since Bolan was in the lead, he spotted the small




clearing first and keyed his throat mike. "We're right
on it," he said. "Follow me down."
    The clearing was only half the size of a football
field, but the parasails made it easy for all of them
to hit the mark. Bolan was the first to touch down,
landing lightly on his feet and immediately collaps-
ing his chute. The others followed at ten-second in-
tervals.
    When Hawkins shucked his harness, he didn't take
his chute over to the pile where the others had taken
theirs. Carefully he rolled the canopy into a small
bundle and secured it to the back of his assault har-
ness. The assault plan called for his using it later.
    After setting out security, McCarter removed the
satellite radio from his pack. Extending the antenna,
he keyed the mike and spoke the code words that
would tell Katz that they had arrived in one piece.
"Cherry shake."
  "Copy, cherry shake."
  "They copied," he told Bolan.
    "Okay, move out," the Executioner ordered as he
glanced at his watch. "We've got a lot of ground to
cover."
    James took the point position with Hawkins back-
ing him up on slack. With their night-vision goggles
in place, the Bosnian forest took on a horror-movie
green glow. Nonetheless, it was good enough for
them to move through the trees almost as quickly as
if it were daylight.

Aviano Air Base, Italy

IN THE AVIANO CP, Yakov Katzenelenbogen put
down the radio microphone and looked over at the
large-scale map of the area around the Bosnian cas-
tle. "They're down," he said. "And for a change,
they're on schedule."
    "How long will it take them to reach the castle?"
Carl Lyons asked.
    "An hour and a half, give or take a half hour,
depending on what kind of patrols they run into."
    "That's putting them there right in the middle of
the witching hour."
    Katz nodded. As a veteran of more night actions
than he liked to remember, he knew that the best time
to hit an opponent was between one and four in the
morning. That was the time when human biorhythms
were at their lowest ebb and guards were the least
alert. "That was the plan."
  "When's BMNT this time of year?"
    Beginning Morning Nautical Twilight was the mil-
itary's way of talking about the time of morning
when there was enough light for an enemy to detect
you at a range of a hundred meters. EENT was the
other side of the coin, when it became dark enough
to need night-vision devices to fight.  "The book says 6:58."
    "That should give them enough time to make the
snatch and haul out of there."
  "The operative word is 'should,'" Katz replied.




"We don't have a lot to go on this time, Intel wise,
and they may have to make it up as they go along."
    Lyons laughed. "Hell, Katz, we always have to do
that. We wouldn't know what to do around here if
anything went according to plan."
    "Bite your tongue," Katz said. "We don't have
much room for error this time, and there's no way to
back them up if they step into it."
    "We can always call on the UN PROFOR," Her-
mann "Gadgets" Schwarz said, wearing an innocent
expression on his face. His main job at the CP was
to keep the satellite links up and running so they
could talk to the Farm. "It would only take them two
months to make their move. One month to get per-
mission from the Security Council in New York and
another one to get their heads out of their anal cav-
ities."
    "Right," Katz said dryly. The well-known failure
of the United Nations Protection Force in Bosnia was
the reason that the President had sent in the Stony
Man teams to sort out this situation. Richard Lacy's
grandchildren would be in college before the UN
would ever get around to doing anything about his
release.
    'TI1 pass the word to the Farm that they've
reached the target area." Schwarz reached for the
computer keyboard in front of him.
    "Do that. Hal needs some sleep, and he won't go
to bed until he knows that the guys are down."

    "Maybe he'll sleep through the entire operation
and leave us alone."
  "You wish."

Bosnia

CALVIN JAMES WAS on the point position when the
six men broke out of the woods that covered the
ridgeline overlooking the fortress in the plain below.
The march in hadn't been too difficult. The terrain
was rough and the forests thick, but they'd not en-
countered any enemy patrols and were still on sched-
ule.
    "Here it is," James radioed as he went to ground.
"We've reached the launch point."
    When the rest of the team reached the edge of the
cliff, they took up security positions while Hawkins
unpacked his parachute again and got back into the
harness. When the harness was tight, James and
Manning pulled the canopy open to each side and
made sure that the risers weren't tangled.  "We're ready," James told McCarter.
    The Briton took one last scan of the plains below
to make sure that there were no enemy patrols in the
vicinity. "It's clear."
    Hawkins held the toggles of the parasail in each
hand as he walked to within ten yards of the edge of
the cliff. Sometimes he really wished that he would
keep his mouth shut. Even though he was an expe-
rienced parachutist and mountain climber, he had a




fear of heights. But then, many jumping junkies did,
which was why they stood in the door of C-130s or
C-141s and threw their bodies into the void. If you
weren't afraid of it, you wouldn't get the rush. But
standing on the edge of a cliff in the middle of the
night wasn't the same as being in the door as part of
a jump stick. Being able to plainly see the jagged
rocks below made this up close and personal.
    "You ready?" James asked after checking over
his jump harness one last time.
  Not trusting his voice, Hawkins nodded.
  "Go!"
    Holding on to the ends of the parasail's wing,
James and Manning ran forward with Hawkins to
launch him off the edge of the cliff. Hawkins ran like
a sprinter wanting to put as much distance as he
could between himself and the rock face. With a final
leap, he threw himself into the void.
    He plummeted like a bird with two broken wings.
Above him, the matte black parasail flexed several
times, fluttering and threatening to collapse before it
finally got enough air moving past it to fully inflate.
Then it did what it had been designed to do. It flew.
    Catching an updraft coming off the face of the
cliff, Hawkins flew the parasail chute like he was in
a hang glider. Ever so slowly, he rode the updraft in
a wide climbing spiral to gain altitude. He already
had several hundred feet to spare, but he wanted to
get as much room between him and the top of that
castle as he could. The glide ratio for the parasail

was good, but for something this crazy to work,
every last inch counted.
    When he had gained the extra altitude he wanted,
Hawkins carefully used the toggle to spill air from
the canopy to steer it toward the hulking shape of
the fortress below.
    He had done some real strange things since he had
joined Phoenix Force, but making a one-man para-
chute assault without an aircraft was a first for Haw-
kins.




CHAPTER FOUR

In the inky darkness, the pile of stone below looked
more like a natural rock formation to Hawkins than
anything that was man-made. Snapping his night-
vision goggles over his eyes, it became clearer. Now
he could plainly see the large tower with its radar
antenna and, more importantly, his touchdown point,
the large, flat expanse of the roof of the main build-
ing.
    When his spiraling flight brought him directly over
the fortress, Hawkins started spilling air from his
chute. As his hard-won altitude bled off, he scanned
the rooftop closely but didn't see any guards. Even
so, he was careful to come in straight down close to
one of the walls.
    As soon as his robber-soled boots touched down,
his left hand was stabbing at the quick-release on the
harness to free him for action. Snapping up his slung
Heckler & Koch MP-5 submachine gun, he stepped
away from the deflating canopy and crouched for a
moment to get his beatings.
  "I'm down," he whispered over the comm link.

"Copy," McCarter sent back. "We're on the
way."
    Hawkins had started for the edge of the wall when
he caught a glimpse of movement and dropped back
down. A man in beret and boots with an assault rifle
slung over his back was standing at the far side of
the roof, apparently looking out into the night. Haw-
kins had searched for signs of guards on his way
down, but he had missed this guy. All it would take
was one more mistake like that to ruin his whole day.
    Slipping the silenced .22 Ruger pistol from his
shoulder holster, he started down the wall. He didn't
know why this guy hadn't heard him coming in, but
the wind had to have masked the sound of the rush
of air past his chute.
    When Hawkins got close enough to take his shot,
he raised the Ruger and crossed his wrists to steady
his aim. When he had acquired the target, he half
pulled the trigger, activating the red-dot laser sight
to double-check his aim. Seeing the dot appear on
the back of the guard's head, he squeezed the trigger
the rest of the way. The subsonic puff of the silenced
pistol was almost too quiet for even him to hear.
    The Teflon-coated .22 LR slug drove through the
base of the guard's skull and mushroomed to the di-
ameter of a dime in his brain. With his neural syn-
apses cut at the core, the guard instantly went limp.
Since his weapon was slung over his back, the body
made little noise as it fell face-first.
 Hawkins kept the pistol trained on the corpse as




he moved in to check his kill. He knew the man was
dead; the laser dot had been right on the juncture of
his spinal colunto and skull. But it was always the
ones you didn't check who came alive at the wrong
moment. A quick touch behind the point of the man's
jaw, though, was all it took to rule this guy out of
action.
    The Phoenix Force commando paused to take a
close look at his kill. The guard was wearing a des-
eft-camouflage uniform, and he also had the expected
AK-47 assault fife slung over his shoulder and a
chest-pack magazine carrier. What wasn't expected
was the set of night-vision goggles hanging on a
strap around his neck. Whoever these guys were,
they were well equipped. But as this guy had just
found out, night goggles really didn't help much if
you weren't using them properly.
    "One down," Hawkins reported in a whisper.
"And be advised that he was wearing night gog-
gles."
  "Copy."
    Since he had missed this guy, Hawkins decided to
make sure that he really did have the roof all to him-
self. When he was satisfied that the top of the fortress
was clear, he took the roll of nylon rappeling rope
from his butt pack and tied the end around one of
the battlements. After making sure that the ground
below him was clear, he dropped the other end of
the rope over the side of the wall. After slinging his

MP-5, he clipped the rope onto the carabiner on his
rappeling harness and got ready for the trip down.
    Taking up the slack in the rope with his left hand,
he stepped backward over the battlement. Stopping
for one last look, he drew the .22 with his fight hand
and flicked it off safety. For this short rappel, he
would risk making a one-handed drop for the security
of being able to shoot if anyone showed up.
    He checked his descent a foot off the ground and
eased himself the rest of the way down. "I'm on the
ground, and it's clear," he radioed.
    "We'll be there in zero-five," McCarter radioed
back.
    Keeping his back to the wall, Hawkins waited in
the dark. Breaking into a fortress was never easy, and
ancient or not, this one wasn't going to be an excep-
tion to the rule. As soon as the rest of the team
showed up, they would recon the walls for the best
way in.

ENTRANCE TO the fortress proved to be as simple as
finding a small door that was secured with an antique
padlock. Taking the bolt cutters from his pack, Man-
ning cut through the lock and had the door open in
seconds. Behind the door, a tunnel through the thick
stone wall opened up onto a courtyard. After check-
ing to make sure that no sentfides had been posted,
they moved in.
    Kurtzman hadn't been able to locate a plan of the
castle for the team. But since it was traditional to




house prisoners in the lower levels of stone for-
tresses, when Phoenix Force came to the stairs lead-
ing below ground level, they headed there first. If
they didn't find Richard Lacy in the basement, then
they would start searching the rock pile room by
room. Doing that would put Lacy in great peril, how-
ever. As soon as the first shot was fired, the hostage
would be as good as dead.
    James slid along the right side of the curving stone
stairs, his back pressed against the damp wall. If
there was a guard posted at the bottom of the stairs,
the chances were more than good that he would be
stationed on the right side so his weapons hand
would be free. Knowing human nature was a great
part of being successful in this kind of combat.
    When he'd traveled far enough down the stone
steps, James's combat expectations were met. A man
was standing on the right side of the archway with
his back against the wall. His AK was slung over his
shoulder, and he looked to be half-asleep.
    Even though the guard had made himself an easy
target, James didn't know if he had a buddy down
there and decided to silently take him out with cold
steel. Shooting him with the silenced MP-5 would
have been his first choice, but he couldn't risk his
making a noise when he fell, so a little knife work
was called for. Slinging his subgun out of the way,
he drew the Ka-bar knife from his boot-top sheath.
    Moving slowly and silently, he closed the gap until
he was within ann's reach of his target. Though the

guard wasn't completely alert, something in the back
of his mind warned of the commando's presence.
When he started to turn, James was on him, his left
hand clamping over the man's mouth and snapping
his head back to expose his neck. The knife flashed,
slicing through the veins and tendons of his neck.
    James held the guard until his feet stopped kick-
ing. Then, holding the corpse for cover and his si-
lenced H & K at the ready, he looked to see if an-
other guard was stationed at the other end of the
dimly lit room. When he saw that the dungeon was
empty, he double-clicked the radio to signal the rest
of the team to join him.
    Though there had been signs of renovations and
modemizat'lon elsewhere in the fortress, the dungeon
looked untouched. Cells flanked both sides of the
corridor, but only two looked to have their antique
iron locks slid shut.
    Rafael Encizo went to the first locked cell and
shone his flashlight through the crude iron bars over
the opening in the thick wooden door. The man lying
on the narrow bed along the wall was the right age
and, though his clothes were dirty, they looked to be
Western style.
    When Encizo opened the door and walked in, the
man opened his eyes. "I'm Richard Lacy," he an-
nounced. "Ex-U.S. State Department."
    "We've been looking for you, Mr. Lacy," Encizo
said. "Are you able to walk?"
 Lacy nodded and tried to stand. "I'm okay."




    When he faltered, Encizo offered his hand. "Let
me help you up."
    At the other end of the line of cells, Hawkins was
checking each one to see who else might be impris-
oned. Shining his flashlight through the cell opening,
he spotted a man on a cot wearing a military flight
suit.
    "Over here, Striker," Hawkins whispered over the
comm link. "I found a hot one. I think it's that pilot
who went down."
  "I'll be there in a minute. Check him out."
  ' 'Roger.' '
    The man blinked when the flashlight beam hit his
eyes and raised his hands to shield his face.
    "Are you Air Force Major John Hammer?" Haw-
kins asked.
    The pilot painfully raised himself from the cot.
"Yeah, that's me. Who are you, the Marines?"
    "Nope, the cavalry." Hawkins grinned. "Can you
walk?"
    "I can flap my arms and fly if it'll get me out of
this place."
    "Save that for when we get cut off. Then you can
carry all of us out."
    "Do you guys have a chopper waiting some-
where?"
      "It's waiting in Italy," Hawkins replied. "We
have to call for it."  "Oh, shit."
  "What's the problem?"

    "The Iranians have this place covered with radar
and ground-to-air missiles."
    "Iranians?" Hawkins frowned. "We were told
that this was a Bosnian stronghold."
    "It is," Hammer answered. "But there's a large
Iranian contingent here, as well. It looks like they're
some kind of commando unit working for the Bos-
nians. And I saw a couple of Strellas in one of their
jeeps."
      "Danre!" Hawkins clicked in his comm link,
"Striker, we've got a problem."  "What's that?" Bolan asked.
    'Tve got the pilot, but he says that there's some
kind of Iranian commando unit here and that they're
armed with antiaircraft missiles."
    Bolan cursed under his breath. "Okay, let's get
out of here."
    When Hammer reached the dead guard, he paused
to pick up his AK-47 and strip the corpse's magazine
carder.
    "Do you know how to use that thing?" Encizo
asked when he saw the pilot go for the weapon and
anununition.
    The pilot grinned. "Damned straight I do, mister.
I have one of these at home, and I use it all the time
to relieve stress."
    "Just remember where the safety is," the Cuban
cautioned.
  "And the 'rock and roll' switch."
  "You'll do," Encizo said. "Just follow us."




    Lacy was in worse shape than he had thought, so
James stayed with him, ready to throw him over his
shoulder and mn if it came to that. Hammer had been
roughed up, too, but the pilot was a lot younger and
kept himself in good shape.
    Once they were outside the walls, Manning and
James supported Lacy as they started off across the
plain at a dogtrot. Since Kurtzman had picked up
numerous tire tracks in the valley from his satellite
photos, they knew that they wouldn't be in the clear
until they reached safety in the rocks at the base of
the cliffs. If someone made a late-night check on the
prisoners and found them gone, they'd have vehicles
chasing after them.

MANNING AND JAMES were carrying Lacy between
them by the time they reached the base of the cliffs
below the ridgeline. The diplomat had tried his best,
but his ordeal in the castle had taken its toll.
    As the team's mountaineer, Manning went up the
cliff face freehand, then threw down two rappeling
ropes for the others to climb. After clipping a safety
rope to his harness, James took Lacy on his back and
started up the rope hand over hand. At the top of the
cliff, Manning belayed the safety rope in case the big
man slipped with his load.
    Hammer was able to make it on his own and was
quickly followed by the rest of the team. Now that
they were above the plain, Bolan took the time to
talk to Lacy.

    "We're safe from their vehicles now," Bolan told
him, "but we need to keep on going. Do you think
you can keep up with us?"
    Lacy was beat and felt like he could sleep for a
week, but he nodded. 'Tll try."
  "Good man."

MAJOR NASLIN ALWAYS WOKE well before dawn to
praise God for having given him another day to bring
death to the infidels. After his prayers, he headed
downstairs in the dimly lit castle to check on the two
Yankees who had fallen into his hands. Once more
God had given him a gift exactly when he had
needed it most.
    The Bosnian crisis was reaching a climax. Years
of planning were coming together. In a few short
weeks, the Serbian and Croatian factions in Bosnia
would find themselves in utter chaos and unable to
stop the Muslims from taking control of the entire
nation. But for the plan to succeed, he had to make
sure that the United States wouldn't get involved,
and the prisoners would do a lot to relieve the minds
of the planners in Tehran.
    He hated to admit, though, that he had been im-
pressed with the courage of the Yankee pilot, and he
didn't think that he could be made to talk anytime
soon. As he well knew, any man would talk if he
was worked on long enough. But there was no point
in wasting valuable time on the pilot when he had
Lacy, the so-called diplomat, in his hands. He was


an old man and he was weak. Naslin was confident
that he could break him today or tomorrow. Then
they would find out what the Great Satan was plot-
ting in Bosnia.
    The major was surprised when he didn't see the
guard at his post at the bottom of the stairs. Although
the guard was one of Asdik's men, Naslin had ex-
pected better of him than to sleep on duty. He would
have to talk to the Bosnian leader and insist that one
of his Iranians stand guard over the Yankee prisoners
from now on.
    In the dim light at the bottom of the stairs, the
Iranian officer failed to see the thickening pool of
blood where the guard had been killed. Walking up
to the cell that had held Richard Lacy, he immedi-
ately saw that the door wasn't closed and locked. The
cell was empty.
    Running back to the guard post by the stairs, he
slanuned the butt of his hand on the alarm button on
the wall. As the wail of the siren sounded, he turned
and ran back to see if the Yankee pilot had been
taken, as well.
    When he saw that cell was also empty, he turned
again and raced for the stairs. When he met Dragan
Asdik coming down the stairs, he shouted, "The
prisoners have escaped!"  "What happened?"
    "They've escaped! The Yankees came and took
them away." Naslin shouted, his face distorted with
rage. "After them!"

CHAPTER FIVE

Asdik was enraged to learn that the prisoners were
gone, too, but he held it in check. He had learned
long ago that rage should be used as a weapon and
not squandered as a constant frame of mind.
  "Show me."
    When Naslin led him into the dungeon, it was ob-
vious that the prisoners hadn't freed themselves. The
locks to the doors hadn't been forced, and the guard
had been killed at his post. Since no one had heard
a shout or a shot, he'd been killed with a silenced
weapon. Asdik knew that the Iranian was right when
he said that commandos had raided the fortress and
released them.
    Exactly who the raiders were wasn't really impor-
tant to the Bosnian, but his gut told him that they
were Americans, not NATO troops. And they
wouldn't be planning to walk out of the mountain
that surrounded the fortress.
    Since there had been no radar alarm during the
night, more than likely the raiders had parachuted in.
And now that they had what they had come for, they




would call for a helicopter to come in and pick them
up. But he had the perfect way to deal with that sit-
uation.
    Calling two of his subordinates to his side, he gave
orders. "Issue the missiles," he told the first man.
"I want every search team to carry at least two Strel-
las with them. If they see an airplane, particularly a
helicopter, they are to fire on it immediately."
  "Yes, sir."
    The second man stepped forward. "Tell the radar
operators to be extra-alert for low-flying aircraft.
They are to radio the search parties as soon as they
make visual contact."
  "As you command."
    In minutes, three Toyota four-wheel-drive pickups
packed with Iranian troops raced across the castle's
drawbridge, their headlights stabbing into the break-
ing dawn. Each pickup had two Strella missiles on
board.
    As soon as the vehicles were away, AsdLk went to
his radio room to inform the Bosnian high command
of the situation. Lacy and the pilot hadn't been cen~
tral to the plans that were being set in motion, but
the fact that someone had raided the remote fortress
was of critical importance. It had been thought that
NATO didn't know about Castle Asdik, and precau-
tions would have to be taken now that it did.

THE STONEY i?[AN TEAM had gotten the two ex-
captives to safety in the ragged mountains before

dawn broke. After finding a good hiding place where
they could watch the approaches, McCarter and Bo-
lan huddled with Major Hammer to question him
about what he had seen in the fortress.
    "What's the story on those missiles you men-
tioned?" McCarter asked him. "We have a chopper
scheduled to come in and get us."
    "You'd better call it off," the pilot said as he
chewed on an MRE ration bar. His captors hadn't
been big on feeding him. "StreUas are death to chop-
pers."
    "How do you know that they were Strellas?"
McCarter asked.
    Hammer smiled. "I'm a pilot, and that means that
I'm a little paranoid about things that can shoot down
planes and I study them. I probably know more about
those damned things than the bastard who designed
them. They were Strellas, and I can clue you that
they're bad news for low-flying aircraft. You're not
going to get a chopper in here without having it
blasted from the sky."
    "You also mentioned something about radar,"
Bolan said.
    "Right. My Night Owl was equipped with all
kinds of threat-warning gear. I started picking up ra-
dar emissions fifty miles out, and it was pretty dense.
I don't think you'll be able to sneak past it even on
the deck."
    McCarter looked across at Bolan. "Go to Plan
B?"




    "I think we have to." Bolan nodded and glanced
over at the rescued diplomat, who had fallen into an
exhausted sleep. "They won't let us risk Lacy under
those circumstances."
  "So I'm expendable?" Hammer asked.
    "We didn't come for you, Major," McCarter said
bluntly. "You were an unexpected bonus, so to
speak. And if it comes down to it, since you're mil-
itary, you get to take the same risks we do."
    That set Hammer back. "By the way, who in the
hell are you guys anyway, Project Delta?"
    "We have a Delta graduate," McCarter said, "but
we're a DLJ team."
    Hammer frowned. He thought he was up on all the
special-warfare units assigned to PROFOR, but he'd
never heard those initials before. "I've never heard
of DLJ."
  "It stands for Dirty Little Jobs."
    "Oh." Hammer looked surprised. "The Com-
pany."
"Not really, but you don't have a need to know."
"Okay." Hanuner shrugged. "I can live with that.
You mentioned a Plan B for the extraction. What's
that?"
    Now McCarter smiled. "We don't bloody well
know yet."
      "You're making this up as you go along?" Ham-
mer's voice rose a couple of notches.  "You might say that."
 The pilot slowly shook his head. "Now I know

you guys are from the Company. Those bastards
never get it right the first time."
    McCarter grinned. "Welcome to the world of
clandestine operations."
    "You also mentioned something about Iranian
troops in the fortress," Bolan prompted, getting back
on track. "What's the story on them?"
    Hammer briefly went through his observations and
conclusions about the man he called the Spider and
the troops he'd seen.
    When he was finished, Bolan locked eyes with
McCarter. "We'd better talk to Katz about this."
    "Also," Hammer said, "when you're talking to
whomever you guys work for, you might want to
mention the fact that my airplane was down some-
where around here. Since it's the most classified
thing in the air right now, they might not want it to
fall into unfriendly hands."

Stony Man Farm

"WE JUST GOT a change in plan," Barbara Price told
Hal Brognola. "The team got Lacy out of the castle,
but the chopper extraction had to be called off."
  "What happened?"
    "Well, Mack did more than spring your man Lacy
out of there. He also rescued the pilot of that downed
TR-3, and he explained the facts of life to them."
    Brognola didn't want to hear what was coming,
but he knew that he had to. "Which are?"




    "Apparently they're not dealing with just a Bos-
nian warlord and a ragtag army this time. There's
some kind of Islamic commando unit working out of
that fortress, as well, and the pilot reported that
they're armed with Russian shoulder-fired antiaircraft
missiles."
    Brognola didn't quite understand what law of na-
ture it was that said that no military operation could
ever go the way it was planned. But as long as he
had been in this business, it never seemed to change.
Just when it looked like you were in the clear, some-
thing went wrong.
  "So, what are they doing now?"
    "They managed to get away from the Bosnians,"
she answered. "For now at least. They're holed up
in the mountains to the east to wait until Katz can
come up with a Plan B for the extraction."
  He sighed. "I need to talk to Katz."
  "The video link is hot."

THE NEW VIDEO SATELLITE link equipment Able
Team had set up in the command post made Katze-
nelenbogen's reports back to Stony Man Farm almost
as good as if he were there in person. A big-screen
monitor in the War Room displayed his face in living
color and gave a glimpse of the command post and
all of the communications gear behind him.
    "The shoulder-fired Strella isn't as good as a
Stinger missile, but it's a close second," Katz stated.
"Its heat-seeking warhead can reach up to eight

thousand feet or so and deliver a knockout punch.
And since they're designed to kill armored ground-
attack aircraft, they'd have no trouble taking out a
helicopter with one shot."  "Lovely."
    "Can we get NATO aircraft in there to suppress
those missiles and radars?" Katz asked.
    "Nope," Brognola replied, shaking his head.
"NATO involvement isn't on right now. The polit-
ical situation won't allow it."
  "How about a carrier air strike, then?"
    "That won't fly, either," Brognola said. "The sit-
uation is too explosive. Any official unilateral U.S.
or NATO involvement will blow the peace accord
and put us back to square one. That's why the Man
tapped us for this operation in the first place."
    "What does the Man think they're going to do,
then?"
    'Tll have to talk to him. But I know that he'll be
looking at a ground extraction. Anything that in-
volves troops and equipment will be out."
    Katz shook his head. "I don't mean to be disre-
spectful and all that, but you might want to ask the
President if he has a map anywhere in the Oval Of-
rice. If he does, I suggest that he take a good long
look at it and figure out how many miles those guys
are going to have to walk to reach anything that
might be called safe ground. And to keep out of
sight, they're going to have to move at night. It's




going to take them weeks to get to the closest PRO-
FOR unit.
    "And," Katz added, "I'm talking about what the
situation would be if they were completely on their
own. Remember, they've got two recent hostages of
uncertain physical condition with them. We don't
know if those two guys are going to be up to a
month-long walk in the woods."
"You got a better idea?" Brognola asked.
"Striker wants to try a balloon extraction for Lacy
at least. But he's afraid that it'll only work one tame,
so we'll only be able to get the one man out."
  "How about our guys?"
    "They'll try to find the wreckage of the downed
plane so it can't be salvaged and examined. If it
wasn't completely destroyed in the crash, they want
to help it along."
  "That's not a bad idea."
    "That's what Striker thought, and he wants to
work something up to take care of it."
    "If he thinks that he can get Lacy out of there
safely, let's do that first and then we'll see what it
looks like after that."
  "That's what I told him."
    "So," Brognola asked, "what about the balloon
extraction?"
    "I talked to some of the guys at the Special Forces
unit stationed here at Aviano, and they've got one
they said we could borrow."

    "Go ahead with that," Brognola ordered. "I'll
brief the President."
  'tll get back to you when we have it en route."
  "Do that."
    Brognola wasn't so sure about sending a man of
Lacy's age into the air on the end of a balloon cable,
but his importance to the Bosnian peace process
made it imperative that he be returned as soon as
possible. He wasn't going to tell the President how
risky it was going to be, though. Sometimes the Man
didn't need to know all the details of what was being
done in his name.

Bosnia

WHEN KATZ RADIOED that Brognola had okayed the
balloon extraction, McCarter went to break the news
to Lacy. "Mr. Lacy," McCarter said, squatting on
the rock next to the older man, "we've come up with
a way to get you out of here."
  "Please," Lacy said, "call me Rich."
    "Okay, Rich. I'm David. Anyway, you don't hap-
pen to have an overwhelming fear of heights, do
you?"
    Lacy shrugged. "Not any more than the next man,
why?"
    "Well, as I said earlier, we had planned to call in
a chopper to take us out, but we had to call it off
because of the missiles Major Hammer reported that
the opposition is carrying."




    Being an old hand at the diplomatic game, Lacy
knew when a compromise was being suggested.
"What's the altemative to the helicopter?"
    "It's called a STABO balloon extraction system.
We fit you with a harness, tie it to a balloon that
carries a cable up into the air where a plane catches
onto it and reels you up."
    Lacy blinked hard. He wasn't afraid of heights, but
this was ridiculous. He was a diplomat, not a dare-
devil. "Like the proverbial skyhook, right?"
  McCarter nodded.
  "Are you sure it works?"
    McCarter nodded. "I've used it several times to
get out of a fight spot, and I know that it works. Have
you ever seen the James Bond movies? They used it
in a couple of them if I remember."
  "Did you bring one of these things with you?"
    "No. We'll have to hide out here until we can get
a STABO rig flown in."
    "But if a plane is coming in to deliver this equip-
ment, why can't we fly out on it?"
    "Good question, sir. But the plane will be drop-
ping it from above missile range so it won't get shot
down."
  "Dropping it?"
    "Like a laser-guided smart bomb, it will zero in
on this location using a laser. But a parachute will
slow it for a soft landing."
    "If you can get that thing delivered," Lacy said,
"I guess I'll try to ride it out of here."

    "Good man." McCarter grinned and clapped him
on the shoulder. "It will be something to tell your
grandchildren about."
    "That's going to be a bit of a shock for my wife."
Lacy kept a straight face. "We don't have any chil-
dren."
  "You'll be okay, Rich."




CHAPTER SIX

Aviano Air Base, Italy

Yakov Katzenelenbogen soon leamed that not only
did the Special Forces unit at Aviano have a STABO
rig available, but the Air Force also had one of the
specially equipped AC-130E Hercules turboprops on
hand. Equipped with the gear to hook on to the
STABO balloon cable and reel it onboard, the plane
also had a Pave Low laser-target-designator system
mounted in the nose so the STABO rig could be
accurately delivered to the Stony Man team's loca-
tion.
    Armed with faxed permission to use the plane,
Jack Grimaldi went to the flight line to oversee the
loading of the STABO canister. The STABO's aeri-
al-delivery canister resembled a fat bomb. The laser-
guidance unit that had been scavenged from a
GBU-27 two-thousand-pound smart bomb bolted to
the nose only added to the lethal look. Only the bulky
parachute pack nestled in the canister's tail fins de-
tracted from its deadly appearance.

    Since the AC-130E did not have bomb racks fitted
to it, Jack Grimaldi had the STABO canister hooked
up to one of the plane's two external-fuel-tank py-
lons. Since the flight would be relatively short, he
wouldn't need the extra fuel, and the fuel-tank pylons
were fitted with quick-release hangers that could
drop the canister as well as a conventional bomb rack
could.
    For this mission, both Gadgets Schwarz and Carl
Lyons were going along with him. Schwarz would
ride the right-hand seat in the cockpit and act as the
bombardier to drop the canister. And when the bal-
loon was launched, both of the Able Team comman-
dos would operate the equipment in the cargo hold
to capture the balloon cable and reel in the man on
the other end of the line.
    Within an hour of receiving the okay from the
Farm, the camouflaged AC-130E was winging its
way across the Adriatic for the coast of Bosnia.

Bosnia

"THOSE GUYS MIGHT BE okay in the desert," T. J.
Hawkins said as he watched the Iranian officer lead
his patrol up the rocky draw on the side of the moun-
tain, "but they don't look worth diddly squat in this
kind of terrain. They might as well be carrying signs
saying Here We Are! Shoot At Us!"
    Hawkins and Gary Manning were guarding the ap-
proach to the mountaintop clearing where the rest of




the team waited for Grimaldi to deliver the STABO
container. For the plan to extract Richard Lacy to be
successful, they had to keep the opposition at bay
long enough for the pickup to be made. Then they
would find a place to hide out in the hills until the
Farm could work up an extraction plan for them, as
well.
    All that, however, was contingent upon their keep-
ing the enemy at bay, and that had now become a
problem.
    "The bastards don't have to be good if they get
lucky," Manning reminded him. "Which they just
did. If they keep going up that draw, they'll end up
behind us."
    "Well, then, I guess we'd better just up and see
if we can change their luck a tad."
    Like everyone else at Stony Man, Manning had
gotten used to Hawkins's particular version of the
English language and knew that he wasn't suggesting
that they jump up and run down there. The problem
could be taken care of where they were. The Stony
Man warriors had found a perfect sniper's nest in the
rocks four hundred yards from the draw, and they
could hold off an army from that position.
    "That's what we're here for," Manning said as he
snuggled the butt of his Remington Model 700
sniper's rifle into his shoulder. "Spot for me."
    "Start with their pointman," Hawkins suggested.
"Four fingers to the right of that biggest boulder."
  "Got him."

    The field of vision of Manning's twenty-power
ranging scope brought the Iranians into sharp focus
as he took aim at the lead man. From the pistol in
his hand, he identified him as their officer. And while
it was great for morale when an officer actually led
his troops from the front, it was also a good way to
die.
    Centering the crosshairs of his scope on the man,
the Canadian focused it in to get the range. When he
had the target and the range, he took a deep breath.
Letting the air out slowly, he stroked the rifle's trig-
ger. Since the 7.62 mm NATO round was supersonic,
it made a small crack as the bullet left the muzzle,
but the sound suppressor on the end of the barrel
muffled most of the report.
    Four hundred yards away, the round took the Ira-
nian officer square in the middle of the chest. He was
spun by the force of the blow and toppled from the
rock he had just stepped up onto.
    The troops below him scattered for cover, looking
around to see where the silenced shot had come from.
    "How about another one?" Hawkins asked. "I
suggest you work on that guy in the middle who's
carrying that RPG launcher."
    "Good idea," Manning said as he shifted his
sights. Again he ranged in and fired.
    Watching through his field glasses, Hawkins saw
the Iranian rocket gunner take the hit and go down.
The RPG launcher fell from his lifeless hands and
skidded downhill on the rocks.




    Another man wearing a pistol belt stood up from
the middle of the patrol and urged the troops forward
with a wave of his ann. He took only two more steps
before Manning's next round put him down.
    With their last leader dead, the remaining Iranians
started to slip back down the hill. Manning let them
get away. The name of the game right now wasn't
to kill them all, but to keep them from interfering
until Lacy could be picked up. Once he was clear,
then they would see about finishing up this myste-
rious bunch of Iranians.
    Hawkins kept his field glasses trained on the re-
treating troops. "I remember reading somewhere that
three out of ten is about all the casualties a unit can
take without breaking. That certainly seems to be the
case this time."
    "I think it's because I took out their officers,"
Manning replied. "Most troops will fold when you
pop their leaders."
"Whatever it was, it seemed to have worked."
"This time," Manning said as he glanced at his
watch. "But Jack had better get his butt in here be-
fore too much longer. Now that they know where we
are, they'll be back in force."
    "Well--" Hawkins patted the stock of his H &
K SMG "--if there's too many of them, we can
always take tums. My dance card isn't full yet."

WHEN THEY COT THE CALL that Jack Grimaldi was
on his way in, the two snipers pulled back to the

assembly area where the STABO equipment would
be delivered. The trick to making the delivery,
though, was to make sure that the mailbox was prop-
erly lit up.
    Hawkins warmed up the laser target designator
while Manning unfolded the portable reflector that
would bounce the beam up into the sky so the
STABO canister's guidance system could lock on to
it. After planting the reflector in the middle of the
small clearing, Hawkins took aim at it from several
yards away and activated the laser.
  "We're hot," he radioed up to the orbiting plane.
  "Roger," Grimaldi radioed back.
    In the Hercules, Schwarz was on the plane's laser
target designator. After getting a GPS reading from
the ground, he plugged in the numbers, and the de-
tector picked up the laser almost instantly.
    "I've got the laser," he told Grimaldi. "Go into
an orbit while I wake up the canister's guidance
unit."
    As Grimaldi banked the aircraft, Schwarz locked
the ground designator's signal into the canister's
guidance head. "Locked and loaded," he said.
  "Launch it."
    Schwarz hit the pylon release, and the canister fell
away. "Bomb's away."
    "It's coming at you," Grimaldi informed the
Stony Man team. With the canister gone, he put the
Hercules into a high orbit to wait until they were
ready for the pickup.




CALVIN JAMES WAS the first to spot the falling
STABO canister. Since it was shaped like a bomb,
it was falling bomb fast. "There it is," he called out,
pointing at the black spot in the sky.  "I've got it," McCarter replied.
    "Come on, come on," James muttered as the spot
grew larger. "Pop the damned chute."
    If the parachute pack failed to open, the canister
would drill a hole in the rocky ground like a dud
bomb, and they'd have to fall back on Plan C. The
problem was that there wasn't a Plan C. They'd have
to run for it while Katz tried to put something else
together.
    As if it had heard James's plea, the parachute
pack's altimeter tripped and the parachute blossomed
open. The falling canister suddenly slowed and
started oscillating under the canopy. In seconds it hit
the ground, smashing the guidance unit, but it had
done its job perfectly.
    "That's not half-bad," Manning said as the can-
ister's parachute collapsed. "It almost hit the reflec-
tor dead center."
    The team quickly opened the canister and got to
work. Packed inside was the folded balloon, the
STABO harness, the cable box and the helium tanks
needed to inflate the balloon. While McCarter helped
Lacy into the jumpsuit and harness, James and En-
cizo made sure that the cable reel was ready to feed
out the several thousand feet of steel-and-nylon ca-
ble. A kink in the cable could cause it to break when

the retrieval hook caught it, and that could send Lacy
plummeting back to earth. McCarter clipped the loop
on the end of the cable into the ring on the back of
Lacy's harness and inserted the lock pin.
    After sitting Lacy down in the correct position for
the pickup, Bolan handed him the helmet and gog-
gles that completed his STABO outfit. "You're go-
ing to need this up there. It gets a little windy."
    "I still don't know who in the hell you guys are,"
the State Department man said. "And when I get
back to D.C., I'm not going to try to find out. But I
can't even begin to tell you how much I appreciate
everything you've done for me. If it was up to me,
I'd see that you all got a Medal of Honor for this."
    "Don't worry about that," Bolan said with a
chuckle. "We all draw a regular paycheck."
    Lacy shook his head. "Whatever they're paying
you people, it isn't enough."
  "Can I get that in writing?" McCarter asked.
  "Any time."

JACK GRIMALDI WAS cruising at eight thousand feet
in the AC-130E when he got Bolan's call that they
were ready to launch the balloon as soon as he could
get in position to retrieve it.
    "I'm inbound on a heading of zero-eight-six," the
pilot replied. "If you launch now, I should be able
to pick it up on the first run and get the hell out of
here. I'm above Strella range, but there's too much
radar operating down there for my taste."




  "Roger," Bolan sent back.
    When they got the nod, James and Manning held
the balloon's restraining ropes while Hawkins turned
the valve to the helium canister. As the bomb-shaped
balloon filled with the lighter-than-air gas, the two
men faced it into the wind. When the balloon's
stubby fins inflated, they caught the wind and stabi-
lized it. By the time the canister was empty, the
twelve-foot-long balloon was straining against the
ropes.
    "We're go," James said as he pulled the discon-
nect on the canister.
  "Launch it," Bolan ordered.
    When James and Manning released the balloon, it
swiftly rose into the air. McCarter and Encizo fed
out the cable, making sure that it didn't kink as it
came off of the roll. When the last of the cable was
played out, Bolan keyed his throat mike.
    "Come and get it," he radioed to the waiting Gri-
maldi.
  "On the way."

GRIMALDI SPOTTED the blinking strobe light on the
bottom of the balloon as soon as it broke through the
clouds. The winds had caught it, however, and it
wasn't on-line with his flight path.
    "I'm going to have to go around again," he ra-
dioed to the ground team. "I've got a nasty cross-
wind up here, and I don't want to snag the cable. I
have to come in straight at it to make a good snatch."

    "Get a move on it if you can," Bolan sent back.
"The opposition's starting to get nasty about wanting
this mountaintop back."
    A minute later, Grimaldi's voice sounded in Bo-
lan's earphone. "I'm coming up on it now and will
give you a long count."
    "Get ready," Bolan told Lacy as he listened to
Grimaldi's approach count down. "Four...three...
two...one," he counted down on his fingers.
"Now !"
    When Bolan's last finger snapped out, Lacy felt
like someone had ignited a rocket strapped to his
behind. One instant he was sitting on the ground with
his legs out in front of him, and the next he was
being jerked upward faster than a space shuttle
launching. Even with the helmet covering his ears,
he could hear the air screaming past his head. It was
in harmony to his own unvoiced screams. He gulped
hard to keep his stomach down where it belonged.
    He had no way of knowing how long he had been
flying through the air before he felt a jerk on the
cable. Suddenly he was being pulled backward even
faster than before. An instant later, he saw the tail of
the camouflaged Hercules appear above him and he
slammed to a halt. The cable was caught in a steel
claw that was pulling him into the open rear ramp of
the plane. Hands reached out to grab his harness and
pull him inside the plane.
  "You okay, sir?" one of the two men shouted




over the roar of the engines and the rush of air from
the open ramp.
    "Jesus!" Lacy muttered as he swayed on his shak-
ing legs.
  "Are you okay?" the man repeated.
  "Yes, I'm in one piece."
    As one of the men helped him to a seat, the other
hit a lever that closed the rear ramp.
    "Welcome to Air Bosnia, Mr. Lacy," Schwarz
said with a straight face. "May I see your boarding
pass, please?"
    "How about that," Lacy replied, playing the
straight man and patting his empty pockets. "I seem
to have misplaced it."

Stony Man Farm

"THEY PICKED LIP Richard Lacy," Barbara Price re-
ported to Hal Brognola on the Farm's intercom.
"And he's safely on his way back to Italy."
    "Outstanding! The President will be very glad to
hear that. Lacy's needed at the upcoming round of
election negotiations scheduled for next week, and
we were going to have to postpone them if we
couldn't get him back."
      "Do you want the report on the team, too?" Price
broke in on his reverie.  ' 'Of course."
    "While they were waiting for Grimaldi to deliver
the balloon, they ambushed a patrol looking for them

and sent them packing. Now that Lacy's gone,
they're going to shift gears and try to see if they can
find that crashed plane. When they find it, they'll
assess if it needs to be destroyed. And if it has to be
blown up to keep it from being salvaged, since the
team doesn't have demo packs with them this time,
Katz wants permission to use a stealth fighter to drop
a two-thousand-pound smart bomb on it."
  "I'11 try to clear that with the White House."
      "Please try to clear it fast," she said. "We have
to be ready to keep that thing out of enemy hands."
  "I'm going, I'm going."
She smiled. "The chopper's waiting for you."
Brognola knew that Stony Man had been located
in the Shenandoah Valley to keep it away from the
political insanity of the Beltway. Secrecy aside, he
sincerely wished that he didn't have to fly ninety
minutes anytime he wanted to talk to his boss. But
then, collecting frequent-flier miles was part of his
job description.




CHAPTER SEVEN

Bosnia

Dragan Asdik smiled to himself when Major Naslin's
men reported their defeat in the mountains. They
claimed that they had been ambushed by a company-
sized unit and had inflicted heavy casualties on the
Yankees before they had been forced to withdraw.
As an experienced mountain fighter, the Bosnian
doubted that their story was anywhere close to being
accurate. More than likely, they had stumbled into a
small force that had a better position and had been
able to bring accurate fire down on them.
    Although the Yankees were his enemies, too, he
wasn't unhappy to see the arrogant Iranian major
humbled. Even though they were supposed to be Is-
lamic brothers, Naslin looked down on the Bosnians,
including Asdik, as not being pure. It was true that
Asdik's Turkish ancestors had conquered the region
in the 1600s and had married the local women over
the centuries. But the Prophet's warriors had always

done that, even when they had swept into Naslin's
homeland.
    It was only in this century that a Persian-Arab half-
breed like Naslin could have ever tried to lord it over
a Turk. Though he called himself a Bosnian now,
Asdik could trace his ancestry back to a Turkish war-
flor, a leader of a thousand, in the Ottoman army of
Siileyman the Magnificent, which had brought this
part of the world under the domination of Islam. The
Ottoman Turks had been the mightiest warriors in all
of Islamic history, and they had also conquered the
land that was now known as Iran when they had
carried the green banners of Islam into the Middle
East. For all he knew, Naslin himself carried Turkish
blood in his veins.
    To make it even worse, the Iranian was a Shiite
fanatic, not a Sunni like the Bosnians were. It was
true that the Shiites were Muslims, too, but as far as
a Sunni Muslim like Asdik was concerned, the dif-
ference showed. Asdik had noticed early on that Ma-
jor Naslin's leadership style seemed to be based on
rage. The louder he screamed, the faster his men hus-
tled. This time, though, it hadn't seemed to have
worked.
    It was more than apparent now that the Iranians
weren't good in the mountains. Asdik's own men had
been born and raised in these hills, and they knew
how to move through the rugged terrain without be-
ing obvious about it. The Iranians, however, tried to
fight the rocks rather than treat them as their friends




and allies. Now that Asdik knew where the Yankees
had gone, he decided that it was time to let his troops
handle them. Asdik's mountain men were too valu-
able for him to waste, but this was a good opportu-
nity to show the arrogant Naslin how to use troops
in the mountains.
    "I will send my men into the mountains after
those raiders," Asdik announced when the major was
finished ranting and raving. "They know the area
well and are used to hunting in it."
    Since his men had been turned back, there was
nothing that Naslin could say to the Bosnian's pro-
posal.
    Half an hour later, several groups of experienced
mountaineers were driven up to the base of the cliffs.
After checking their gear, including mountain-
climbing ropes, they staxted for the area where the
Iranians had been ambushed. They would pick the
trail up there and find these elusive Yankees.

Italy

WHILE THE I~'naN government didn't have official
representation in the UN contingent that oversaw the
operations of the Bosnian protection force, they
weren't ignorant about what went on at the Aviano
air base. The stakes were high in the struggle for the
future of Muslim Bosnia. The imams of Tehran had
more than a passing interest in the outcome of what
they saw as a religious battle against the West. If

Bosnia could be turned into a revolutionary Islamic
state, it would be a dagger in the soft underbelly of
their decadent enemies--a dagger that could be used
to bring about the triumph of the Islamic revolution
that much faster.
    But without an official presence, Tehran kept itself
informed through a network of agents as was the case
in the rest of Europe. Few of Tehran's agents in this
part of Italy were Iranian. The imams had long ago
learned that the power of money could be as useful
to their struggle as religious fervor. It was particu-
larly useful in the decadent West, where men had no
real loyalties except to money. Their money had
bought a dozen agents who had infiltrated the air
base at Aviano to report on Tehran's enemies.
    As a result, Tehran had learned about the arrival
of the commando team almost before the wheels of
their plane had stopped rolling. The agents hadn't
been able to learn any more about them than the fact
that they were working out of a small building sur-
rounded by a chain-link fence. But it was apparent
that some kind of classified operation aimed at Bos-
nia was being run out of the small building. And any
clandestine American interest in Bosnia was of in-
terest to Tehran.
    When Richard Lacy was flown in and immediately
hustled away to this new group's headquarters, the
Iranian agent controller could wait no longer. He had
to learn more about what was happening in that small
building, and there was only one way to find out.




    Making a phone call, he ordered one of his teams
into action.

 GADGETS SCHWARZ WALKED Out of the base
exchange in the U.S. section of the air base with his
bagged purchases under his arm. Since it looked like
they were going to be there for a while, they might
as well try to live like humans. He had bought some
fixings for their coffee, paper plates, plastic eating
utensils and napkins, as well as a good stock of
snacks. A man had to do something while standing
radio watch, and dry roasted peanuts were a favorite
of his.
    He was walking up to his jeep in the parking lot
when three men stepped out from behind the van
parked beside his vehicle. Two of them were dressed
in the baggy OD uniforms he had seen worn by the
Italian troops on the base, but the third wore civilian
clothing. The particular combination of clothes he
had on and his dark features tripped an alarm bell in
Schwarz's mind.
    The third man was no more a native Italian than
Schwarz was. And when the man's hand dived inside
his unzippered jacket, all doubt ended.
    Dropping his shopping bag, Schwarz went for the
Beretta holstered under his own jacket. The 9 mm
pistol cleared leather, and he was diving for cover
before the paper bag could hit the pavement.
    His first shot was a little off target as he was mov-
ing when he fired. Nonetheless, he saw the dark-

complected man jerk, so he knew he had scored. The
two Italians in uniform were a little slow getting to
their concealed weapons, so Schwarz had more than
enough time to make sure of his kills before he pro-
ceeded to take them out.
    The first 9 mm round drilled into the head of the
nearer Italian, and he dropped his pistol abruptly be-
fore following it to the ground.
    The surviving gunner had gotten his pistol into
target acquisition by the time Schwarz could get to
him. But his first shot missed, and the Able Team
commando didn't give him a chance to take another.
A double tap over the heart sent his second shot wild,
and he joined his buddy on the pavement.
    Schwarz was swinging back to put an insurance
round in the guy in civvies when he saw the jeep full
of Italian air police racing toward him with their
M-16s at the ready. Carefully laying his pistol on the
ground, he raised both of his hands and stood stock-
still.
    It was one thing to have taken out the three thugs.
But he didn't want to exchange rounds with their
NATO allies; it wasn't good form. As he was cuffed
and led away, he saw one of them bend down and
pick up his bag of PX goodies. At least he wouldn't
have to go back and buy new supplies.

"WE'VE GOT A PROBLEM HERE." Katz's face on the
video screen in the Farm's computer room was grim.
  "What now?" Aaron Kurtzman asked.




  "We had hostiles make a move on us here."
  "How bad was it?"
    "We're okay, but they have two dead and another
one wounded. The base is in an uproar, and Schwarz
isn't in good odor around here. In fact the NATO
security people are grilling him right now."
    "Just a second," Kurtzman said. "Let me get Hal
in on this."
    Brognola had just returned from Washington, but
he hurried to the computer room after Kurtzman
buzzed him in his office, followed by Price.
    "What's this about Gadgets being held by
NATO?" Brognola snapped. "What happened?"
    Katz filled Brognola and Price in quickly. "The
gun battle attracted base security and they're holding
him for questioning right now," he concluded.
    "Dammit," Brognola exploded. "That wasn't
supposed to have happened. You guys were sup-
posed to be keeping a low profile."
    The success of Stony Man's operations depended
upon the tight ring of security that surrounded the
teams and their operations. The Farm's security made
breaking into Fort Knox look easy, but any time they
moved away from home, they had to be extracareful.
Even so, the initiative was always with the attacker
and incidents happened.
    "He didn't initiate the contact," Katz reminded
him. "And Schwarz had little choice but to take ac-
tion. The last thing we need is to have one of the
team kidnapped."

    "You're right," Brognola conceded. "But we
can't have him in NATO hands."
    "That's why I called. I need you to have the Man
spring him."
  "I'11 get on the horn to him right away."
    "The U.S. commander here is an Air Force Colo-
nel Ralph Waters."
  "I'll get right on it."
    "What about the wounded attacker?" Price asked
as soon as Brognola left to make his call to the Pres-
ident. "Have you been able to get anything out of
him?"
    "Surprisingly enough," Katz said, "they have
gotten a little information. It appears that he's an
Iranian."
  "You're joking."
    "I wish," Katz said. "He claims that he's a mem-
ber of some kind of revolutionary Islamic commando
group. If this is the case, it gives the operation a new
wrinkle."
    "Striker did say that Major Hammer mentioned
running into a Middle Eastern contingent at the cas-
tle."
    "I know," Katz said with his characteristic un-
derstatement. "And if they're Iranian commandos,
too, we have a big problem. If they have connected
the two operations, we may have to tell the team to
bunker down and wait until we can make the extrac-
tion later."
 Price hadn't liked this mission from the beginning.




It had been put together far too quickly and contin-
gencies like this hadn't been planned for. But it was
typical of a politically driven assignment. The Stony
Man team was on the ground in hostile terntory with-
out a ready means of extraction, and now they could
be facing a large group of Islamic fanatics.
    "Start working on a way to get them out of there,"
she told Katz. "And plan to use anything you have
at your disposal. I'll start hammering on Hal to get
the Man on board so we can do whatever we have
to do to make it work."
    "Short of sending in a Marine landing force,"
Katz said, "they're stuck there."
    "You take care of the plan; and I'll work on the
political clearance. If we have to use Marines, I'll do
what I can to get them cleared for it."
    Knowing how slim a chance she had of accom-
plishing that, he wished her luck.
  "Thanks, I'll need it."

WHEN KATZENELENBOGEN killed the video connec-
tion to the Farm, his eyes drifted to the map on the
wall. He knew that Barbara Price was sincere when
she said that she'd tweak the Oval Office, but he also
knew the realities of Bosnia. The UN and NATO
weren't likely to go along with any unilateral Amer-
ican plans to move forces into the region even for a
rescue. And even if they did, it would only be after
months of bickering and biting about who would get
the credit if the plan worked and who would take the

blame if it failed. Plus, if there were Islamic agents
working inside Aviano, there was no chance that the
plan wouldn't be leaked by the time it had been
hashed out.
    The only chance the Stony Man team had was for
him to come up with something that could be done
quickly and with the resources he had at hand. He
might have to borrow an airplane or two, but with
Grimaldi available to take care of the flying chores,
he wouldn't have to get the Air Force involved be-
yond supplying the hardware. That way they could
always plead ignorance about what happened after it
took off.
    First, though, he had to get Schwarz back from
base security. Even though Brognola said that he
would get the President working on that ASAP, again
Katz knew the realities and he wanted him back fight
now.
    Reaching into his kit bag, he took out the identity
papers the Farm had prepared for this mission. Ac-
cording to his ID, he was Bob Brown, a GS-14 in
the CIA. The name was so fake that it might as well
have been John Doe, but it would work. Schwarz was
Joe Green this time, Lyons was Bill White and Blan-
canales was Jim Black.
    He was going to have to talk to Price about these
names when he got back. Until then, he would have
to use what he had been given. Grabbing his leather
jacket from the back of his chair, he headed out the
door.




  "Do you need an escort?" Lyons asked.
    "Not this time," Katz said. "You and Rosario
hold the fort until I get back. I'll call you if I need
you."
  "We'll be waiting."

Bosnia

DRAGAN ASDIK FROWNED as he listened to the re-
ports of the search teams he had sent into the moun-
tains. They had found the sniper's nest where the
raiders had turned Naslin's men back, and recovered
the three bodies they had left behind. As he had
thought, it had been a small force who had ambushed
them, not the company-sized unit the Iranians had
reported to their leader. But though the one team had
found the site, it hadn't been able to track the men
from there. It was always difficult to find tracks in
rocky terrain, and the enemy was good--the intmder
had left no trail.
    Another search team reported that it had found
what looked like an empty bomb casing with a para-
chute attached. They said that it looked like some
kind of aerial-delivery device and had found a couple
of gas canisters along with other debris in the same
place. But once again, there were few tracks leading
away from the area.
    Asdik ordered his men to keep searching and went
to find the Iranian major. Like it or not, he would
also have to report failure.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Aviano Air Base, Italy

The fake CIA ID immediately got Katzenelenbogen
shown into the office of Colonel Ralph Waters, the
commander of the U.S. contingent at the air base.
But when he demanded that Schwarz be released
ASAP, he ran into resistance.
    "You have to understand," Waters said sooth-
ingly. "This incident occurred at an Italian base, and
our host country has its own way of--"
    "I don't want to hear any of this 'host country'
crap, Colonel," Katz cut him off. "The Italians have
one of my men, and I want him back ASAP. The
'incident,' as you call it, took place in the U.S. sector
of the base, and you should be the one investigating
it, not a foreign officer."
    "I don't think you understand, Mr. Brown," Wa-
ters said with the same tone that he would use to
speak to a child. "We have a delicate situation here.
Two men, local nationals, were killed, and a third
was wounded. We have to get to the bottom of this.




The Italian base commander, Colonel Alazono, and
I have--"
    Katz leaned over the man's desk. If there was any-
thing he disliked, it was a man who didn't know
where his primary loyalties lay. "Is this 'situation'
as delicate as your pension status, Colonel?"
  "What do you mean?"
    "I mean that I can pick up that phone, call the
Oval Office and have your butt on the next flight
back to the States. Mr. Green is an American under
my command, and you have allowed him to be taken
into custody by a foreign power. That may not ex-
actly be treason according to the UCMJ, but I don't
think that you're going to like having to explain what
you have done to a closed-door congressional com-
mittee. There are some congressmen who may not
appreciate the subtle difference. If you wanted to be
a diplomat, you should have joined the State De-
partment not the United States Air Force.
    "But," Katz went on, smiling for the first time,
"if you want, I can see that you're made a civilian
damned quick. Maybe even before you leave here."
    That brought Waters to his feet. "You can't come
into my office and threaten me like that."
    "I just did, Colonel," Katz replied calmly. "What
are you going to do about it?"
"I'm going to talk to your superiors about this."
"If you don't have the President's red-phone num-
ber, Colonel, I'll be glad to give it to you," he of-
fered. "I'm sure he would love to talk to you about

this matter. Maybe you can explain to him what an
American government agent is doing in the hands of
a foreign power."
    Something about Katz's demeanor warned the
colonel that he was in way over his head. He was on
the generals list, and the last thing in the world he
needed was to have his career shot down in flames
over something like this. He liked Alazono, but he
knew when to cut his losses. He didn't know who
this guy thought he was, but he didn't want to have
to find out the hard way.
  'Tll see what I can do."
    "You'll do better than that, Colonel," Katz
warned. "If he's not standing in front of me in fifteen
minutes, I suggest that you start packing your bags.
Your replacement will send a car to take you to your
plane."
    "Yes, sir," Colonel Waters responded, surrender-
ing completely.
    "Good. I'm glad that we understand each other.
Also I want a copy of everything you have on the
attackers on my desk by the time Green gets back."
  "Yes, sir," Waters repeated.
    The colonel sat and stared out the window for a
minute or two once he was alone again. Words
couldn't express the disgust he felt about his having
been tapped to command this particular installation.
Of all of the assignments he could have gotten, he
had to have been given something that had so much




political input. Damn all politicians and double damn
all spooks.
    Reaching out, he picked up the phone to call his
friend, Colonel Alazono.

WATERS WAS AS GOOD as his word, and Schwarz was
delivered to the Stony Man compound right after
Katz returned himself.
    "Thanks, guys." Schwarz waved to the two
American APs who had driven him back well over
the speed limit.
    "You did a great job of springing me, Katz,"
Schwarz said with a grin when Katzenelenbogen met
him at the door. "They hadn't even gotten around to
using the rubber hoses on me yet, so I want to thank
you."
    "It was nothing," the former Israeli commando
said, grinning. "It felt good to kick ass again. Hal
had the President working on getting you out, but I
didn't want to have to wait that long."
    The courtesies over, Schwarz got down to busi-
ness. "What do you have on the guys who tried to
make the snatch?"
    "Not much. Two of them were Italian locals who
had security clearance for the base workforce. The
third one, though, the one you left alive, is a ringer.
He's an Iranian commando of some kind."
    "It looks like I left the right one alive for a
change.' '
  "That's one way of looking at it."

  "So, what do we do about this?"
    "Nothing." Katz shook his head. "We still need
to keep a low profile, so we just hang tight and hope
it was a one-shot thing. But the next time you guys
step outside the fence, go in pairs."
  "You got that right."

CARL LYONS DIDN'T LIKE having idle time on his
hands, and it was driving him crazy. He didn't mind
helping Katzenelenbogen around the command post,
but sitting around waiting for something to happen
just wasn't his style. He hadn't earned his "Iron-
man" moniker because of his inertia. He liked to be
out there charging hard all the time. On this gig,
though, the only ones who were having fun were
Bolan and Phoenix Force. But this was a foreign op-
eration, and McCarter's people were the specialists
in that arena.
    Able Team had been set up to handle domestic
situations for Stony Man and usually operated in the
States or, at the most, in Latin America. But even
with Phoenix Force taking care of the Farm's foreign
missions, that didn't mean that Lyons and his team-
mates weren't up to a little foreign adventure. They
were more than able to do it. All they needed was a
chance to show their stuff. And as far as Lyons was
concerned, the time had come for them to do it. The
attempt on Schwarz couldn't be allowed to go un-
answered.
  When the ex-LAPD cop walked into the CP,




Schwarz didn't look any the worse for wear after his
short stay in the base slammer. In fact he and Katz
were back doing what they had been doing most of
the time since they had arrived in Italy--nothing.
    It was true that Schwarz was fiddling around with
the communications gear making sure that the sat-
ellite link was operating, but give him anything with
more than three parts and he was content to spend
hours messing with it. Katz was doing his thing as
the operations wizard, but this far from the action,
there was only so much he could do. He could only
read through the Farm's latest faxes and look at the
satellite photos so many times.
    In short, everyone was waiting for something to
happen, and Lyons was tired of waiting. He wanted
to get out there and kick some ass.
    "Have we gotten anything more on those guys
who jumped Gadgets?" he asked Katz.
    The Israeli shook his head. "The Italians haven't
been able to get much more out of the survivor. He
keeps giving them the Islamic revolutionary party
line. 'Death to the infidels' and all that crap."
    "Give me five minutes with the bastard," Lyons
growled, "and I'll get him to talk to me."
    "I really wish I could," Katz admitted. "Because
I don't have any idea of the size of the opposition
we're dealing with here. Obviously someone's on to
us, and one decent-sized car bomb getting past the
Italian air police would be all it would take to put us
out of business."

    "Well," Lyons said, trying to sound casual,
"since there's not a hell of a lot going on around
this place right now, why don't Pol and I hit the
bricks and see what shakes out? We might be able
to develop something and save us from another nasty
surprise."
    "Blancanales does speak Italian, doesn't he?"
Katz warmed to the suggestion. Like Lyons, he had
spent so long in the trenches that he didn't like sitting
around, either. But even if his job now kept him in
a chair much of the time, that didn't mean that he
couldn't get something going. He could use the big
ex-cop as his surrogate.
    "I think he can get by," Lyons replied. "I'm told
that it's a lot like Spanish."
    Katz knew that he was falling into what was called
"mission creep" in Washington, and that he should
clear it with Brognola first. But, what the hell. The
big Fed hadn't specifically said that they couldn't
defend themselves. "Wake him up and get him in
here.' '
    Rosario Blancanales, the third man of Able Team,
had been taking the night shift at the CP, so he was
sleeping during the day. "What's happening?" he
asked when Lyons jostled him awake.  "Katz is cutting us loose."
    "Good," Blancanales said as he sat up and
reached for his shoes. "This has been a drag so far,
and I can catch up on my sleep later."
 When Lyons came back with Blancanales in tow,




Katz was ready for a mission briefing. "We don't
have a lot to work with," he began. "But I do have
the home addresses of those two Italians Schwarz
waxed. Maybe you can canvass their neighborhoods
and see if you can come up with their watering holes,
their drinking buddies or something like that. For a
couple of locals to have been involved with some-
thing like this, they would have had to have been in
personal contact with Iranian agents somewhere
along the line. And this is not the kind of place that
you would expect to find too many Muslim immi-
grants."
    "Won't the local police have done that already?"
Blancanales asked. Like all of Able Team, he hated
trying to work a case after the cops had already gone
through and screwed it up.
    "Probably," Katz replied. "But if they have, they
haven't come up with anything or I would have heard
of it. I put the fear of God into the American base
commander, and if he hears something, he'll tell
me."
    "Even if the Italians have muddied the water,"
Lyons said, getting to his feet, "it beats the hell out
of sitting on our butts around here trying not to be a
target."
    Blancanales smiled to see the Ironman come alive
again. It was time that they got back to work.

AT FIRST, IT WAS slow going. As Lyons had said,
Blancanales could get by in Italian, but only slowly

and the local dialect was difficult to understand. By
the early afternoon, however, they had managed to
glean a little information, including the name of the
garage the two men had used. Most of the informa-
tion was useless neighborhood gossip, but the tip
about the garage interested Lyons.
    As with everything else they did, the Europeans
handled automobile maintenance differently than
how it was done in southern California. Rather than
having a string of gas stations, dealerships and spe-
cialty garages along major streets, the Italians sent
their cars to the small neighborhood garages for gas,
maintenance, repair and parking. The garages also
served as hangouts for the local wastrels, low-grade
hoods and other social riffraff. It might be a good
place to check out.
    Lyons liked the garage a lot more when Blancan-
ales drove their rented Lancia past it and saw that it
was closed during business hours. Everything else on
the block, including the smaller garage on the next
corner, was open, so that place should be, too. The
fact that it wasn't could be significant if it was being
used as a safehouse.
    "Pull over," he said. "We need to find someone
to talk to about who owns that place."
    The small grocery store two doors down looked
like a good start. With much hand waving and using
several English words, Blancanales got the story on
the garage. According to the grocer, the garage had
been sold to foreigners a year or so ago, and the new




owners didn't seem to want much business. He said
that they were only in there at night, and they didn't
open up when someone honked for service.
    The grocer's take on the garage's new owners was
enough for Lyons. As soon as they were back in their
car, he reached for the cellular phone. "Find a place
to stash this thing where we can keep an eye on that
place," he said. 'Tll call Katz and let him know
where we are."
  "How about that comer two blocks down?"
    Lyons glanced to the left and saw the alley.
"Yeah, pull in there."

PULLING A STAKEOUT in Aviano, Italy, wasn't like
keeping an eye on a gang hangout in East L.A. Two
guys, particularly two foreigners, sitting in a car were
bound to attract unwanted attention. But since noth-
ing was going on, even the local kids had lost interest
in them by nightfall.
    The two men waited for an hour after dark before
making their move. When they did, getting into the
building was as simple as picking a lock. When their
night goggles showed them that the place was empty,
they flicked on their flashlights and started to look
around.
    "We need Gadgets here," Blancanales said when
he saw the computer equipment on the table against
the back wall.
    Lyons handed him the cellular phone. "Call him
while I look the place over."

 Schwarz answered on the first ring. "What's up?"
      "I thought you'd like to know that we found a
computer and fax in here," Blancanales told him.
  "Great. Fire it up and see what's in it."
  Blancanales booted the system, but when the
  screen came on, it showed that a password was
  needed to get in. "It wants a password," he told
  Schwarz.
  "You said there's a fax machine and modem?"
  "Yes."
    "No sweat," Schwarz replied. "That means
they're on-line. Give me the make and model number
of the equipment."
    Using his flashlight, Blancanales read off the
names and model numbers of the computer, fax and
modem.
    "Okay, I got them," Schwarz said. "Now, what's
the street address there?"
  "It's 109 Via della Rosa."
    "Hang on while I get into the web. I'm going to
try to find their E-mail address."
    A moment later, Schwarz was back on the phone.
"Okay, I got their address. Now let me see if I can
break their password."
    The screen message suddenly changed to a DOS
prompt. "I did it," Schwarz said, cackling. "Now
we can get to work transferring whatever they have
stored in there. Are you ready?"
  With Schwarz talking him through it, Blancanales




sent the entire electronic contents of the computer
via modem to Schwarz at the Stony CP.
    "Okay," Schwarz said triumphantly. "They have
a fast modem, so it came through quickly. I'll be able
to read everything they have stored in that thing.
Now I need to figure out a way to block their access
to the machine without destroying it."
  "Why don't we just take it with us?"
    "You don't want them to know that we're onto
them, do you?"
  "Can't you change the security password?"
    "I can, but that's too easy to bypass," Schwarz
replied, sounding thoughtful. "I've got another idea.
Hang on for a couple of seconds."
    Suddenly the screen in front of Blancanales filled
with numbers that flashed almost too fast for the hu-
man eye to see. "This screen's gone crazy," Blan-
canales said. "What did you do to it?"
    "I just told the computer to compute pi to a mil-
lion places. That will keep it busy for several days
and we'll be back in the States by the time it gets
done, if it ever does. But until it does, it can't work
on anything else. Even turning it off won't work be-
cause I programmed it to boot to the new program."
    "So you've cut off then- communications to
Iran?"
    "At least on that machine." Schwarz laughed.
"They'll have to buy a new computer and modem
and go through the setup, and that should buy us
enough time to track them down."
  "The miracle of modem electronics."

CHAPTER NINE

Rosario Blancanales was shutting down the computer
when Carl Lyons suddenly killed his flashlight.
"Someone just drove up," he whispered over the
corem link.
    Slipping silently out of his chair, Blancanales
snapped down his night-vision goggles and reached
for his SPAS assault shotgun. He had hoped to get
out of there clean, but he was ready if it came to a
fire fight.
    Lyons could hear the sound of voices approaching
the garage, speaking a foreign language. He couldn't
tell how many men were out there, but there were
too many of them to simply overpower. If these guys
were connected to the Iranian commandos as he sus-
pected, a firefight was in the offing.
    He quickly took up a position against the front
wall away from the door while Blancanales crouched
behind a drum against the back wall in a classic L-
shaped ambush.
    No sooner were they in place than the door opened
and five men walked in. They closed and locked the




door behind them before turning on the overhead
lights. Seeing the move, the Able Team commandos
slipped their night-vision goggles up so the sudden
glare wouldn't blind them.
    "Freeze!" Lyons shouted in English. Thanks to
Hollywood and television, almost everyone in the
world knew that one distinctly American word.
    This time, though, it didn't work. All five of the
men were armed, and they responded by pulling their
pieces. One gunman had his Beretta minisubmachine
gun on a sling at his side, and it snapped up, spraying
lead.
    The long burst went wild, and Lyons's .357 Colt
Python barked in response. The Magnum round took
out the submachine gunner by blowing the back of
his head off. Blancanales's 12-gauge SPAS roared at
the same time, the buckshot slamming another thug
against the wall.
    Scrambling for cover, one of the three remaining
gunmen started to dive behind a gray Fiat sedan
parked near the far wall. One of his partners
screamed something and waved his hands urgently.
    Almost in midjump, the gunman skidded to a halt
and reversed direction. His change in plan, however,
was fatal. Lyons caught him halfway to cover with
two rounds from his Python. The .357 Magnum slugs
slammed him sideways as they tore through his rib
cage and smashed his heart.
    Pivoting to the left, Lyons spun to face the gunman
whose spray of 9 mm lead had driven Blancanales

to the ground. He tripped the Colt's hammer two
times in rapid fire and saw the rounds punch two
close-spaced holes in the upper left quadrant of the
target's jacket.
    Finding himself suddenly alone, the last gunman
tried to make a break for it. Ripping off a long burst
from his little Beretta subgun as he ran, he sprinted
for the closed door. Had the gunners left the door
unlocked, he might have escaped the carnage in the
garage. But when he was forced to stop to open it,
Blancanales's SPAS belched buckshot.
    At that range, the lead balls didn't have time to
spread out much, and they hit him in an eight-inch
pattern. Any one of the balls would have been
enough to kill him, and the entire load tore him open
like he'd run into a buzz saw.
    "Check them out," Lyons said as he turned to the
cars parked against the wall.
    He couldn't get the image out of his mind of the
one gunman diving for cover behind the Fiat and
then running away from it. The car would have pro-
vided him a hell of a lot better cover than where he
had tried to go, so there had to be a compelling rea-
son why he had turned back from it. Walking over
to the car, Lyons shone his flashlight inside.
    The bottom cushion of the back seat had been re-
moved, and a plywood box had been installed in its
place. A cluster of electrical wires ran out from under
the floor carpet into a hole in the front side of the




wooden compartment, and the ends of the wires had
detonating caps attached to them.
    The car had been rigged to be a bomb, and only
the blocks of RDX explosive were missing. With the
timers and firing wires in place, all the terrorists
needed to do was put the explosive charges in the
compartment, fit the wires and lay a blanket over it.
Then it would be ready.
    "I got their wallets and papers," Blancanales said
after frisking the last of the bodies.
    Lyons holstered his Python. "This damned thing
is rigged as a car bomb, but I'm going to leave it for
the Italians to mess with. Let's go."
    Warbling police sirens were sounding in the dis-
tance when Lyons started the Lancia and drove away
from the garage. It had been a good evening's work,
and he was ready for a cup of coffee.

Stony Man Farm

BARBARA PRICE NOTICED that Hal Brognola looked
a little more ragged than usual when he stepped out
of the chopper at the Farm's landing pad. He usually
showed the signs of a mission more than the rest of
the Farm team, but this time, he seemed a lot worse
for wear.
    As always, Brognola kept silent on the short walk
from the landing pad. After keying the security code
into the main door, Price opened it for him and
stepped aside to let him enter first. No sooner had

his foot crossed the threshold than he started to talk.
"We have a problem."
    "We sure as hell do," she agreed. "But I'm not
sure that we're talking about the same problem."
    "The President is concerned about the Iranian
Schwarz encountered in Italy. He thinks that the mis-
sion has been compromised."
      "That's the same topic as the problem we came
up with, but a different location."  "What do you mean?"
    "Well, Aaron came up with what looks like hard
evidence that the Islamic freedom fighters mentioned
in the Dayton Accord didn't leave Bosnia as they
were supposed to."
    That stopped the big Fed in midstfide. "But we
saw them leave Sarajevo. They got on the planes,"
he said. "And the UN international observers signed
off on it."
    She smiled slowly. "We saw somebody leave
town, true. But Aaron says he has proof that the guys
who marched onto those planes weren't the guys they
were supposed to be. Plus he did a little snooping in
the files and came up with what the Islamic com-
mandos have been doing since they didn't leave."
  "And that is?"
      She shrugged. "The same thing they were doing
before the cease-fire--killing Serbs and Croats."
  "I need to see this ASAP."
  "It's waiting in the War Room."
  The key players were waiting around the confer-




ence table when Brognola and Price walked into the
War Room. No one looked as bad as he did, but it
was obvious that they had been working long hours
and drinking too much coffee.
    "What's this about those Islamic freedom fight-
ers?" Brognola growled as he popped two antacid
tabs from the fresh roll in his jacket pocket.
      "The bottom line is that they didn't leave as per
the Dayton Accord," Aaron Kurtzman stated.
  "Who the hell did leave, then?"
    "My best bet is that they were students who were
headed for graduate work at the University of Teh-
ran's school of murder and mayhem. I think that we
can expect them back on the scene after they've
learned the finer points of terroristic slaughter."
    Brognola closed his eyes as if he were trying to
make the world go away.
    Kurtzman anticipated the next question. "I know
that the UN weenies certified that all of the so-called
Islamic freedom fighters had been shipped out, but it
simply didn't happen and I can prove it."
  "The President will need to see that proof."
  "It's ready for him."
    "And what is this about their still being active in
Bosnia?"
    "I'11 let Hunt give you the background. He's the
one who tracked it."
    Dr. Huntington Wethers was usually the best-
dressed man at Stony Man Farm. He always looked
like the distinguished academic he had been before

Kurtzman lured him away from the ivory towers of
academia. Today, though, he looked as scruffy as any
of the overworked cybernetics team. The long hours
and Kurtzman's brew were beginning to take their
toll on him, too.
    "When this came up," Wethers said, "something
started nagging at the back of my mind. During the
war, we kept getting field intelligence that the so-
called freedom fighters were operating as mobile
search-and-destroy teams targeted against leaders
and functionaries of the other two factions."
    "They were assassinating them," Brognola said,
cutting through the jargon.
    "In short, yes. And apparently they were rather
successful at it. They were hitting the infrastructure
and high level--"
    "And you think that they're back at it?" Brognola
asked.
    "I'm convinced they are," Wethers replied, nod-
ding. "About a month after the so-called return of
the Iranians, mysterious deaths started to occur again
in Bosnia. We could attribute this to happenstance,
except that none of the victims have been Muslims.
All of them have been Serbs and Croatians."
    "Do we have any hard evidence of this or do you
expect me to take statistics to the Man?"
    Wethers looked offended. Even though he was
well aware of their limitations, statistics were holy
to him. As far as he was concemed, if the world paid
more attention to statistics, it would be a better place




to five. "We have the men who attacked Schwarz in
Italy and the Islamic troops Phoenix Force and
Striker ran into as hard evidence."
    "That doesn't mean that there are Islamic hit
teams operating in Bosnia."
    "This does, though." Wethers hit the button that
flashed a newspaper up on the screen.
    "Can you give that to me in English?" Brognola
asked dryly. "My Serbo-Croation is a bit rusty."
    "This came out of a Serb paper last week, and it
says that the mayor of one of the contested towns
was ambushed by gunmen on his way home and
killed. This time, though, there were witnesses who
claimed that they heard the attackers shouting to each
other in what sounded like the Arabic language."
  "Who were these witnesses?"
    "A British observation team seconded to the UN
mission. And they went on to say that the attackers
were wearing desert-camouflage uniforms and green
berets."
    "Okay, okay," Brognola said. "I'll take it up with
the President."
    "I told Striker about the attack on the guys in
Italy," Price told him. "And the guys are taking ex-
tra precautions."
    "How's the search going for the Night Owl crash
site?" Brognola asked.
    "Not well," Kurtzman said flatly. "I worked out
the most likely area that the plane came down in, but
they haven't been able to get there yet. The last call

from Katz, however, said that they thought they were
closing in on it."
  "Make sure he keeps us informed."

Bosnia

As KURTZMAN HAD SAID, the search for Hammer's
crashed Night Owl wasn't going well. For one thing,
the pilot had only the vaguest idea where he had been
when he had been forced to eject from the stricken
plane. Nor did he know where he had landed and
been captured. All he had to go on was an estimate
of the length of time it had taken his captors to drive
him to the fortress. Even with so little information,
however, it wasn't as hopeless as it sounded.
    Hammer knew that he had been taken in a west-
ward direction to reach the castle. That meant that
he had been captured to the east of it. Since he had
been on an outward-bound leg of his search for
Lacy's SAR beacon, the TR-3 had been heading east
at the time of the collision. Wherever the plane had
come to earth, the wreckage would have to be to the
east of the fortress.
    The other problem that the Stony Man Team was
dealing with was the string of Bosnian teams who
were searching the mountains for them. They had to
make sure to keep out of sight and not to leave a
trail. Nonetheless, they were covering a lot of
ground, but had little to show for it so far.
 Bolan had asked Katz to have the Farm check the




satellite runs over the area to see if they could spot
the crash site, but to no avail. The problem was that
the radar-defeating structure of the plane that kept it
from being spotted in the air worked as well when it
was on the ground. Even broken up, the carbon-fiber-
composite wings and fuselage didn't give good radar
returns. The optical scanning also failed to spot it
because of the dense forest cover. This was one time
that a high-tech approach had to take a back seat to
old-fashioned footwork.
    "That's the damned problem with terrain-
following radar," the pilot grumbled during a break.
"When you don't see the ground, you can't remem-
ber anything."
    "You were flying at night," Hawkins reminded
him. "So you wouldn't have seen diddly anyway."
    "You'd be surprised what you can see at night up
there," Hammer said. "And I wish the hell I was up
there now."
    "This infantry stuff starting to get to you, fly-
boy?"
    "I don't see how in the hell you guys do this day
in and day out."
  "You'll get used to it."
  "Not in this lifetime."
    With the enemy search parties in the hills, the
Stony Man team was even being careful to keep out
of sight at night. Since the guard at the fortress Haw-
kins had killed had been wearing night goggles, that
meant that the others could be using them, too. They

couldn't make fires to heat rations and had to sleep
in the rocks to block their bodies' heat signatures
from night-vision devices.
    "We'll give this another day or so," Bolan told
the pilot when they halted for the evening. "And
then we're going to have to start thinking seriously
about getting out of here. As you know, we didn't
come equipped for this kind of mission. With the
numbers of men looking for us, we can't afford the
exposure. Sooner or later, someone's bound to spot
us and we'll be forced into a fight we can't win."
    Hammer saw the truth in Bolan's words. The com-
mandos had gone the extra mile and then some to try
to find the crash site. But the fate of his downed
aircraft still loomed large in his thinking. He
wouldn't be comfortable until he was satisfied that it
was useless to anyone.

Aviano Air Base, Italy

"KATZ," SCHWARZ CALLED out from inside the CP,
"the Bear's on the line. I think he got the files de-
coded."
    The majority of the information they had pirated
from the garage computer had been security coded.
Since Schwarz didn't have the programs to try to
break the codes, he had forwarded them to Stony
Man for the computer-room crew to work on. Break-
ing cyber-codes was one of Kurtzman's favorite pas-




times. In his off moments, he worked on them like
other people did crossword puzzles.
    Sliding in front of the video pickup, Katz saw that
Kurtzman was grinning. "I take it you broke it.
What's in there?"
    "Mostly it's political garbage," Kurtzman said.
"The usual ranting and raving of Islamic extremists.
But there's also information about weapons ship-
ments and terrorist cells. This group has been in
place for some time now, and they've had a pipeline
directly to Tripoli."
  "The Libyans again?"
  "I'm afraid so."
    "Did you find anything about whoever is in charge
of this mob?"
    "Not his real name," Kurtzman answered. "But
he goes by the nom de guerre of 'the Lebanese' so
we can assume that he's from Lebanon, probably
from Beirut."
    The long civil war in Lebanon had produced hun-
dreds of young Arabs who blamed the self-inflicted
misfortunes of their homeland on the West. The ter-
rorist states of Syria, Iran and Libya had welcomed
many of these men and had provided them with new
homes, as well as employment. The problem was
they were employed as terrorists.
    "I'11 get right on this stuff," Katz said, "and get
back to you as soon as I've gone through it."
    "Better make it quick," Kurtzman urged. "Bar-
bara and I haven't told Hal about Lyons's raid yet."

CHAPTER TEN

Stony Man Farm

As soon as Hal Brognola woke up the next morning,
along with his coffee Barbara Price served him a
briefing on Able Team's venture into counterterror-
ism in Italy.
    "What in the hell does Lyons think he's doing?"
Brognola snapped. "He knows that Able Team isn't
supposed to be taking action. We didn't work up a
legend for them, and they're only supposed to be
helping Katz run the CP for the Bosnian operation."
    A "legend" was the cover story for an agent op-
erating in a foreign country and was an essential part
of the Farm's operations. Without carefully prepared
legends, the operatives were vulnerable if they were
picked up by local police or intelligence services.
The last thing Stony Man needed was for one of its
men to go through a chemical interrogation and re-
veal information on the Farm. The shock wave could
bring down the presidency.
  "But Katz thinks they're onto something," Price




argued. "And since he's the man on the ground, he
authorized their mission. If what they suspect is true,
the PROFOR operation at Aviano is in real danger."
    Brognola shook his head. This was supposed to
have been a simple snatch job to get one of the Pres-
ident's advisers out of a jam. Piece of cake--a good
troop of Girl Scouts should have been able to take
care of it. Twelve hours in and out, no sweat. But
no, that would be too simple. Instead, the mission
had turned into some kind of Armageddon scenario
with Islamic commandos, crashed stealth planes, ter-
rorists and car bombs.
    The world was going to hell in a handbag and he
had Ironman Lyons and his merry band of tricksters
hulling their way around northern Italy like charac-
ters in a made-for-TV action-adventure flick. The
President was going to have his head if he didn't get
this under control ASAP.
    "Okay," he said. "Let's go back to the beginning.
What prompted this exercise anyway?"
    Price quickly ran through the facts about the two
dead Italian gunmen who had tried to kidnap
Schwarz and Katz's desire to learn more about them.
    "So," he summed up from memory, "as a result
of their little foray off the reservation, we have a half
a dozen Iranian terrorists KIA and a car bomb in
custody, right?"
    "So far," Price said. "But I don't think that's the
end of it. Aaron is working on the data Schwarz stole
from their computer, and he thinks that there is still

a threat to the air base. From what he and Katz have
been able to figure out so far, the plan is to infiltrate
a dozen or more vehicles laden with enough explo-
sives to take out the entire air base. The first bomb
is to go off next to the building housing their fire-
fighting equipment and emergency vehicles."
    "Cute touch," Brognola murmured. "Someone's
been working overtime on this one."
    "Then," Price continued, "they're going to take
out the flight line, the pilots' ready room, the fuel
storage area and the ammo dump."
    "What, no bomb in the officers' club? They might
as well unleash a nuke on the place and have done
with it."
  "I think they would if they could get their hands
on one. ' '
    "If this assessment is correct," Brognola said,
"and for the sake of argument, I'll accept that it is,
this is a major escalation of terrorist activity in an
area that's been quiet for a long time. Why does Katz
think that they're going to do this?"
    "So the PROFOR air assets won't be able to in-
tedere with their activities in Bosnia."
    Brognola had worked with Katzenelenbogen for a
long time and knew that the Farm's tactical adviser
wasn't prone to flights of fancy. If he thought that
he had proof of this, it had to be taken seriously. The
question was how to deal with it without creating
another UN/NATO mess. Simply putting the cards




on the table would create a storm of unimaginable
proportions.
    More than likely, everyone would be so up in arms
about the clandestine American operation that had
uncovered this plot that they would ignore the threat
itself. In the councils of the UN, placing blame al-
ways took precedence over doing anything useful.
Not for the first time, he wished that the U.S. would
cut itself loose from the UN and let the bastards
screw up the rest of the world by themselves.
    "What's Katz's input on how we should handle
this?"
    "Well," Price replied, "he thinks that we proba-
bly don't have enough lead time to run it through
the PROFOR chain of command in time for anything
to be done. He's suggesting that we send an anony-
mous tip to NATO warning of the attack while Able
Team tries to short-stop it."
"There'll be hell to pay if anything goes wrong."
"There'll be hell to pay if we don't get this shut
down ASAP," she said, pointing out the obvious.
"The Italians don't have a good track record at coun-
terterrorist operations, and the UN is completely use-
less. If the NATO forces tighten security at the base,
it may limit the damage in case we can't get it
stopped."
    "If this gets screwed up, it's going to cost all of
us our jobs, you know that, don't you?"
    She smiled. "Probably. But at least I'll know that
I went down fighting terrorism, not UN bureaucrats."

 He sighed. "Tell them to do it."
  "I already did."
    Brognola took a deep breath. "You know, Bar-
bara, someday you're going to jump the gun on me
one too many times and I'm going to fire you my-
self."
    She shrugged. "I've always wanted to start an
Avon dealership."
  "Dammit, I mean it."
    "When I screw up--" she locked eyes with him
"mI expect to be fired. But until then, I have a job
to do and I'm going to do it the best way I know
how. And sometimes that means getting a jump on
the opposition by acting sooner rather than later."
    Brognola hated it when she was right. And that
was almost all of the time. "Okay, okay," he said
in surrender. "But if you keep me informed, I'll be
able to cover your ass if something doesn't work
out."
    Price smiled. "I'll keep that in mind next time,
Hal."
  Brognola shook his head.

Aviano Air Base, Italy

"OKAY," Yakov Katzenelenbogen said, turning to
Carl Lyons, "we're sanctioned to operate here, and
the Farm has posted your cover stories. Now when
you get busted by the Italian police, I'll be able to




get your butt out of jail sometime before the next
millennium."
"What's our cover this time?" Schwarz asked.
"You're Justice Department, DEA, and you're
tracking a gang of Middle Eastern heroin smug-
glers."
    'Tll bet we'll find that, too, before we're done
with this," Schwarz predicted. "These guys have to
get the funds to pay for this somehow."
    "Just stick to busting car bombs," Katz said, "and
leave the rest of it to the locals. They're going to be
angry at us enough as it is."
  "Only if they find out what we're doing."
    "It's going to be hard to cover up a dozen more
bodies and as many car bombs."
      Schwarz shrugged. "Maybe they'll think that it's
just the Mafia or the Red Brigades acting up again."
  ' 'Right."
    "Okay," Lyons said, "let's figure out what we're
going to do and where we're going to do it. What
do you have for us?"
    "I have a couple of likely targets," Katz an-
swered. "After running the E-mail addresses on as
many of the messages as we could recover, we lo-
cated two places nearby that may be worth checking
Out."
  "Do you know what they are?"
    "One of them's another garage, and the other's a
warehouse."
  "Let's get it, guys," Lyons said to his partners.

"It'll be dusk in a hour or two, and I want to get to
work as soon as it's dark."

Bosnia

"I GOT SOME TREE DAMAGE up here," Gary Manning
reported from the point position. "It looks like some-
thing heavy came down through here."
    "Wait," David McCarter said. "We're coming
up."
    The Stony Man team and Major Hammer had been
on the move again since first light and had covered
a lot of ground. So far, they hadn't seen any sign of
the enemy patrols and had been able to move fast.
There were no guarantees, though, that they would
be able to do this for long. The ball was in the en-
emy's court.
    "I think I've found the crater," Manning called a
few minutes later, "but it's empty. Someone beat us
to it."
    The trees surrounding the hole in the ground bore
mute testimony to the fact that something had
slanuned into the earth in the not too distant past.
The broken treetops and slashed-off branches showed
the path the stricken spy plane had taken right before
it had impacted. Since it hadn't rained since the
Stony Man commandos had jumped into the moun-
tains, none of the evidence had been washed away.
But beyond the damage to the trees and the impact
crater in the ground, only scattered scraps remained.




Someone had hauled almost everything away. Con-
sidering what the TR-3 Night Owl represented, it
wasn't surprising.
    Now that the cold war was over and the Russians
were no longer bankrupting their shaky economy try-
ing to keep up with the American aerospace industry,
the United States was the undisputed leader of the
aviation world. But while there was no other nation
that could afford to do the research that had gone
into the design and development of an aircraft like
the TR-3, some other country would be able to steal
the spy plane's secrets if it could get its hands on the
wreckage.
    "There was a plane crash here, all right," Air
Force Major John Hammer said as he picked a small
scrap of metal off the ground and turned it over in
his hand. "And I think that it was mine."
  "How's that?" McCarter asked.
    He held out the chunk of aluminum. "See the
markings? They're in English, and that sickly green
paint is good old USAF zinc chromate primer."
    "I thought your plane was made of some kind of
plastic."
      "Only on the outside. Inside, where it counts, it
has as much metal as a regular fighter."  "Now what?" McCarter asked him.
    Hammer looked at the small metal scrap in his
hand. 'Tll be damned if I know. But I'd still like to
find out what they've done with it so we can destroy
it."

    "I've got an idea." Hawkins pointed to tire tracks
in the floor of the forest. "Let's follow the tracks
and see if we can find out where they took it. Maybe
we can recover it."
    Based on the tracks that had been left, it looked
like at least three or four small trucks had been used
to haul the pieces of the wreckage away. On top of
that, there were boot prints of well over a dozen men
in the well-trampled area. A blind man should be
able to find out what had happened to the wreckage.
    "We might as well," Bolan said. "Hal is going
to want to know what happened to it so he can tell
the Air Force."

A LITTLE OVER tWO hours later, the Stony Man team
and Hammer found themselves back at the ridgeline
overlooking the castle. The vehicle tracks had taken
them to a road that cut through a break in the cliffs.
The dirt road led downhill to the plain around the
fortress, the last place they wanted to go again.
    "We'll never be able to distinguish the tracks on
that road," Hawkins said as he scanned the road
through his field glasses. "But I know that they took
that damned thing down there."
    "Did Aaron come up with any information about
the geology of this area?" Manning asked.
    McCarter looked at him like he had two heads.
"What does geology have to do with a missing
plane?"


      "It's wreckage, not a plane," Manning reminded
him. "And it's easier to hide."  "What do you mean?"
    "Well, we're assuming that the Bosnians took the
wreckage, and the question is where they put it,
right?"
  McCarter nodded.
    "Unless it all ended up as confetti like that chunk
Hammer found, I don't think they could have gotten
it through the gate of that fortress."
Bolan turned to Hammer. "What about that?"
The pilot shrugged. "It's hard to tell. But from
other crashes I've seen, there should have been some
pretty big pieces of it left no matter how hard it hit
the ground. At least the jet engines would have sur-
vived almost intact, and they're ten, twelve feet long.
Also, as you saw, there was no fire at the site, so
there should have been some pretty big pieces left."
    "Do you think they could have taken the wreck-
age into the castle?"
    Hammer looked at the fortified main gate with its
massive but narrow gate and shook his head. "I re-
ally doubt it."
    "That's what I said," Manning interjected. "And
that's why I asked about the geology of the area."
    When McCarter's face looked blank, the Canadian
continued. "In this part of the world, most of the
mountains are limestone." He reached down and
picked up a rock chip. "Like this. And as our newest
recruit knows, limestone formations usually contain

large caves that have been carved by the ground-
water, right, T.J.?"
    "I don't know much about geology," Hawkins ad-
mitted, "but I can say that leastways they have pretty
big limestone caves in Georgia."
    "You're saying that they put the pieces of the
plane in a cave?"
    "If it's still here and hasn't been moved on,"
Manning stated. "There's no other place to hide it
around here. I don't think that they'd just stack it up
in a big pile somewhere for the satellites to spot."
    McCarter sighed. "Okay, I'll ask Katz to see if
the Farm has any reports of caves in this area."
    "And this cave would be guarded, right?" James
had been following the conversation over the corem
link from his security position to the left of the
group.
    "More than likely," Bolan said. "What do you
have?"
    "I just spotted a couple of the opposition in a
guard post at the base of the cliff about five hundred
yards to the left of us. There's nothing I can see for
them to be guarding down there, but I can't see if
there's a cave from here. We'll have to go down to
get in position to take a look."
    "Think it's worth trying, Striker?" McCarter
asked Bolan.
    "I think we should," Bolan replied. "We still may
be able to get to it."
"Heads up, guys," Encizo broke in over the




comm link. "We've got a patrol coming down the
road."
    "Okay," McCarter said. "Let's get out of here.
Fade to the left."

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Aviano Air Base, Italy

Since they were operating in a foreign country, Able
Team didn't suit up in combat blacksuits and assault
harnesses. That would be a little too obvious and
would automatically draw unwanted attention from
anyone who spotted them. Instead, dark pants, black
turtlenecks over their Kevlar bulletproof vests and
dark jackets worked almost as well. In that garb, they
could pass for local working men once they ditched
their hardware.
    Their Beretta weapons were not out of place in
Italy, either, nor was Blancanales's SPAS-12 assault
shotgun. The two things that the Italians made best
were fast cars and reliable firearms. Authorities
checking cartridge cases and recovered bullets would
not be surprised to see that they came from Italian
weapons.
    After a quick meal of freeze-dried rations with sec-
onds on coffee, the trio made a final check of com-
munications gear.




    'Tll be monitoring your comm links," Katz said,
"so I want you to keep talking so I'll know what
you're doing. Also, that way if you get grabbed by
the cops, I'll know about it and can start working on
springing you."
  "We're not going to get caught, Katz."
  "I've heard that one before."

LYONS DECIDED that the first stop on theft evening's
itinerary would be the warehouse location Katz had
uncovered rather than the new garage. Since it was
probably the larger of the two buildings, it was the
most likely place for them to find what they were
looking for. Exactly what that was, he didn't really
know. But more car bombs or other instruments of
destruction were high on his list of expectations.
    The warehouse was an hour's drive away in a
small coastal town on the Adriatic. Lyons was glad
to see that the business district was away from the
residential area, which meant if something went
wrong, they should be able to make their getaway
before the local police showed up.
    At first glance, the warehouse looked good. It sat
far enough away from the other industrial buildings
in the area that terrorists could conduct their clan-
destine business out of sight of prying eyes. Its iso-
lation also made it perfect for what Lyons had in
mind. The outside security lights were on, but that
was a drawback that could be quickly overcome. The
single-story building's windows had been painted

over, though, so they couldn't see if the interior
lights were on or if anyone was inside. But once they
killed the power, it wouldn't matter. Anyone who
was working in there would make his or her presence
known then.
    After studying the warehouse for half an hour and
making mental notes on its layout, the three men
were ready to make their move. On the way in, Ly-
ons stopped the Lancia by a power pole and killed
the headlights.
    Since Italy was famous for its urban power out-
ages, cutting the power wouldn't cause the same cri-
sis that it would in the States. If people were working
late in the surrounding buildings, they would simply
go home and wait for the line to be repaired. All it
took was two 9 mm rounds from Schwarz's silenced
Beretta in the pole's transformer and the lights went
out throughout the area.
    "That should be good for all night," he said when
he got back in the car. "I doubt anyone's going to
come out and fix it until tomorrow."
    After parking the Lancia in a lot behind one of the
other buildings, Able Team walked the short distance
to the warehouse. The parking lot in front of the
building was empty, and no one had come out to see
why the lights had gone out, so it wasn't likely that
anyone was working inside.
    Bypassing the front door because it was too ob-
vious, they went around the comer of the building to
a side entrance they had spotted earlier. If they




tripped an alarm going in, they didn't want to leave
signs that they had gone in the front way. With Ly-
ons and Blancanales standing guard, it took less than
a minute for Schwarz to pick the security lock in the
door.
    Another modem touch the Italians could use were
electronic security locks. European key locks were
just too easy to pick. But, even though they'd had a
basic lock, Schwarz didn't fail to check for the pres-
ence of a security system. He knew he couldn't count
on the opposition to be as stupid as he wanted them
tobe.
    "Damn," Schwarz muttered when his suspicions
were continned by a small red diode inside a panel
by the side of the door. "They've got this place
wired and the alarm's running on backup batteries."
"Can you bypass it, Gadgets?" Lyons asked.
    "No sweat." Schwarz reached into his pants
pocket for his electronic lock pick set. A few snips
and a couple of bypass wires later, he stepped back.
"That should do it."
    With their night-vision goggles over their eyes, the
trio slipped through the door. Inside, most of the
broad expanse of floor was empty except for some
large wooden crates stacked against one wall. Ex-
amination of an opened crate showed that it con-
mined stuffed leather furniture, and the crate bore
markings indicating that it had originated in Algeria.
The shipments could be legitimate. But since Libya
and Algeria were next-door neighbors, the crates

could contain more than just cheap furniture. It was
too easy to hide explosives or drugs in the seat cush-
ions.
    More important than the crates, however, were the
four small Fiat sedans lined up against the other wall.
Judging from what they had discovered on their raid
of the garage, it was a good guess that they had found
another car-bomb factory.
    Lyons was headed to check out the cars when
Blancanales called from his security position at the
front windows of the warehouse. "We've got com-
pany coming. Two cars and they're coming on fast."
    "Damn!" Schwarz whispered. "That alarm must
have sent a signal when we killed the power and it
switched over to the backup batteries."
    The trio had been through this drill so many times
that their response was automatic.
    Checking the magazine load in his SPAS, Blan-
canales slipped back out the side door and took up
a position around the comer from the front of the
building. "I'm in place," he whispered over the
comm link.
    Inside, both Lyons and Schwarz had taken cover
behind the wooden furniture crates. The stuffed fur-
niture would soak up bullets almost as well as a thick
mattress. "We're set," Lyons answered.
    The two cars, both BMW sport sedans, skidded to
a halt, and almost a dozen men poured out with
weapons in their hands. The raid on the garage had
taught these guys to be prepared. But exactly how




prepared they were for what they were walking into
remained to be seen.
    "You have nine of them on the way in," Blan-
canales whispered over his comm link. "And they're
packing."
    "Copy," Lyons answered. "You take care of any
of them that get away."
    Lyons didn't plan to give their visitors a chance
to prove their good intentions. The fact that they
were packing was proof enough that they were who
he thought they were. Legitimate businessmen didn't
come calling with heat in their hands. He waited until
they were all inside the warehouse, but he didn't yell
out for them to freeze this time. The last time he had
tried that, it hadn't worked and he saw no reason to
waste his breath.
    Lining up his Python's glowing night sights on the
last man through the door, he thumbed the hammer
back for a smoother first-round, single-action shot.
The roar of the Colt .357 would be the signai for the
action to begin.
    Tripping the Python's hammer, Lyons didn't wait
to see if his first round had connected. Before the
shot had even echoed away, he fired again.
    Schwarz didn't lag more than a microsecond be-
hind his teammate. His Beretta Model 12 submachine
gun swept the area in front of him, dumping a full
magazine of 9 mm slugs in one burst. When he
ducked to change magazines, Lyons snapped off two
more quick shots.

    Though they had been caught flat-footed, the ter-
rorists responded well. Ignoring the cries of their
wounded and dying comrades, they dropped for
cover and returned fire.
    Lyons and Schwarz were on the floor offering as
small a target as possible as they picked their shots.
With Schwarz's subgun spitting flame to cover him,
Lyons snapped open the cylinder of his Python, fed
it six rounds from a speed loader and snapped it shut
as he thumbed the hammer back to get back in ac-
tion.
    His first round scored on a man trying to edge
around to the right.
    When the bolt on Schwarz's Beretta locked back
on an empty magazine, he felt a tug at his sleeve and
wood splinters from the crate stung his cheek. Damn!
One of them had worked his way along the side wall.
    "Flash-bang!" he warned as he pulled the grenade
from his pocket. Pulling the pin, he closed his eyes
and rolled the bomb across the floor.
    Three seconds later, he had a fresh magazine in
his subgun when the inside of the warehouse lit up
like a football stadium at a night game. The deto-
nation that accompanied the flash charge was deaf-
ening, stunning the attackers.
    In the brief glare of the grenade, Schwarz spotted
his flanker and stitched him with a 6-round burst. The
man screamed as he was slammed back against the
wall.
  According to the muzzle-flashes, only four men




remained in the fight and they were trying to pull
back.
    Lyons and Schwarz each scored one more. But in
the brief flurry of gunfire, the other two made it out
the door.
    "Two of them coming your way," Lyons shouted
to Blancanales.
  "I'm on them."
    When the front door slammed open, the two men
who raced out of the warehouse moved right into
Blancanales's line of fire.
    "Halt!" he called out loudly in Italian as he
sighted in on them.
    He shouldn't have wasted his breath. The two gun-
men spun at the sound of his voice and started firing
into the dark. He had no choice but to respond in
kind.
    The SPAS roared on semiauto, spitting out a bar-
rage of double-aught buck that swept the space be-
tween the car and the front of the building. Nothing
made of flesh and blood could stand up to that kind
of firepower, and the last two terrorists went down.
    After six 12-gauge rounds had spoken, all was
quiet. The two gunmen lay sprawled on the gravel,
bleeding from multiple wounds.
    "You okay, Pol?" Lyons called over the comm
link.
  "Clear out here," Blancanales answered.
    "The bastards mined my jacket," Schwarz stated.
"Someone shot a hole in it."

    "Let's check them out," Lyons said as he got to
his feet, the Colt still ready in his hand. The air was
thick with the reek of blood and burned cordite, but
it was like perfume to him. Smelling it meant that
once more, he was alive and his opponents weren't.
    "Are we going to hit that other garage tonight?"
Blancanales asked as he loaded fresh buckshot
rounds into the magazine of his SPAS.
    "No," Lyons replied. "I think we've done enough
damage for one night. We'll save the garage for an-
other time in case we need to send the cops another
message."
    "If they don't get this message," Schwarz said,
"they need heating aids."
    "Gadgets, check those cars while Pol and I go
through the bodies and the office files."

As THEY HAD EXPECTED, Schwarz discovered that the
small sedans had been rigged as car bombs. But un-
like the one they had found at the garage, the first
one he looked at had the blocks of explosive in place
and the detonators attached. All anyone needed to do
was set the timer and it would go off.
    "This first one is fully rigged," Schwarz called
out over the comm link. "Do you want me to acti-
vate the timer and let it go off after we leave?"
    Lyons shook his head. "No. I don't want to risk
damaging the surrounding buildings. When the cops
get here, they'll get the message without our having
to rub it in."




"I can disable it and leave a 'bang, you're dead'
charge behind to make sure that they notice it."
    Now Lyons grinned. Using booby-trapped, non-
lethal charges to send a message worked wonders to
wake people up. There was something about almost
being blown to bits that was more effective than ac-
tually killing someone.
    "Go ahead, but make sure that you kill that
bomb."
    "No sweat. I'll cut off the detonators and put the
flash charge on a trembler."
    After finding that the other three Fiats were also
loaded with explosives and ready to go, he disabled
them, too, before rigging the first car with the flash
charge.
    Leaving the terrorists' weapons with their bodies,
the trio went out by the side door and locked it be-
hind them and reactivated the alarm.

Tim NEXT MORNING at the Aviano air base, the af-
termath of Able Team's raid on the terrorists' ware-
house resulted in increased security measures. Once
Able Team was safely away from the scene, Katz
had informed the Italian police about the gun battle
and they had responded to find the bodies and the
car bombs that had been left for them. Apparently,
as Schwarz had planned, someone tripped his little
booby trap and, while no real damage was done, ex-
cept to a couple of officers' shorts, they got the mes-
sage.

    The result was frantic activity at Aviano. Warbling
European police sirens sounded every few minutes
as more and more tracks and vans full of troops and
police poured into the air base. Italian and NATO
units of every description were stampeding into any
cleared area they could find, trying to set up their
command posts. The air police were working over-
time trying to keep the runways cleared so opera-
tional flights could continue.
    Katzenelenbogen joined Lyons in the open door of
the Stony Man CP building. "You boys certainly
seem to have started people thinking about base se-
curity around here," he commented as he watched
the chaos outside the chain-link fence.
    "We sure as hell got someone's attention," Lyons
said, grinning. "I haven't seen such a rat screw since
the Democrats invented the free lunch."
    "That was the purpose of the exercise, wasn't it?"
Katz said. "To wake these people up and point them
in the direction of the coffeepot?"
    Lyons shook his head. "Now we need to give
them all downers before they hurt themselves."
 Katz laughed.




CHAPTER TWELVE

All Nadal wasn't the kind of man who was going to
let the setbacks at the warehouse and the garage get
in the way of accomplishing his mission. An Israeli
air force attack on an apartment building in Beirut
twelve years earlier had made sure of that. Ever since
the day when he had been dug out of the rubble of
the collapsed apartment more dead than alive, the
only survivor of his family, his life had been a gift
from God, who had saved him from death at the
hands of the Yankee imperialists and their Israeli
dogs so that he could do his bidding.
    After Nadal recovered from his injuries, he con-
sidered his future and how he could repay God for
his life. It was apparent to anyone with half a brain
that Lebanon was doomed to drown in its own blood.
Egged on by foreign interests, the embittered sectar-
ian infighting had shattered his country and showed
no signs of ending in his lifetime. If he stayed in
Beirut, he would be drawn into the fighting. But there
would be little chance that he would ever have the
opportunity to strike a blow to avenge his family.

    To fight against the Great Satan, he needed to find
powerful allies, and the only two Islamic nations that
were strong enough to stand up to the Americans
were Iran and Libya. As a Shiite, Nadal favored the
imams of Tehran, but he knew that the Libyans were
more active in the war against the Yankees and de-
cided to throw in with them. Getting to Libya wasn't
a problem, and when he arrived, he presented himself
to the authorities and was accepted as a freedom
fighter.
    He had done well at the Libyan desert training
camps he was sent to. Many of the other freedom
fighters in training had been Palestinians, but there
had been several Lebanese like himself. There had
also been men from a dozen other freedom-loving
nations, and not all of them had been Islamic. Libya
welcomed all men who were willing to put their lives
on the line in the never ending battle against the evil
of Western imperialism. Irishmen, Germans, a few
Americans and several Latin Americans trained be-
side him as he learned the skills of a holy warrior.
    Nadal had a gift for learning languages. In the
camp, he had helped teach Arabic to the foreigners
and helped translate instructions. His language skills
had been noted, and after the training camp, the Lib-
yans picked him to go to Italy to set up a network
of agents and to stockpile weapons for future oper-
ations.
    The longtime ties between Italy and Libya, her
one-time colony, had made his entry into the West




relatively easy. Regardless of the UN economic sanc-
tions against his adopted homeland, trade between
the two nations hadn't ended. Nor had the smuggling
of contraband going both ways been in any way cur-
tailed; the Sicilian Mafia made sure of that. High-
tech equipment and manufactured goods were still
going south to Libya in exchange for drags and
weapons.
    Nadal had been in Italy for two years now, and
his organization was one of the largest Libyan ter-
rorist cells in all of Europe. His dealings with the
Mafia had provided enough money for him to recruit
dozens of Italians in all walks of life to augment his
intelligence base. As a result, there was little that
went on in southern Europe that he wasn't made
aware of. Since the beginning of the Bosnian truce,
he had been the major conduit for intelligence infor-
mation about the UN PROFOR operations to the Is-
lamic world.
    This unexpected attack on his organization and the
destruction of the car bombs had set back his plan to
attack the Aviano air base, but it hadn't ended it.
Among the stockpiles of weapons he had built up
over the months were mortars and RPG rocket
launchers, and they would serve in place of the lost
car bombs. He would have to use more of his men
than he had planned, but the attack could still take
place on time.
    His agents on the Aviano workforce had given him
up-to-the-minute reports of the increased security

measures that the NATO and Italian forces had taken
at the base. But those measures would only protect
them against a car-bomb attack. In a standoff attack
using RPGs and mortars, the increased manpower
would provide only more targets, not security. And
the more targets he had, the greater the body count
would be. Even without the car bombs, when he was
done, the NATO air base at Aviano would be out of
action for some time.
    This was the first chance he'd had to strike at his
enemies and he would let nothing stand in the way
of his long-awaited vengeance. A few quick phone
calls sent his orders to the leaders of the units that
would carry out the attack. More calls alerted the
units that would provide the covering fire for the as-
sault group while it made its getaway.
    Though he usually kept himself far from the ac-
tions of his agents, Nadal decided that he would
watch when his men made this attack. When the his-
tory of the Islamic triumph over the decadent West-
ern world was written, this attack would be a major
event and he wanted to witness it himself. He also
wanted to see the infidels die as so many of his coun-
trymen had.

"You KNOW," Carl Lyons said as he and Yakov
Katzenelenbogen continued to sift through the ma-
terial Aaron Kurtzman had forwarded, "from what
I'm reading here, car bombs should be the least of
our worries."




    "I couldn't agree more. These people seem to
have enough small arms and crew-served weapons
stockpiled to equip a light-infantry battalion, and
they didn't go to all of the trouble of smuggling them
in-country for nothing. They're planning to do some-
thing spectacular with those weapons sooner or
later."
    Lyons looked thoughtful. "If those car-bomb at-
tacks were planned to coincide with something in
Bosnia, do you think that they'll call them off or go
to Plan B and use the infantry weapons?"
    Katz got a faraway look in his eyes. He had fought
Arabs almost all of his life, losing an arm in the
service of Israel during the Six Day War. He spoke
the language like a native and was as familiar with
their thinking processes as any non-Arab could be.
But, as he had told Lyons, the mercurial minds of
Islamic fanatics were impossible to second-guess.
Rational thought was always the first casualty when-
ever a man thought that God was on his side.
    "I know you guys think that I can get into an
enemy's mind," Katz said, "but all I do is lay out
as many of the possibilities as I can think of and hope
that I choose the right one. If we were facing West-
emers here, I'd be inclined to say that your raid
would have set their timetable back if not canceled
it altogether.
    "But--" he raised a cautionary finger "--we're
dealing with Islamic fanatics this time. We have Bos-
nians, Iranians and now Libyans that we're dealing

with. That's quite a stew of Islamic fanaticism to try
to get through to find the scraps of rational meat in
the bottom of the pot."
    He shrugged. "I haven't got the slightest idea
what they're going to do, and I couldn't even begin
to guess. All I'm willing to bet is that whatever it is,
it will be nasty and will indiscriminately kill a lot of
people. That has always been their trademark, and I
don't see it changing anytime soon."
    "That's a sucker's bet," Lyons replied. "But I
think you're right. The question is, is there anything
we can do about it? Will it do any good to warn the
authorities?"
    "If we were in the States, I would say yes. But
we're not. We have to go through too many layers
of bureaucrats, and I'm not confident that our warn-
ings will do any good. Our best bet is to hunker
down, take every precaution we can to survive any
attack and do everything we can to help the Stony
Man team short-stop this thing. Whatever it is.
    "We have the RPG screen," Katz continued, re-
ferring to the chain-link fence surrounding their
small building. "Maybe we can get some sandbags
from the military and build a mortar bunker inside
the CP. That way, we should be able to survive an
attack with anything short of artillery."
    That wasn't what Lyons wanted to hear. He
wanted Katz to pull another rabbit out of the hat as
he had so many times in the past and come up with
a plan to turn this situation around. Being a target




wasn't one of his favorite things to be. And sitting
around waiting for something to happen was what
had gotten them into this in the first place.
    "Whatever they're planning," Lyons said, "rather
than just sit around here waiting for it to happen, I
think that we should try to shut it down before it
happens. At the very least, Rosario and I can go out
there and provide some early warning if they do de-
cide on making a ground attack on the base."
    "That might not be a bad idea," Katz agreed.
"With all of the NATO forces guarding against car
bombs coming into the base, I'd bet no one is watch-
ing the approaches."
    "I'll see if I can get us a van and find a place to
park it."

Bosnia

MORNING FOUND the Stony Man warriors in the
rocks where they had spent the night. After spotting
the enemy patrol in the area of the cliffs, they had
been forced to keep moving until they found a safe
hiding place to spend the night.
    "Are we going back to the cliffs?" Major Ham-
mer asked McCarter and Bolan as they shared a cold
breakfast of MREs.
    Bolan nodded. "I think it's worth taking a good
look at. We'd have done it last night if that patrol
hadn't shown up."
  Hammer put the discarded wrappers of his rations

into the pockets of his flight suit. "I'm ready when
you are."
    It took almost two hours for the team to get back
to its observation point at the top of the cliffs. And
when it arrived, the plain below wasn't empty. Sev-
eral small pickup trucks and two dozen troops had
gathered as if they were waiting for something to
happen.
    "We've got a plane coming in from the south,"
Manning warned, "and it looks like it's going to
land."
    Hammer's trained eyes instantly identified it.
"What the hell is that doing here?" he said. "That's
one of ours, a C-130 Hercules!"
    "Everybody and their brother are flying those
now," McCarter accurately stated, "including a lot
of people who aren't too friendly to us."
    "I knew that was a landing strip," Encizo said as
the turboprop transport dropped its flaps and landing
gear and lined up with the long cleared area in front
of the caves.
    "It's Iranian air force," Manning reported as he
read the red, white and green insignia rondels on the
plane's fuselage with his field glasses.
    "That answers the question as to why one of
America's finest airplanes is landing here," the Cu-
ban said when he saw several more pickups drive out
of the fortress. 'Tll bet it's a resupply bird, and the
locals are waiting to off-load its cargo."
  It was no news that the Iranians had been supply-




ing the Bosnian Muslims with weapons and equip-
ment. But this was the first time that anyone had
actually seen a resupply flight come in.
    When the desert-camouflage C-130 reached the
end of the grass landing strip, it turned before coming
to a halt with its tail facing the caves. When the rear
ramp descended, more than a dozen troops poured
out the back. They were wearing desert-camouflage
battle dress that looked out of place in the greenness
of Bosnia, but they looked to be well armed as they
fanned out to secure the plane.
    With a word of command from a man who looked
to be an officer, the Iranian troops headed to the base
of the cliffs at a dead run. The troops that had been
waiting for the plane busied themselves off-loading
the cargo and putting it in the trucks.

FROM THE TOWER of his fortress, Dragan Asdik
watched Naslin's Iranians off-load the transport and
carry the supplies to the trucks. Usually the supply
missions were flown at night to keep the Iranian in-
volvement in Bosnia as secret as possible. The lure
of the wrecked Yankee spy plane, though, had made
the Tehran imams overanxious. Asdik didn't like the
change from the routine that had worked so well for
so long. But this was only one more indication that
the Bosnians were the junior partners in this venture.
    Though the aid and supplies were welcome in the
fight against the Serbs and Croatians, Asdik would
be glad when Bosnia was strong enough to go it on

her own. Tehran's arrogance was wearing thin. As
the man who was in charge of the secret airstrip and
the stockpiling of the supplies that were being flown
in, he had more day-to-day contact with the Iranians
than anyone else in the Bosnian government. He
hoped, though, that as soon as the Iranian master plan
was put into action, he could go back to being a
simple fighting man and leader of other fighting men,
instead of a clerk.
    As soon as the cargo-laden tracks were on their
way back to the castle, the Iranians started bringing
material out of the caves to reload the plane.

"I'LL BE DAMNED!" Hammer was indignant when he
saw what the Iranians were doing. "They're loading
up the wreckage of my plane."
    During the transfer of cargo, the Iranian pilot kept
the inboard port-side turbine running to provide in-
ternal power while the troops labored to load the jag-
ged pieces of the crashed Night Owl into the cargo
hold. There was no hope of ever returning the Night
Own to the air, so the Iranians weren't being careful
about how they handled their valuable cargo.
    Hammer winced when he saw one of them take an
ax to one wing panel to shorten it so it would fit
inside the transport plane. "Morons," he muttered.
"All they needed to do was to fold the wing panel.
It's designed to fit inside a C-5A."
    Hawkins shook his head as he surveyed the scene
below. "Man, there's no way the seven of us can go




down there and kill all of those guys and get that
plane of yours back. There's just too many of them."
    "We've got to do something." Hammer looked
like he was about to explode. "That's the most ad-
vanced spy plane in the world they're stealing. Even
in pieces, it's worth millions and I'm the guy who
signed that sucker out. I'll have to stay in the Air
Force for five hundred years just to make the interest
payments if I don't take it back where I got it."
    "Striker," McCarter said thoughtfully, "I think
that Hammer and I might be able to sneak down there
if the rest of you give us a little diversion."
  "And do what, blow it up?"
    "No," the former British SAS commando replied.
"I was thinking of hijacking it. I can fly a bloody
Herky Bird in my sleep. And if I have our resident
flyboy here riding along with me, he can talk us
through the NATO fighter cover over Italy so we
don't get shot down by some trigger-happy fighter
jock."
    Bolan turned to Hammer. "What do you think,
Jack?"
    The pilot didn't blink. "Like I said, I'm signed
out with that aircraft, and no one said anything about
my having to bring it back under its own power or
even in one piece. The only thing that counts is keep-
ing it out of the hands of the enemy. I'm game to
try it."
    "How good are you on a rappeling rope?"
McCarter asked Hammer.

    "It's been a while," he admitted, "but I do know
the difference between a Swiss chair and a 'beaner.'
We did a little of that when I was at the academy."
  "You'll do. It's like riding a bicycle."
  "Except that you fall a lot harder."
  "There is that."
    McCarter was already stripping off most of his
combat gear. The only thing he'd need down there
were his weapons, ammunition and radio. If the at-
tempt failed and they had to pull back, he could al-
ways retrieve the rest of his gear later. Taking his
combat cosmetics from his assault pack, he renewed
his face paint and recoated his hands. It wasn't going
to do him much good out in the open, but he always
liked to dress before the ball.
    "Come here," he told the Air Force pilot. "We
need to rig your Swiss chair."
    While Hammer was being fitted with his rappeling
harness, James and Manning got out two dark nylon
ropes and secured them at the top of the cliff.
    "Whatever you guys do," McCarter cautioned the
rest of the team, "don't get excited and hit the
bloody plane. We're going to need it."
    "Got you covered," Manning replied as he unlim-
bered his scoped Remington 700. "If I have to shoot
at the plane, I promise not to hit anything vital."




CHAPTER THIRTEEN

David McCarter hugged the rocks as he slowly
worked his way down the face of the cliff on the
rappeling rope. With the enemy so close to them, he
couldn't kick free of the cliff and make a standard
rappeling free fall; that would be sure to catch some-
one's eye. Six feet from his left side, Hammer tried
his best to keep up with the Phoenix Force waxflor,
but wasn't quite making it. The inexperienced pilot
was having trouble with the outcroppings he kept
running into.
    When McCarter reached the jumble of rocks and
boulders at the base of the cliff, he moved over to
secure Hammer's line for the final few feet. The pilot
landed with a heavy thump, but got right to his feet.
    After unclipping the rappeling rope from his as-
sault harness, McCarter grinned at his involuntary
teammate. "For a flyboy, you're not half-bad at this
grunt drill."
    Hammer smiled as he puffed to catch his breath.
It had been a long time since he had trusted his body
to a quarter-inch-thick nylon rope. But as the Briton

had told him, rappeling was something that you
never forgot. If you did, you would die on the rope.
    "God knows I'm trying, but this isn't like working
out on the golf course."
  "This is the original workout."
  "I hear that."
    "We're in the rocks at the bottom," McCarter ra-
dioed to the commandos on the top of the cliff.
    "You'd better get a move on it," Bolan answered.
"It looks like they're about finished loading the
wreckage."
  "We're on the way."
    As McCarter watched the Iranians carry the last
few parts of the Night Owl into the C-130, he saw
that Bolan was right. They had to make their move
now. With the wreckage on board, the Iranian pilots
wouldn't want to stay on the ground any longer than
was absolutely necessary. Not during daylight hours.
They were taking a risk as it was and would want to
trim their exposure time.
    After checking his H & K assault rifle one last
time, McCarter clicked in his throat mike. "Let's do
it, Striker," he radioed.
    On command, the ridgeline erupted in a storm of
automatic fire. Caught out in the open with their
weapons slung, the Iranians were stunned. Dropping
for what little cover they could find on the plain, they
responded quickly, though. All eyes were on the
ridge as AK fire arched up at the Stony Man team.
  With the enemy's attention focused elsewhere,




McCarter made his move. "We're going for it!" he
shouted to Hammer, and took off across the open
ground for the Hercules without looking back to see
if the pilot was keeping up with him. At the sound
of the first shot, the C-130's pilots had fired up a
second turbine and were cranking the other two.
Since turboprop engines have a short run-up time,
the plane would be rolling in another few seconds.
    A ground crewman cut across McCarter's charge,
racing for the plane's open rear ramp. The Briton
snapped a short burst at him, cutting his legs out
from under him. Behind him, he heard Hammer put
a couple more rounds in the man for insurance.
    Two men suddenly appeared in the plane's open
ramp door with their AKs in their hands. Seeing the
two Americans running toward them, they started to
fire. McCarter skidded to a halt to take careful aim.
The last thing he needed was for a stray round to
clip something important in that machine. The C-130
was a tough old bird and could soak up a lot of
damage, but he had to fly that aircraft all the way to
Italy and he wanted it intact.
    Firing on single shot, McCarter spun one of the
Iranians with his first round, causing him to stumble
and fall off the ramp. The second shot hit the other
gunner dead center in the chest. His arms flew wide
and he collapsed, failing back inside the plane.
    By now, all four of the aircraft's turboprops were
churning and the plane started to roll when the pilots
came off the brakes. McCarter was pelted by a bliz-

zard of dust and debris thrown back by the prop wash
as he leaped for the ramp door. As soon as he had
his footing, he turned back to give Hammer a hand
up.
    The pilot grasped his arm and, catching the edge
of the ramp with the toe of his boot, pulled himself
up.
    "Stay here," McCarter shouted to him over the
roar of the engines. "And make damned sure that no
one tries to join us."
    Hammer nodded and instinctively ducked for
cover around the ramp opening. He knew that the
thin aluminum skin of the aircraft wouldn't stop an
AK round, but he liked having it between him and
the people who were shooting at him. Even though
the plane was rolling too fast now for anyone to catch
up on foot, he stepped out just far enough to send
several quick bursts at the gunmen closest to him.
    In the cockpit, the Iranian pilots were busy con-
centrating on getting the C-130 off the ground and
out of the line of fire. They didn't spot McCarter
until he had made his way up to the flight deck and
was drawing a bead on them with his 9 mm Beretta.
The copilot shouted a warning and clawed at his
shoulder holster for his own pistol.
    McCarter's quick shot took him in the throat.
Clawing at his neck, the copilot toppled from his
seat.
    Catching the pilot's move from the corner of his
eye, McCarter dropped into a half crouch and pivoted
to the left to swing his Beretta into play. The pilot's




frantic shot sizzled past his head and harmlessly
punched through the aircraft's fuselage skin. Mc-
Carter's double-tap, 9 nun response was dead on tar-
get.
    The dying pilot's hand dragged the throttles back,
and with no one at the wheel, the plane abruptly
slowed and slewed to the left. The gunmen on the
ground scattered as the whirling props turned in their
direction. The confusion below them gave the Stony
Man team several good shots, and they took advan-
tage of the targets.
    In the Hercules, McCarter pushed through the nar-
row confines of the cockpit to drag the pilot's body
from behind the seat before sliding into his place.
Not even pausing to belt himself in, he kicked down
on the rudder pedal to check the plane's swing and
bring it back on the runway. He slammed the throttle
levers forward, the four turboprops roared anew and
the plane leaped forward again.
    That little excursion through the pucker brush had
brought them dangerously close to the end of the
already too short runway, but since they couldn't
abort and try it again, he was committed. With both
hands on the control wheel, he watched the airspeed
indicator slowly unwind as the four bladed props
clawed at the air.
    As the plane accelerated, Hammer slipped into the
copilot's seat and reached across for the flap lever.
"I'm going to give you another five degrees of flap,"

he yelled over the roar of eighteen-thousand turbo-
prop horsepower. "We're loaded down."
    "Do it," McCarter snapped as an AK round
punched a star-shaped hole through the canopy right
over his head.
    The instant the flaps came down, McCarter felt the
wings lighten up. Another few miles per hour, and
he'd try to take off. With the trees at the end of the
clearing coming on fast, he took a firm grip on the
control wheel. "I'm going for it!" he shouted over
to his copilot.
  "Do it!" Hammer yelled back.
    With the props thundering and the turbines
screaming, McCarter pulled back on the control col-
umn and the heavily laden Hercules responded. In
the right-hand seat, Hammer watched the trees rush-
ing at them as he slammed the gear-retraction lever
forward to bring the wheels up and clean up the air-
frame.
    It was going to be close, too close, and he didn't
want to snag a wheel on the treetops.
    At the end of the runway, the belly of the C-130
cleared the treetops by less than a foot. But rather
than climb for altitude, McCarter kept the plane on
the deck to try to use the trees to shield him from
the storm of missiles that were sure to follow them.
    Suddenly the radio crackled with a frantic voice
shouting in Arabic. McCarter didn't have to know
the language to know what the guy was asking. He
wanted to know what in the hell was going on. Key-




ing the mike, Hanuner spoke a short Arabic phrase
in return and the radio fell silent.
"What did you tell that guy?" McCarter asked.
Hammer smiled. "One of the more useful Arabic
phrases I picked up when I was stationed in Riyadh.
I told him that his mother enjoyed having public sex-
ual intercourse with diseased men. I wasn't sure if
he was aware of it and thought that he'd want to
know."
    McCarter tried not to laugh out loud. He liked
Hammer, but having the pilot around was going to
get all of them killed. Rubbing salt in the wound
wasn't going to make this any easier for them.
    "Is that load tied down back there?" McCarter
shouted as he jinked the aircraft to throw off the
missile gunners' aim. "I don't know if they had time
to secure it and I'd hate to lose it now."
  'Tll check it," Hammer yelled back.

BOLAN WATCHED the C-130 as McCarter kept the
plane's belly on the treetops rather than try to climb
out to gain altitude. It was dangerous to fly that low,
but it was less risky than it would be to climb up
into missile range. If McCarter could keep from go-
ing into the trees for a few more miles, he'd be out
of the range of the heat-seeking warheads of the
Strellas.
    Even though the Hercules's hot exhausts were be-
ing shielded by the trees and prevented the heat-
seeking warheads from acquiring the target, the Ira-

nians triggered off two of their missiles anyway.
Since the gunners couldn't get a guidance lock-on,
they just aimed the Strellas in the direction of the
fleeing plane and fired.
    The first missile went straight into the trees at the
edge of the clearing and exploded harmlessly. The
heat-seeking warhead of the second Strella got a lock
on the setting sun and streaked after it. Reaching the
end of its trajectory, the time fuse triggered the war-
head, but it didn't explode anywhere near the C-130.
    Now that the C-130 was safely away, Manning
had switched back to using his H&K assault rifle.
Zeroing in on the guy who looked to be in charge
down there--at least he was the one standing up,
waving his arms and shouting--he gave him a short
burst in his chest for his efforts. These guys were
going to have to learn to keep down when they were
giving orders.
    No one else stood up to take the dead man's place,
but the Iranians weren't giving it up. Now that the
C-130 was out of missile range, all of their attention
was focused on the ridgeline above them. A renewed
storm of fire kept the Stony Man warriors' heads
down.
    Seeing that the Iranians were getting their act to-
gether, Bolan keyed his throat mike. "Let's get out
of here, guys. Gary, you and T.J. pull rear guard."
    With James leading, the team headed back for the
safety of the mountain to wait out the next phase of
the mission, their extraction. Hopefully Katzenelen-


bogen wouldn't take too long putting it together, be-
cause they had really angered the locals now.

Stony Man Farm

BARBARA PRICE and Hal Brognola were crowded
into the computer room again as they waited to hear
the results of the Night Owl snatch. When Yakov
Katzenelenbogen's face flashed onto the video mon-
itor, they didn't need to hear his words to know that
McCarter had been successful. It was written all over
his face.
    "They did it," he crowed. "They hijacked the Ira-
nian plane with the Night Owl's wreckage on board
and they're on the way back now."
    "You'd better make sure that the NATO pilots
know that they're coming in an Iranian-marked air-
craft," Brognola suggested. "We don't need for
them to get shot down now."
    "The word has been put out," Katz reassured
them. "And the fighters on this interception are all
USA_F, so there won't be any itchy fingers on the
triggers looking for a cheap kill to put on their score-
board."
      "Let me know as soon as they land," Brognola
ordered. "The President's waiting for the news."
  "Will do."
    "Tell Striker that we're working up an extraction
plan fight now," Price informed him. "The guys
may have to walk a ways to get to the LZ, but we'll

try to make it as close to them as we can. But until
then, tell them to keep out of trouble if they can.
We've had enough excitement around here for a
while."
  'Tll pass that on, too."
    When Katz killed the connection, he sat back. So
far, so good. They had gotten Lacy out, and Hammer
was coming back with what was left of his plane.
Now all they had to do was to get the rest of the
team out of Bosnia, and they could rack up another
win for the good guys.
    Someone else could worry about the Iranians.
Maybe PROFOR could get their hands dirty for a
change. He knew that there was little chance of that,
but a man could still hope.

Bosnia

MAJOR NASLIN COULDN'T believe that the Yankees
had been able to hijack the Hercules transport with
the prized stealth fighter on board. The imams of
Tehran would have his blood for the loss of the two
planes and it wouldn't be an easy death. There was
no way of getting them back now, and his only hope
of redeeming himself was to kill the raiders who had
done this to him. Plus, for him to be able to carry
out the primary mission he had been sent to Bosnia
for, he couldn't afford to have these American com-
mandos running loose.
 He had to admit that for infidels, the Yankees were




good, especially the devil with the silenced rifle. This
sniper had taken several of his most experienced
group leaders, and he had been forced to promote
some of the younger, less experienced men to take
their places. The dead men were basking in God's
Paradise now, but carrying out the plan would be
more difficult without them.
    "I am going to put the plan on hold," he told the
Bosnian. "Until we can run down those Yankee dev-
ils, it is too dangerous to continue with it until we
know that they are dead."
    Dragan Asdik wasn't sorry to hear the Iranian's
decision to delay Tehran's plan and would have pre-
ferred to see it canceled outright. He didn't mind
killing his Serb and Croatian enemies; he had done
that all of his life, it seemed. But killing them with
poison gas offended his sense of righteousness.
    Enemies were for killing, but for killing man-to-
man and face-to-face. Even though he knew that the
Iranian plan would advance the cause of his people,
he had never liked it. He wanted a Bosnia free of the
Serb and Croat infidels as much as any son of the
Prophet, but he didn't think that a merciful God
wanted them to be killed like sheep the way the Ira-
nians planned to do.
    "And," the Iranian continued, "I will need to use
your men, as well as mine, to make sure that we can
kill them as soon as we can."
    "As I told you," Asdik said, "my men are my
men and they fight for me. A handful of Yankees can

do me no harm here. Plus, they have taken back ev-
erything they came for, both the men and that
damned airplane. Now they will leave and go home.
They will be gone from here in a day or two."
  "But they made us both look like fools."
    "Not us," Asdik said. "It was your idea to keep
the Americans prisoner, and it was your plan to try
to fly that wreckage back to Tehran."
    "The commandos have acted against the will of
God," the Iranian insisted. "They have east dung in
the faces of the faithful, and God demands that they
be punished for their crimes."
    Asdik thought of himself as a good Muslim, but
he wasn't as sure that he knew what God wanted as
the Iranian seemed to be. To Naslin, everything that
happened was either God's will or the hand of Satan
working against the Almighty. Asd'ik knew that noth-
ing was ever that simple and that luck played a large
part of any military action. The Yankees had proved
that. Only blind luck could have placed them on the
ridgeline when the plane had flown in. Their skills
as warriors, though, had let them successfully exploit
that luck.
    Asdik was man enough to admit that he had seri-
ously miscalculated the danger the Yankees had pre-
sented. This was one time that Naslin's paranoia had
been accurate. Whoever those men were, they were
good. Nonetheless, he was convinced that they no
longer represented a danger, at least not to him.




    "If that is true," he told the major. "I am content
to let God punish them. They will be leaving now,
and things will get back to normal."
  "We will see," the Iranian almost hissed.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Aviano Air Base, Italy

The flight of the Iranian C-130 carrying the wreckage
of the Night Owl back to the Aviano air base went
off without a hitch. With Hammer talking them in,
they had been met halfway across the Adriatic by a
flight of four American F-16 Falcons from the base.
The fighters were fully armed, but Harmher knew all
of the right code words, and one of the pilots was a
drinking buddy of his. With the fighters flying off
both wings, no one bothered them.
    They were cleared to land immediately, and once
he was on the ground, McCarter taxied the Hercules
to the big hangar at the far end of the flight line as
Hammer directed. When the waiting ground crew-
man signaled him to stop, he killed the fuel feed to
the turboprops.
    "Home, sweet home," Hammer said as the Amer-
ican Air Police rushed to throw a cordon around the
Iranian plane. "You know the drill, get out of the
plane with your hands up and assume the position."




"Been there," McCarter said, grinning, "done
that."
    Katz had made the necessary arrangements for
McCarter and Hammer to be driven directly to the
Stony Man CP for a debriefing before anyone else
talked to them. The only thing the Air Force needed
to know right then was they had their secret spy
plane back and they would have to be satisfied with
that. They didn't need to know the details of how
they had gotten it back.
    Hammer stood back and looked at the makeshift
CP. He had never seen so much electronic gear
thrown together in one place outside of a repair fa-
cility. Some of it was easily recognizable, but much
of it was as foreign to him as a microwave oven
would be to a bushman. He still didn't know who
the hell he had gotten mixed up with, but they cer-
tainly didn't lack resources. A maid, however,
wouldn't be out of order.
    Without waiting for an invitation, he walked over
to the coffeepot, pawed through the debris piled
around it to find a semiclean cup and poured himself
a hot one. If he was violating some kind of protocol
by serving himself, they could shoot him later. Right
now he needed a cup of coffee.
    "This is Major John Hammer," McCarter intro-
duced him, "the Night Owl pilot we came across in
the castle."
  "I'm Yakov Katzenelenbogen," said the older

man with a stainless steel prothesis in place of his
right ann. "But everyone just calls me Katz."
    "They call me Jack," Hammer stated, taking his
hand. "I'm pleased to be here, wherever here is."
    Katz smiled. "This is just a little CP operation we
threw together for this mission."
    Hammer also didn't know what "this mission"
was, but he now knew better than to ask. He was
tired of being told that he didn't have a need to know.
    "I'm Hermann Schwarz," the man behind the big-
gest bank of commo gear said, waving. "Everyone
calls me Gadgets."
 Hammer raised his coffee cup in salute.
    "The other guys are busy right now, so you prob-
ably won't meet them for a while."
    Hammer's rough count was coming up with a
dozen guys associated with whatever this was. But
again, he didn't have a need to know.
      "You want me to tell the Farm that they're here?"
Schwarz asked Katz.  "Go ahead."
    Hammer tried not to be too obvious as he sipped
his coffee to cover his listening in to Schwarz's short
conversation. The woman's voice on the other end
intrigued him. He couldn't quite see women working
with this gang of commandos and spooks.
    "You present a bit of a problem to us, Jack," Katz
told Hammer after showing him to a chair beside the
single desk in the room. "Usually we don't let out-
siders get this close to one of our operations. But




since you got yourself dragooned, as it were, I guess
that we'll just have to accommodate you for a little
while more. In fact you'll be seconded to us for the
duration."
    "If you don't mind," Hammer replied, "I'd like
to check that out with my chain of command first.
They're going to want to get a--"
    "That's already been taken care of," Katz inter-
rupted him. "As of the time we pulled you out of
that fortress, you've been on detached duty with us.
I have a hard copy if you'd like to see it. It's signed
off by the Air Force chief of staff.
    "That's so we can keep you quiet," Katz ex-
plained when he saw the look on the pilot's face.
"This thing isn't over yet, and we have to maintain
absolute security until it is. As the pilot of a classified
aircraft, I'm sure you understand things like that."
    Hammer took a deep breath. If he didn't under-
stand it, he sure as hell was going to pretend that he
did. He was just a down-home fighter jock, and
spook games were a little out of his league, but it
looked like he was locked in and had to ride it out.
"Okay," he said. "I'11 play."
    "Good. Gadgets will show you where you can
bunk down and get cleaned up. Let me know if
there's anything you need, and I'll have it sent over
ASAP."
    Hammer leaned back in his chair. "Well, there is
this waitress at the officers' club."

    Schwarz laughed and Katz grinned. "You're go-
ing to fit in well around here."

Stony Man Farm

AARON KURTZMAN WAS happy to hear that McCarter
and the Air Force major had made it safely back to
Italy with their hijacked Hercules and its classified
cargo. The loss of the Night Owl would have been
devastating to the security of the United States. Now,
all they had to do was to get the Stony Man team to
someplace where they could be extracted by chopper
without the threat of a gauntlet of deadly Strella mis-
siles.
    There was something about those Strellas that had
been nagging at the back of his mind. It was true that
since the breakup of the old Evil Empire, ex-Soviet
weapons were showing up more and more on the
arms black markets of the world. But even the Rus-
sians weren't so money hungry that they wanted to
see weapons like that get into the hands of Islamic
fanatics.
    With the trouble the new Russian state was having
with their own Muslims, they were very leery of who
got hold of weapons that could so easily be turned
against them. They hadn't forgotten what the Amer-
ican Stinger missiles in the hands of the mujahideen
had done to them in Afghanistan. One of the old
Soviet generals had even said that they were the sin-




gle thing that had tipped the balance against the Rus-
sian army and had forced its withdrawal.
    Regardless of Russian concern, it was true that a
few Strellas had slipped out, particularly a batch or
two from an unguarded armory in what had once
been East Germany. But for Iran to have enough of
the valuable weapons on hand to be willing to issue
them to the freedom fighters in Bosnia didn't make
sense to Kurtzman. The missiles were there for a
reason, and it bothered him that he didn't know what
it was. There was a big piece to this puzzle that was
missing, and he hated missing pieces.
    After discovering that the mysterious Islamic com-
mandos at the fortress were Iranians, he had been
able to match them to the political assassinations that
had taken place in Bosnia since the signing of the
so-called peace accord. The assumption was that this
was the Iranian contingent's primary mission. That
by killing enough Serb and Croat leaders, the Bos-
nian Muslims would have an easier time of gaining
control of the fragmented state and could impose
their will on the non-Muslim population.
    He still thought that was a valid assumption, but
it didn't explain the antiaircraft missiles. The prob-
lem was that the assassination of leaders in that re-
gion was a game as old as time. Even the War to
End All Wars had been started by the assassination
of a political figure in Sarajevo in 1914, the Arch-
duke Ferdinand of Austria. But he wasn't sure that
assassination alone would swing the balance far

enough to the side of the Muslims to make an ap-
preciable difference this time.
    It wouldn't hurt the Muslim cause to have fewer
capable men opposing them--that was true. But he
knew that for every man who was killed, another one
would stand up in his place and vow to carry on the
fight. The only way to dramatically shift the balance
of power in the region was genocide pure and simple.
The Serbs had gotten a good start on that with the
concentration camps and mass killings that had taken
place during the war. As evil as it had been, a few
thousand men, women and children more or less sim-
ply didn't make any difference in the real world.
    For these Iranian commandos to make a radical
difference in the politics of the region, they would
have to kill tens of thousands of Serbs and Croats,
and there simply weren't enough of them to do that.
Unless, of course, they planned to use weapons of
mass destruction, as they had come to be known.
Calling up a menu, he clicked on a file to take a look
at the latest information he had on weapons of mass
destruction in the Middle East.
    It was only by the grace of God and the courage
of mortal men that the only member of the nuclear
club in the region was the state of Israel. The Israelis
had nuclear weapons, and they had made sure that
all of their bellicose neighbors knew about them.
This was the primary reason that the Jews and Arabs
had quit going to war every couple of years as they
had done in the riffles, sixties and seventies. If the




state of Israel felt threatened enough, it was well-
known they would use their nuclear weapons to de-
fend themselves.
    But while the Arab states didn't have nuclear
weapons, it didn't mean that they didn't have weap-
ons of mass destruction. There were other ways to
kill large numbers of people without using nuclear
bombs. Chemical and biological weapons worked
just as well if they were employed properly. Iraq's
biological- and chemical-weapons programs were a
proved factor. Only the threat of nuclear retaliation
had kept them from using them during the Gulf War.
    What was less well-known was that the Iranians
also had a sizable chemical arsenal. Back when the
Russians had been supporting them, they had sent
scientists to Tehran to set up a chemical-weapons-
development program. In particular, an East German
team from a chemical firm in Dresden had spent
more than a year there setting up a state-of-the-art
facility for the manufacture of nerve gas and blister
agents like mustard gas.
    Scrolling through the latest intel updates, he
looked for reports of unusual activity at the known
Iranian chemical-weapons storage sites. These were
all hidden facilities camouflaged to look like any-
thing but weapons-storage areas.
    When Kurtzman found what he had suspected, he
ran the tapes of the past few months' worth of recon-
satellite passes over the facility. Like nearly everyone
else in the world, the Iranians knew when America's

spy birds were overhead and made sure that they
didn't do anything that would look suspicious while
their cameras were watching. But often what they
didn't do when they could be seen was as informa-
tive as what they did when they couldn't.
    For instance, for the past several months at the
Jeziel storage facility, the Iranians hadn't done any-
thing that would look bad on tape. In fact they had
gone to great lengths to ensure that everything would
look normal to the space spies. But since the place
was being passed off as an agricultural machinery
factory, it didn't make sense that no one was working
during daylight hours. It also didn't make sense that
the same half-completed tractors were in the same
place for run after run.
    But if this was a chemical-weapons facility, it
would make sense that it would have a growing pile
of junk in back that on the highest magnification
turned out to be the original packing crates for Rus-
sian high-explosive rockets. And tire tracks of heavy
trucks leading to the airfield nearby were always
fresh. An enhanced oblique camera shot showed him
the distinctive tall tail of a C-130 parked in the big
hangar at the airfield, and there was no need to fly
tractors anywhere in Iran.
    When Kurtzman was completely satisfied that he
had his answer, he picked up his phone and hit the
speed dial. "Hal," he said when it was picked up on
the second ring, "I think you need to come down




here and look at something. And bring Barbara with
you."

WHEN BROGNOLA AND PRICE arrived ten minutes
later, it was apparent that Kurtzman had rousted the
rest of the cybernetics team, as well. They were all
at their workstations, and the high-speed printers
were spitting out paper as fast as it could be loaded
into them.
  "What do you have, Aaron?" Price asked.
    "I think I've found out why those Islamic com-
mandos are hiding out in Bosnia."
    "Couldn't this have waited until the morning brief-
ing?" Brognola growled. "Unlike you, I have to get
some sleep every now and then."
    "It could have waited, yes," he admitted. "But I
thought that you'd want to get this to the President
as soon as you could."  "Get what to him?"
    "The information about the kanian chemical
weapons that have been transferred to Bosnia."
    That woke up Brognola in a hurry. "How about
starting from the beginning, Aaron? Some of us
haven't been awake all night doing whatever you've
been doing."
    As Price headed for the coffeepot, Kurtzman
started relating how he had spent the night. When he
was done, Brognola looked considerably more hag-
gard than he had when he first walked in. "How soon
can you have hard copy on all of that ready for me?"

    Kurtzman glanced at the printers. "It should be
ready any moment now."
  'Tll get the chopper ready," Price said.
    "I already notified the pilot," Kurtzman stated,
"and he's standing by."
    "The Man is going to love this," Brognola mut-
tered as he was handed the heavily laden briefcase
with the security-handcuff lock.




CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Bosnia

The Stony Man team had found a secure hiding place
in the rocks while they waited for extraction. Their
mountain refuge gave them good all-around vision
of the approaches and had a natural "back door" if
they were discovered. It was a good place to hunker
down until Katzenelenbogen could put together their
return flight.
    "That's about the last of the MREs," James said
as he crumpled the brown plastic wrapping of his
meal and stuffed it in his assault pack.
    "If we get too hungry," Hawkins suggested, "I've
got a pretty good recipe for bootlace soup. My daddy
always said that it came down from his great-
granddaddy, and that the Army of Northern Virginia
really liked it. He even said that Bobby Lee himself
stopped by one day and had some."
    'Tll put my gym-sock stew up against it any old
time," James said. "It was the hit of the Chicago
neighborhood where I grew up."

    "The problem with using old sweat socks as a
soup base," Hawkins said seriously, "is that you get
that residual rubbery taste from the shoes and have
to use too much pepper to cover it up."
    "Everyone knows that stone soup's best," Encizo
said, putting an end to the argument. "But you need
to have a village nearby to get the condiments it re-
ally needs. I can remember one time when I wasw"
    "Can it, guys," Manning radioed from his look-
out. "We have another patrol moving toward us, and
it looks like it's the mountain men this time."
    They had gotten away clean from the hijacking of
the C-130, but the opposition hadn't been content to
let it rest there. Ever since they had gotten back to
their hiding place, both vehicle and foot patrols had
been working the forest day and night. The Iranians
had been joined by men in dark olive battle dress
and carrying ropes on their rucksacks. The new force
had the look of locals and, from the ropes, they had
to be trained mountain troops.
    The Stony Man warriors knew that it was unlikely
that the Iranians would try to climb the rocks to get
to them. But the locals were a different story. They
would have no fears of rocks and sheer cliffs.
    Picking up their weapons, the commandos moved
to their prepared positions to see what developed this
time. Their ammunition situation wasn't critical yet,
but they were down to only a third of their basic load
and couldn't afford to get into a long firefight.




Aviano Air Base, Italy

CARL LYONS and Rosario Blancanales were on the
afternoon of their second day of watching the west-
em approach to the air base from their hilltop obser-
vation point. After making a map study of the area
surrounding the air base, Katzenelenbogen had de-
cided that any attacker would come from that direc-
tion because of the easy access to the road networks.
They would want to get in and out of their attack
positions quickly, and the roads were best to the
west.
    Figuring that the terrorists would want to strike at
night, Lyons and Blancanales had stayed awake the
night before and now were taking tums sleeping dur-
ing the day. On an assignment like this, it was es-
sential that they get their rest whenever they could.
Blancanales was sacked out in the back of the van
this shift while Lyons kept watch. His eyes were on
autopilot, scanning every vehicle that passed in traf-
fic, when he saw a large van in the right-hand lane
slow and pull off the road.
    "Heads up, guys," he called the CP over the
corem link. "I've got what looks like a moving van,
or something like that, pulling over to the side of the
road. It's not a normal parking area, and there doesn't
seem to be anything wrong with the mack."
    "Maybe the driver's just got to take a leak,"
Schwarz called back. "They have to do that in Italy,
too, you know."

    "Four men have gotten out," Lyons continued his
report. "No, make that six, and they're opening up
the doors in the back of the truck."
    "This is it!" Lyons shouted when he recognized
what the men were pulling out of the van. The shape
of a mortar base plate couldn't be mistaken for any-
thing else. Not when the tube and bipod were brought
out a second later and fitted to it. "They're setting
up a heavy mortar."
    Blancanales had woken in the back of the van and
was scrambling to get into the passenger's seat as
Lyons fired up the engine and shifted the transmis-
sion into first gear.
    It took but a few seconds for the gunners to lay
their weapon and drop the first round down the robe.
The mortar fired with the characteristic coughing
thump, and the first 120 mm mortar round was on its
way, arcing through the sky. It hit at the end of the
flight line, and the gunners cranked the traverse
wheel to bring the weapon to bear on the hangars.
    By the time the second mortar round was in the
air, a dozen more men stood up along the base pe-
rimeter fence at the end of the runway with RPG-7
antitank rocket launchers on their shoulders. Since
the chain-link fences would detonate the rocket war-
heads if they tried to fire directly through at the
fence, they angled the launchers up to fire over the
fence like artillery.
    The 85 nun RPG warheads didn't carry the explo-
sive charge of the larger 120 mrn mortar rounds. But




since they were shaped-charge warheads designed to
penetrate tank armor, they made good bunker bust-
ers. Also they had a good antipersonnel effect when
they detonated against concrete and sprayed the frag-
ments like shrapnel.
    On the flight line, the Italian pilots of the pair of
F-16 Fighting Falcons on ramp alert raced for their
planes at the sound of the first explosion. The ground
crews had already started the jet engines, and as soon
as the pilots were strapped in, they pulled their throt-
ties past the stops into afterburner, released the
brakes and took off screaming down the runway.
    The RPG gunners heard the whining scream of the
turbines and shifted their aim to the fighters trying
to take off. Trailing dirty white smoke, a volley of
half a dozen rockets arched over the fence for the
runway. The gunners' aim wasn't precise, but
enough of the rockets hit the tarmac to do the job.
    One of the shaped-charge warheads detonated
right in front of the lead F-16. Jagged chunks of con-
crete were sucked into the fighter's intake, and the
engine exploded.
    "Seven Niner, punch out! Punch out!" the control
tower screamed at the pilot.
    The pilot needed no prompting and had already
pulled the bang-seat handle. The zero-length ejection
seat rocketed him high enough into the air that his
chute could open and return him to earth.
    The pilot of the first fighter was still in the air
when his wingman took a direct hit on the left wing.

The antitank warhead cut through the aircraft's main
spar like a hot knife. When the wing folded, it
knocked out the landing gear on that side, and the
F-16 slammed sideways onto the runway at well over
a hundred miles per hour. This time, the pilot had
presence of mind enough not to eject and risk getting
killed from the seat rocketing him into the ground.
    All of this happened in the first 120 seconds of the
attack. It took another 120 seconds before any of the
base security forces responded. By that time, the fuel
tank farm was blazing, one of the ammunition bun-
kers had exploded and more than a dozen planes on
the flight line had been destroyed or damaged by
shell fragments.
    Now, though, sirens were wailing all over the
base, and men were running for their alert stations.
Helicopter gunships were cranking up, and fire tracks
were racing to try to put out the fires before the
flames spread. One of the trucks drove into a falling
mortar round and was blown off its wheels.
    The stunned security forces tried to return fire at
the RPG gunners outside the fence, but they were
met with a hail of AK fire from the second group of
terrorists who had been lying in wait for them. The
advantage lay with the attackers, who had taken
cover in the drainage ditches.

ON THE HILL overlooking the carnage, Lyons and
Blancanales were racing for the terrorists with the
120 mm mortar. ff they could put the tube out of




action, they could limit the damage that was being
done.
    As Lyons drove, Blancanales loaded a 40 mm gre-
nade into the breach of the M-203 grenade launcher
he had borrowed from Schwarz. For this kind of
work, his 12-gauge SPAS just didn't have the range
or the firepower.

IN THE STONY MAN CP, Katz and Schwarz had their
hands full. When Lyons sent the warning about the
mortars, Katz immediately called the base security
office, but had been put on hold. In frustration, he
tried to get through to the UN PROFOR headquar-
ters, but hadn't been able to talk to anyone in charge.
The man on radio watch didn't speak enough English
to understand what the problem was and kept shout-
ing that they were under attack.
    Major Hammer had been catching up on his sleep
when the first mortar explosion brought him out of
his bunk. Racing into the main room, he saw
Schwarz diving for cover inside the sandbag bunker
that had been built against the far wall. When Katz
yelled at him to do the same, the pilot didn't argue.
    "We're coming up on that mortar," Lyons called
into the CP. "Can you get someone up here to back
us up?"
    "I'm afraid that you're going to have to handle
that one yourselves," Katz answered.
    "We're in the process of doing that right now,"
Lyons said, "but we could use a little help."

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    "I think you're going to be on your own for a
while. The base security people are a little busy right
now. They're trying to get their fingers out."
  "Good luck."

Stony Man Farm

AARON KURTZMAN'S voice broke in over Barbara
Price's intercom. "Barb, Katz just called, and the air
base in Aviano is being attacked."  "I'm coming."
    On her quick trip down the hall, Price used her
comm link to talk to the blacksuit on duty in the
radio room. "Put a priority call through to Hal Brog-
nola," she ordered. "Tell him that Aviano is under
attack and I need him back here ASAP."  "Will do, ma'am."
    Brognola was probably on the way to the airfield
for the flight back to the Farm with the President's
decision about the nerve-gas rockets as it was. But
with this new escalation of the situation, they needed
to talk immediately, and even encrypted radio didn't
cut it.
    The computer room looked a little busier than
usual. Hunt Wethers had a monitor screen showing
a satellite view of the air base. Akira Tokaido looked
like he was running radio intercepts of the traffic of
the Aviano security forces, and Kurtzman had Katz's
face on his screen.
  "...and so far," Katz spoke loudly to be heard





over the scream of sirens and rumble of explosions
in the background, "we haven't taken any hits. I've
got everyone else under cover and--"
    Just then there was a thunderous explosion that
sounded close in the background.
    Katz looked as unflappable as ever as he turned
away from the video pickup to see what the noise
was. "We just took an RPG round in the chain-link
fence," he said, "but it didn't penetrate. RPG screen
works every time."
    Price leaned down so she could be seen by the
video camera. "Katz," she said, "you'd better get
your butt under cover, as well. I don't want to lose
you and have to put the Ironman in charge over there.
I'd never hear the end of it from Hal."
    Katz grinned. "He and Rosario are a little busy
right now anyway. They're outside the perimeter try-
ing to knock out a mortar."
      "Just get your butt under cover until it's over,"
Price snapped. "That's an order."  "Yes, ma'am."
    Price's comm link beeped and she answered it.
"Price."
    "Mr. Brognola's inbound," the blacksuit in the
radio room stated.
    "Good. Tell him to come directly to the computer
room."

Aviano Air Base, Italy

CAm~ LYONS DROVE tO within fifty yards of the mor-
tar before the terrorists caught sight of the van. One

of the men handing annno tO the loader shouted a
warning as he grabbed for the Beretta subgun slung
over his shoulder. A long burst of 9 mm rounds cut
across the front of the vehicle, smashing the head-
lights, radiator and bodywork.
    "Hang on!" Lyons shouted as he hunched lower
in the cab. Cranking the wheel hard over, he trod on
the brakes to spin the van, sliding it broadside to the
enemy fire. Killing the engine, he was out of his door
before the vehicle stopped rolling, his man-killing
Python filling his fist. His first two shots took out the
thug with the subgun, and another two slugs scattered
the rest of the crew.
    Biancahales was out of the driver's door of the cab
right on Lyons's heels. Crouching behind the hood,
he used the engine block for armor as he aimed the
M-16/M-203 over-and-under combo and triggered
the grenade launcher. The 40 nun round arched out
and dropped long, well behind the mortar. The black
puff of smoke that marked the detonation didn't seem
to affect the enemy.
    Ejecting the empty, he shoved another round into
the launcher to try it again.
    The entire gun crew was firing at them now, their
120 mm mortar forgotten. That was a good start, Ly-
ons observed as he snapped off the last two rounds
in the Colt's cylinder.
  Biancahales dropped his second grenade right next




to the mortar's base plate. The little warhead didn't
have much of a burst radius, only five yards, but the
crew was bunched up, well within that range. Two
of them went down from the blast, and, flipping over
to the M-16, he dumped a full magazine into the rest.
    By the time he dropped down to eject his empty
magazine, Lyons had his Python back in action, and
four .357 Magnum rounds later, it was all over.

Stony Man Farm

"How BAD IS IT.9" Brognola looked a little out of
breath from his sprint from the chopper landing pad.
    "We don't know yet," Price answered. "But none
of the team has been hit."
    "It's a major attack, though," Kurtzman said.
"Mortars, RPGs and the whole nine yards."
    "I'd say that something we've been doing has
stirred them up." Brognola sounded satisfied.
    "I'm not so sure about that," Kurtzman replied.
"Since they aren't directly targeting the CP, there
must be something else behind this. Damned if I
know what, though."
    That wasn't exactly what Brognola wanted to hear
right then. He was having a difficult enough time
explaining the situation to the President as it was
without this new twist.

Aviano Air Base, Italy

SOMEONE IN ONE of the NATO security units finally
called up armored cars and sent them in against the

terrorists in the ditch outside of the perimeter. The
vehicles weren't well enough armored to withstand
RPG rounds and would be taken out of action if they
took a hit. But once they could get close enough to
the chain-link fence, they would be protected because
the warheads would detonate when they hit the wire.
    One of the vehicles took a hit on the way in, but
the crew was able to bail out before the fuel tanks
went up in a roiling ball of flame. With their turret
machine guns hammering, the other cars raced for
the fence. When the vehicles' charge brought them
to the wire, the baffle was effectively over.
    With no way to knock out the vehicles, the ter-
rorism couldn't stand up to the blazing turret guns.
They turned and fled only to be cut down.

"CAN YOU SEND someone out to pick us up?" Lyons
called the CP. "Our van is kind of shot up."
    "Wait there," Katz replied. "I'll send Gadgets
and Hammer to pick you up."
    "Also, tell the UN guys that there's six bodies and
a mortar up here for their trophy room."




CHAPTER SIXTEEN

The next morning, the damage to the air base looked
worse than it really was. Unfortunately, though, al-
most a dozen casualties had resulted from the attack,
and many more men had been wounded. But the
damaged aircraft and vehicles could be replaced and
the facilities quickly repaired. Aviano would be back
in full operation in a couple of days at the most.
Already, the runways were clear enough for the fight-
ers of the PROFOR Bosnian patrol to take off on
schedule.
    The only good thing that came out of the attack
was that both the Italians and NATO were taking the
terrorist threat seriously now. Along with the infantry
reinforcements inside the perimeter, armored vehi-
cles and foot patrols were working all the areas
around the base within mortar range. Security check-
points had been set up along all of the roads leading
in and were screening all traffic.
    None of this, however, affected the small building
that housed the Stony Man CP. Although the chain-
link fence had soaked up one stray RPG rocket, the

CP had gone untouched; none of the mortar rounds
had fallen near them. So, while the workmen were
putting the base back to good working order, Katz-
enelenbogen went over the information he had just
received from the Farm before calling Striker with
the bad news that the mission had been extended.
    The new mission didn't sit well with Katz. For one
thing, the team wasn't equipped to stay in the field
that long. The ammunition and ration loads they had
been dropped in with were the standard three-day
load appropriate for their original snatch mission.
With the fighting they had done so far, they would
be running low on ammunition, far too low for them
to get into a sustained firefight. And while the rations
weren't as critical as firepower, a fighting man had
to eat, as well as shoot.
    Plus he didn't like the odds the team would be
facing, particularly when the opposition knew that
they were there. This would be the third time that
they had gone up against the same target, and the
element of surprise had long since evaporated.
They'd been very lucky to have pulled off the C~t30
hijacking, but counting on luck alone was a good
way to get killed.
    At the bottom of it, though, was the fact that he
didn't like anything that was associated with chem-
ical weapons of any kind. As far as he was con-
cerned, anyone who was found with them should be
stood against a wall and shot dead.
  Something as serious as the presence of chemical




weapons in the area should be handed over to the
UN PROFOR, and they should send in troops who
were equipped to deal with a chemical environment.
The Stony Man warriors didn't even have gas masks
with them. Not that they would do any good against
what Kurtzman thought was involved.
    If Kurtzman was right, the Iranians had shipped
nerve-gas weapons to Bosnia. The gas involved was
most likely satin, the original German nerve gas of
World War II vintage rather than the more modem
VX nerve agent. But sarin was deadly. In fact home-
made satin had been used in the terrorist attacks on
the Tokyo subways, and a gas mask was no defense
against it. A single drop of it on the skin could kill,
to say nothing of a lungful of droplets.
    With the next round of Bosnian elections sched-
uled to take place in the near future, finding the tar-
gets for the rockets would be no problem. When the
Serbs and Croats gathered to vote, a single round
would kill hundreds if not thousands or tens of
thousands of people. And since Kurtzman's infor-
mation indicated that the Iranian chemical warheads
had been mounted on Katusha rocket rounds, they
could be fired from a distance great enough to allow
the attackers to escape the effects of the gas.
    The results would be complete disruption of the
peace process and a chance for the Muslim Bosnians
to eradicate their enemies like so many flies. And by
the time the UN PROFOR could react to the threat,
the Bosnian problem would have been solved by the

destruction of the non-Muslim population in another
ethnic cleansing.
    The Western world would view such an attack
with sheer horror, but Katz knew that the Iranians
couldn't care less about Western public opinion. As
long as they had their oil reserves, they were immune
to that kind of pressure. It was one of God's cruelest
jokes to have given those people a monopoly on a
commodity that the world needed as much as it did.
But until someone figured out a way for the modem
technological world to get along without oil, the Is-
lamic oil-producing nations would continue to call
the tunes to the detriment of the rest of the world.
    Once he had thoroughly backgrounded himself,
Katz reached for the radio to give Bolan the bad
news.

Bosnia

DRAGAN ASDIK WAS man enough to admit that he
had seriously miscalculated the danger that the Yan-
kees presented. This was one time that Major Nas-
lin's paranoia had been accurate. Whoever those men
were, they were good and they still represented a
danger. Both the vehicle and foot patrols had failed
to find them, and according to the radar, no helicop-
ters had flown into the area to take them out.
    There was a faint chance that they had simply
walked far enough away that a chopper could come
in to pick them up and not be spotted, but he didn't




think that had happened. His gut instinct told him
that they were hiding in the mountains and waiting.
The problem was that he didn't know what they were
waiting for.
    Naslin had been in almost hourly contact with his
superiors in Tehran, and they were concerned about
the Yankees, too. The Iranians were convinced that
the actions against their agents in Italy were defi-
nitely connected with the activities of the comman-
dos in Bosnia. Asdik didn't see the connection, but
the Iranians were certain that it was there. In fact
Naslin was on the radio to them again, and Asdik
was waiting to see what further measures they
wanted to take.
    When the major came out of the radio room, he
wasn't smiling. "Tehran is concerned about your se-
curry, and I have been ordered to move the chemical
rockets out of here before the Yankees find them."
  "Where will you take them?"
    "I am to take them to the forest camp where the
rocket launchers are."
    Asdik didn't take offense at the implication that
his security was lax. He knew that it wasn't, and he
was well aware that a small group of well-trained
men could stay hidden for as long as they wanted.
In fact he was glad to see the deadly rockets leave
his area. He had never been comfortable having them
stored so close to his fortress. His men had gas
masks, but he knew that they would be no defense
if one of the rockets malfunctioned.

  "So your plan is to go ahead, then?"
    "Yes, it is." Naslin smiled. "There was never a
doubt about it."
 Unfortunately, Asdik thought.
    Now that he had permission from Tehran to act,
Naslin was in a hurry to get the nerve-gas rocket
rounds joined up with the modified Katusha rocket
launchers waiting at his other base camp. The
launchers were an old Russian weapon dating back
to WW II, but they hadn't outlived their usefulness.
If nothing else, their rugged simplicity made them
the perfect launchers for the chemical rockets.
    The bulk of Naslin's freedom fighters weren't at
Asdik's fortress. Another camp a hundred miles to
the north had been established to hide the Islamic
commandos who had been secreted away. Unlike the
Bosnian's ancient castle, it was a proper military
camp with interlocking fortifications, heavy weapons
and facilities to support the troops until the time was
ready for them to go into action again.
    After the rockets were joined up with the launch-
ers, the select teams who would launch the rockets
would leave from there to make their attacks on the
Serb and Croatian towns. Backing them up would be
other units ready to exploit the results of the gas
attacks. If God allowed the plan to be carried out,
the major Serb and Croatian cities and strong points
would soon be in Bosnian Muslim hands. And once
that was accomplished, the new Bosnian government
would ask their Iranian brothers for help.




    That would be the signal for a massive airlift of
Iranian troops and equipment to start. Tehran had the
supplies stockpiled at the airfields, and the aircraft
and the troops were standing by for their orders. In
a matter of days, the green flags of Islam would
proudly fly over a completely Muslim Bosnia.

MACK BOLAN WAS GRIM FACED when he called the
remaining Phoenix Force warriors together. "I just
talked to Katz, and we have a situation."
    Everyone on the team had been around the mili-
tary long enough to recognize trouble coming when
he heard it. The use of the word situation could only
be bad news. And the look on Bolan's face only re-
inforced their misgivings.
    "The Farm thinks that we might have stumbled
into a real homet's nest."
    "Whatever gave them that idea?" Encizo quipped.
"I thought we were on a vacation in the mountains
hundreds of miles from friendly territory with no way
to get back except booting it."
    "It's just become a little more complicated than
that," Bolan said grimly. "The Bear thinks that the
Iranians and the Bosnians here are getting ready to
launch a chemical attack on the Serb and Croatian
strongholds in Bosnia."
  "From here?" Hawkins asked.
    "That's what they want us to find out," Bolan
replied. "Hal's convinced that Kurtzman's theory is

worth looking into, and that means the Man wants
us to do it."
    "Does that mean making a raid on that rock pile
again?" James asked.
  "Maybe not," Bolan answered.
    "I sure as hell hope not," Hawkins said. "'Cause
I kind of used up all my chips flying in there the first
time. And since I don't have another parasail handy,
I don't think that flapping my arms is going to cut
it."
    "I don't think that'll be necessary," Bolan replied.
"If these guys have been stockpiling chemical weap-
ons, I don't think they'd want them stored that close
to their headquarters. They may be fanatics, but we
can't count on them being that stupid."
    "Hammer said something about seeing some of
them carrying gas masks in the castle," Encizo re-
called. "And I remember thinking that was a little
strange because tear gas isn't a usual terrorist
weapon."
    "That is an indicator," Bolan agreed. "But I think
it's more likely that if they actually do have those
weapons on hand, they're keeping them in the caves
where they stored the wreckage of that plane."
    "At least we know where they are, then," James
said. "We shouldn't have too much trouble getting
in there."
    "Depending on how many troops they have guard-
ing them," Manning cautioned. "If you'll remember,




they had a couple of dozen guys there when they
moved the wreckage of the major's plane."
    "We'll find that out tonight," Bolan said. "But in
the meantime, I want everyone to get as much sleep
today as they can."

Aviano Air Base, Italy

SINCE THERE WAS nothing he could do to help with
Bolan's and Phoenix Force's situation, Carl Lyons
went back to working on the problem of the local
bad guys. This situation had escalated to the point
that they needed to do more than just make raids on
safehouses. It was time to go after the head of the
beast and cut it off.
    "How much of this intel have you given to the
UN?" Lyons asked Katz about the computer files
they had stolen from the garage.
    "None of the raw information," the Israeli replied.
"Hal didn't want us to let the cat out of the bag, as
it were. There would have been too many questions
asked about how we had obtained it."
  "Good." Lyons smiled grimly.
  "What do you mean?"
    "What I mean is, that means we still have a
chance at taking out that Lebanese guy who seems
to be in charge of the Italian operation."
    Katz closed his weary eyes and took a deep breath.
Running interference for the Ironman and his side~
kicks could be a full-time job, particularly when Able

Team had too much time on its hands. "I assume
that you're thinking about hunting him down and
making him pay for the damage his men did to the
air base?"
    "Something like that." Lyons shrugged. "But I
was thinking more along the line of killing him and
leaving his body in a ditch somewhere as an object
lesson. As we have seen, he's a danger to himself
and others. If someone doesn't take this guy out
soon, he's likely to pop up somewhere else and cause
even more trouble."
    "I agree," Katz said. "But I was thinking of leav-
ing that job to the local authorities. After all, they
have a much bigger stake in that than we do."
    "But," Lyons said, "we have the information
about this guy, and they don't. Just call it doing our
part for creating a safer tomorrow. It won't be the
first time that we've helped another country take out
its garbage."
    Katz had to admit that there was truth to that.
"Okay," he conceded, "but let's sit down and work
out a plan of action first. Racing around northern
Italy with a trunk full of weapons might not be a
particularly good idea right now. The cops are likely
to shoot you first and ask for your passports later."
  "What do you have in mind?"
    "I was thinking of doing something a little more
subtle. Your usual 'bull 'em and bash 'em' routine
has worked well so far, but the Lebanese will be on
guard against it by now. If he's any good at all, he'll




be ready and waiting to blow you guys away the next
time you show up to bust one of his hideouts."
    Lyons had to admit that there was merit in Katz's
assessment, there always was. He had been an anti-
terrorist fighter as long as there had been terrorists.
"What's your recommendation, then?"
    "Let's do a real thorough background on this guy
and find out where he lives. Knocking out his sat-
ellite facilities is good clean fun, but if you want to
nail him personally, you need to know where he
lives.' '
  "That's fair enough."
    "And," Katz continued, "I want to get the Farm
to fall in line on it. I'll get them to go through the
computer files we sent them with a fine-tooth comb
and see if they can dig him out."
    "What if Hal gets excited and tries to tell us to
mind our own business?"
    "I'11 take care of Hal," Katz vowed. "I think this
has gotten complicated enough that he'll be glad to
have you put at least this part of it to bed."
    "He'd better approve it," Lyons growled. "I don't
like being shot at."
  "How do you think the NATO guys feel?"
    "That's why I want to nail that bastard. I don't
want to feel the same way they do."

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Stony Man Farm

When Barbara Price went down to the computer
room, the place looked like a disaster. Half-full cof-
fee cups rested on desks and several other flat sur-
faces, and it looked as if someone had emptied a
small garbage bin in the middle of the room, then
rigged it for demolition. Crumpled paper lay every-
where. To add to the doomsday effect, bodies were
slumped over their desks in complete exhaustion.
    Kurtzman looked to be the only one alive and he
was just sitting in his wheel chair staring at his new
screen saver. On his big monitor, animated snarling
dinosaurs scampered across the screen in what
looked like the dance of the sugar-plum fairies.
    Price started to chuckle, but held it in check.
Someone had obviously suffered a small mental
burnout down here and had turned to the graphics
software to save his sanity.  "Aaron?"
  Kurtzman turned slowly as if he were awakening




from a long hibernation. "Barbara," he said, glanc-
ing at one of the clocks on the wall. "It's three in
the morning. What're you doing here?"
      "That's California time," she replied. "It's six in
the morning here."  "Oh."
  "When was the last time you went to bed?"
  "I don't remember."
    He ran his hand through his hair, but only messed
it even more. "That's the problem with a mission
like this," he said. "We're supposed to run strike
forces here, not military units. We're designed to do
the quick in, quick out stuff, slash 'em, mash 'em
and move out smartly. We don't have the legs for
this kind of thing."
    "I know," she said gently. "But we got sucked
into this mission. You know Hal. When the Man says
he has a problem, Sir Hal steps up and offers us as
a solution. This time, though, the problem is a hell
of a lot bigger than we are."
    "It's a good thing that Katz is in Italy to back the
guys up," Kurtzman said. "We couldn't even do
what we're doing if he wasn't."
    He paused, got a quizzical look on his face and
switched topics. "What're you doing down here,
anyway?"
    Price reached out and laid her hand on his broad
fight shoulder. "I came down here to see how you
were and to try to get you to take a break. You need

to get cleaned up and rest for a couple of hours so
you'll be fresh."
    "I'm okay," he said. "I've been grabbing catnaps
in the chair when I get tired."
    "You're a mess, Aaron. You look like the second
runner-up in a head-on collision with a garbage truck
competition and--" she sniffed dramatically "--you
need a shower, badly."
    "Okay," he submitted meekly. "Get Hunt down
here to take over, and I'll take a break."
    "He's already here. In fact he's sleeping under his
desk fight now."
    Kurtzman looked surprised. "Why's he doing
that?"
    "He's exhausted, Aaron. All of you are, and I'm
going to institute a rotation schedule down here. You
guys can't think straight if you're dead on your feet.
Striker is closing in to try to find those gas rockets
of yours, and I need your crew on the top of their
form to back them up.
    "So--" she reached for the push bar on the back
of his wheelchair to pull him away from his keyboard
"--it's time for a shower and bed for you. Then I'm
going to send a crew down here to cart off the debris
and sweep this dump out so you guys can trash it up
all over again."
    When Kurtzman didn't protest, she looked down
and saw that he was dead asleep. Taking care not to
jostle him, she pulled his chair out and pushed it
through the narrow walkway to the hall outside. The




shower would have to wait. Right now, he needed to
sleep in a real bed.
    Wethers stirred as she pushed Kurtzman's wheel-
chair past him, but she let him sleep, too. He'd wake
up if anything important happened.

Bosnia

"STRIKER?' Encizo radioed, "I think you'd better
get over here."
    Bolan went to the edge of the wood line where
Encizo and Manning were taking tums keeping an
eye on the fortress and getting a little rest before the
evening's activities. He didn't have to ask what the
problem was when he saw the fleet of small pickup
trucks crossing the plain.
    "I think they're heading for that cave where they
had the wreckage of Hammer's plane stashed," En-
cizo said.
  "I'd have to agree."
    "What are we going to do about it?" the Cuban
asked. "If Aaron is right about the rockets being
here, and if that's where they've been stored, we're
going to lose them if we don't do something."
    "Maybe not. If the Bear found out about them in
the first place, he may be able to track them for us
if they're taken away from here. He has a satellite
parked in orbit over this part of the world, and he
might be able to follow them."

    "Even if he can, then what?" Encizo asked.
"We're not exactly a mechanized force."
    Bolan grinned. "We'll just borrow a track. They
won't miss just one."
  "That may be easier said than done."
    "Then we'll boot it. But first I need to talk to Katz
again. I need him to get the Farm on-line trying to
track those damned things and I want to check on
our resupply."
    "Please do," the Cuban said. "With T.J. and Cal-
vin going on and on about their down-home recipes,
a man gets a little hungry, even for MREs."
 Bolan laughed.

Stony Man Farm

WHEN BARBARA PRICE returned to the computer
room, she found that Hunt Wethers was awake and
back on duty.
    "Sorry about taking a nap like that," he said apol-
ogetically, "but Aaron said that he'd watch things
for me.' '
    "That's okay," she reassured him. "We've been
hitting it pretty hard for a couple of days now, and
the human body needs maintenance, too."
    He nodded toward Akira Tokaido, who was lying
on his desk. "I want to let Akira get some more sleep
if I can. But if anything happens, I'll wake him."
  "Let him sleep as long as possible."




"Is anyone awake over there?" Katz's voice said
over the satellite link. "We need to talk."
    "Good morning, Katz," Price replied as she
clicked on to the video pickup. "What's happen-
ing?"
    "It's midday over here for starters," he replied.
"And Striker has spotted the opposition moving
trucks to the cave where they stored the pieces of
that crashed Night Owl. He thinks they're getting
ready to move the gas rockets, and he wants to know
if you can track their movement for him until he gets
his resupply."
    Wethers started punching in commands on his
keyboard before Katz had even finished talking. Ear-
lier, Kurtzman had been able to "borrow" one of the
NRO's deep-space Keyhole spy birds and park it in
a synchronous orbit that covered most of the Bal-
kans. From that position hundred of miles above the
earth, its cameras and sensors could easily cover all
of Bosnia.
    "I'm on it," he replied as his fingers flew over
the keyboard. "Got to upload a program first."
    The program Wethers was sending to the satellite
would teach it what a Toyota picknp truck looked
like from deep space. On an earlier mission, Kurtz-
man had worked up an identification program that
would work just as well this time. With that infor-
mation locked into its computer, it would be child's
play for the satellite's electronic eyes to track the
trucks as they were loaded and driven away.

    "It's loaded," Wethers said as his fingers flew
over the keyboard. "Now, let's see .... "
    The big-screen monitor changed to show an aerial
view of a valley with a stone fortress in the middle
and a wooded ridgeline to the east. Zooming in at a
higher resolution, the half-dozen trucks showed up
as big as Matchbox toy cars. One at a time, blinking
red markers appeared over the trucks and each icon
was numbered.
    "There they are," Wethers said as he started typ-
ing a final command. "Now I'll instruct the onboard
computer to ID them in multispectra and we'll be
able to track them anywhere they go, rain or shine.
As long as we can keep the satellite in position, that
is."
    He sat back and faced the video pickup. "That
should be it, Katz," he said into the video pickup.
"Tell Striker that he can relax and wait for his re-
supply to show up. When he's ready to go, I'll be
able to tell him where they've gone."  "Thanks."
  "That's what we're here for."

Aviano Air Base, Italy

"WE'RE LOADED UP and ready to go," Jack Grimaldi
told Yakov Katzenelenbogen when he and John
Hammer walked into the main room of the CP in
Aviano. Both men were wearing Air Force-issue




flight suits and carded pistols in the holsters of their
survival vests.
    "You think you can make it in there without get-
ting shot down?" Katz asked.
    Grimaldi nodded. "If I bend the throttle and keep
it in the dirt all the way. Even a Strella needs a few
seconds to achieve a lock-on, and a few seconds is
all I need to clear the area."
    The pilot had wanted to borrow a V-22 Osprey
from the Marines to fly the resupply mission. The
fllt-wing assault transport flew higher and faster than
a chopper and could stay out of the line of fire of
any missiles. But the nearest Osprey was tied down
on the flight deck of the USS Tarawa, which was
sailing in the Persian Gulf right now. Rather than
wait to have one flown in, he was borrowing a
UH-60 Black Hawk from the Air Force instead.
"Are David and Carl ready?" Grimaldi asked.
"We're go," McCarter said as he stepped out of
the sleeping area in the rear of the building with Ly-
ons at his side. After a personal refitting, McCarter
was ready to rejoin his teammates when the supplies
were delivered to them. Lyons was going along as
the door gunner and supply kicker for the run. Both
of them knew that the chances were good that they'd
collect a Strella up the tailpipe for their efforts. But
the effort had to be made.
    "Here's your maps," Katz said as he handed over
the packets. "I've included an updated terrain map
for each one of you in case you have to walk back."

    "Bite your tongue, Katz," Grimaldi said. "This
flyboy doesn't walk any farther than from the flight
line to the officers' club."
    "You got that right," Hammer added. The Air
Force pilot wasn't rotary-wing qualified, but he could
ride the copilot's seat and take care of the radio and
navigation chores for Grimaldi, and he had insisted
that he be allowed to ride along. Grimaldi was glad
to have the help. Nap-of-the-earth flying took all of
his attention, and a second set of eyes would be use-
ful.
  "Keep in touch," Katz said in farewell.
    As with the previous Stony Man flights from Avi-
ano, the Black Hawk had been cordoned off by
USAF Air Police. The crew's Justice ID passed them
through the cordon, and they quickly took their
places in the aircraft. The control tower gave them
immediate takeoff clearance, and they were off the
ground as soon as Grimaldi had the turbines burning.
    Climbing for altitude, he turned the Black Hawk
toward the east and Bosnia.

Bosnia

AI~'rER A NORMAL FLIGHT across the Adriatic, Jack
Grimaldi dropped down as soon as he crossed the
coast and was flying with the treetops tickling his
belly.
    Hammer was sweating in the copilot's seat. He
had been known to fly too fast and too low on oc-


casion himself, but this was incredible. The birds
were flying higher than they were. Plus, like most
fixed-wing pilots, Hammer had a secret distrust of
helicopters. If God had intended men to fly with ro-
tary wings, the Wright brothers would have built a
chopper not a biplane.
    "Look out for that tree coming up on the left,"
he said, trying to keep his voice calm.
    "I got it," Grimaldi replied as he nudged the cy-
clic to pull the nose up a few inches as the tree
flashed past underneath them.
    "We're coming up on the LZ," the pilot called
back to McCarter and Lyons on the intercom, "so
get your fingers out back there."  "Roger," McCarter replied.
    So far, Grimaldi had been able to keep them clear
of the enemy, but coming in toward a landing zone
always carried a risk. A smart enemy didn't attack
the men waiting for the chopper--he waited for the
chopper itself and then took it out along with the
men.
    Carl Lyons flicked his 7.62 mm Minigun off safe
and got ready to fire suppressive fire as they ap-
proached the LZ. He knew that Bolan would have
his guys out in position to secure the area, but it
never hurt to be ready for a nasty surprise. And a
nasty surprise it would be for anyone who took a
potshot at them. The gun in his hands was capable
of spitting out six thousand rounds per minute.

"GRIMALDI'S INBOUND," Calvin James called over
the comm link.
    "I've got him visual," Gary Manning also re-
ported, "coming in from the west."
    When Katz had sent word that the resupply aircraft
was in the air, the Stony Man warriors had found a
good LZ in the mountains. After putting out security
around the clearing, they'd settled down to wait.
    When T. J. Hawkins heard the sound of the rotors
inbound, he ran out into the middle of the clearing
and stood facing away from the wind with his assault
rifle held stiff-armed over his head in both hands.
That was the universal military signal to show an
incoming chopper pilot the wind direction and land-
ing spot.
    Grimaldi spotted him and keyed his mike. "I've
got visual on the Lima Zulu."
"Lima Zulu is clear," James called back.
Cutting low over the clearing, Grimaldi nosed the
chopper into the wind and chopped the lift to the
rotors. The Black Hawk flared out and came to a
landing right in front of Hawkins.
    "Go, go, go," the pilot yelled to Lyons and
McCarter over the roar of the turbines. Even though
the area was secured, he didn't want to be on the
ground a minute longer that he absolutely had to. He
had a phobia of Strellas.
    In the back of the Black Hawk, Lyons and Mc-
Carter shoved the crates and boxes off a portable
access ramp as quickly as they could. When the last




crate was gone, McCarter grabbed his weapon, threw
Lyons a thumbs-up sign and jumped to the ground.
    "Get it out of here!" he called to Grimaldi as he
ran to clear the rotor.
    Twisting the throttle all the way up against the
stop, Grimaldi pulled pitch on the collective and took
the Black Hawk into a ground-effect hover. After
flicking his eyes to the tachs to check his rpms, he
nudged the cyclic stick forward to pick up a little
forward momentum before hauling up all the way on
the collective. The empty chopper shot out of the
clearing like a rocket, but Grimaldi checked his
climb before he had cleared the treetops by more
than a few feet.
    Until they reached the Adriatic, the return trip
would be made on the deck, too.
  "Tree coming up on the right," Hammer stated.
  "I got it."

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

"Damn," Rafael Encizo said, sniffing as he walked
up to the freshly showered and shaved David Mc-
Carter, "if you don't smell good."
    McCarter maneuvered to stand downwind from his
old teammate. "I wish I could say the same about
you. In fact all of you lads could use a little soap
and a long hot shower."
  "Lead me to it," Hawkins said. "I'm ready."
    "Sorry. All I can offer you today is clean socks
and more MREs."
    "Hot damn." Hawkins grinned as he bent down
to break open an MRE carton. "Just what I was crav-
ing, Meals Refused by Ethiopians. But since I
haven't seen a Burger King anywhere around here, I
guess they'll just have to do."
    "They beat the hell out of your vaunted bootlace
soup," James said. "After all that talking about it, it
was a real disappointment."
    Hawkins shrugged. "It just didn't get long enough
to simmer."
  "I've heard that excuse before."




    It took almost half an hour for the team to break
down the supplies and refit themselves to continue
the mission. The radios, comm links, night-vision
goggles and the GPS needed new batteries. Their
empty magazines had to be reloaded, and the rations
were broken down and packed away in their assault
rucks.
    Once they were refitted, the Stony Man team took
the time to eat and make coffee. They had been re-
filling their canteen from the mountain streams and
purifying the water with chlorine tablets, so it was a
welcome change to have pure water. Particularly
when it came to making instant coffee; chlorine and
caffeine didn't go together well.
    When they were done with their meal, McCarter
gave the order for them to clear the LZ.
    "You want me to bury this stuff?." Hawkins asked
as he pointed to the pile of debris left over from the
ammunition and rations packing.
    "Leave it. We'll be long gone from here by the
time anyone finds it. And there isn't anything in there
that can ID us anyway."
    As with everything else that the commandos took
with them into battle, the resupply load had been
sterilized. Nothing was marked to indicate its country
of origin, and all of the labeling was done in multiple
languages to include Arabic and Chinese. Even the
MREs had been multinationaled.
    "Now we need to find a vehicle to borrow," Bo-
lan told Encizo.

    "If there was anyone within five miles of here
when Grimaldi came in, they'll have noticed the
chopper and will be coming to investigate. Maybe
we can borrow their ride."
  "That's what I'm counting on."

Aviano Air Base, Italy

Now T~^T THE Black Hawk was safely back at Avi-
ano, Carl Lyons jumped right back into his Ironman
mode. The Lebanese was still out there somewhere,
and Lyons intended to find him. Seeing Hermann
Schwarz sitting in front of the CP's computer, he
walked over to him. "Do you have a lock on him
yet?"
  "The Lebanese guy?"
  "Who else?"
      "Not yet," Schwarz replied. "The Farm hasn't
finished sorting through all the E-mail addresses."
  "What's taking them so much time?"
    "If you'll remember, they're a little busy tracking
those nerve-gas rockets, too."
    "And they can't do two things at once?" Lyons
growled. "I want to know where that guy is so we
can put him out of business before someone else gets
hurt."
  "We're working on it."

Stony Man Farm

LYONS'S PLAN TO GO after the Lebanese had been
okayed by the Oval Office. As far as the President




was concerned, anything that Able Team could come
up with to put an end to the situation in Italy, as well
as in Bosnia, was welcomed. And Stony Man wasn't
the only agency looking for the terrorist. Hal Brog-
nola had authorized Katzenelenbogen to share every-
thing they had on the Italian situation with both
NATO and the Italian authorities, and the race was
on to find the man who was responsible for the attack
at Aviano.
    At the Farm, Aaron Kurtzman was putting his me-
thodical mind and intimate knowledge of cyberspace
to work on the problem of finding the terrorist leader.
From the extensive computer files found at the ga-
rage, it was being assumed that the Lebanese was
computer literate. And since computer freaks were
the same the world over, it could be assumed that he
had left electronic tracks somewhere in cyberspace.
All Kurtzman had to do was to find them.
    He was using a raider program on the E-mail ad-
dresses that had been retrieved from the garage com-
puter. The raider called each address, broke into the
computer with a password generator and, once it was
in, dumped its contents into a file it could read later.
Fortunately the terrorists hadn't been diligent about
emptying their cybernetic trash cans and were prob-
ably unaware that they contained copies of past mes-
sages filed away on a microchip. Being able to use

a computer wasn't the same as knowing how it
worked.
    When he started running the information he re-
trieved from the raider program through a home-
brew macro program, Kurtzman came up with what
he had been looking for. "Gotcha, you bastard," he
muttered as he punched up the video to the Aviano
command post.
    "Rose's Cathouse and Pizzeria," Schwarz an-
swered. "Will that be takeout, or will you eat it
here?"
    "Cut the crap, Gadgets, and put Katz on," Kurtz-
man snapped. His long sleep had restored his ex-
hausted body, but had done nothing to affect his
mood. Until this mission was terminated, he had no
time for smart-ass from anyone, not even Schwarz.
"What do you have?" Katzenelenbogen broke in.
"I think I have what you guys have been looking
for," he replied. "I keep coming up with one E-mail
address that gets a lot of traffic both in and out. It
also has the most hits to Libya and Iran, so I think
it's the one you want."  "Send it."
    Kurtzman flashed the physical address of the com-
puter that had recorded so much traffic to Aviano.
The nice thing about landline modems was that their
access to the Internet and E-mail was provided by a
phone-company line, and that meant there was a rec-
ord of where the connection had been made. The
only way to use E-mail and not let anyone know




where you were sending it from was to have direct
satellite links on both ends. But since that equipment
was too expensive for nongovernment use, almost all
civilian E-mail was sent by landline.
    "Good work," Katz said when the address flashed
up on his screen. "I'll get back to you if this turns
out to be what we're looking for."
    "Gadgets," he called out across the room, "Aaron
came up with a lead on the Lebanese, and I need you
to mn the address."
    "'Bout time." Schwarz's fingers flashed over his
keyboard. His computer had a program loaded in that
would give him a map of any location in Italy. Orig-
inally developed for Interpol counterterrorist opera-
tions, it was getting a real workout on this mission.
And, so far, it had proved to be a hundred percent
accurate.
    "I've got it," Schwarz called out. "According to
the software, the address is a remote villa on the
outskirts of San Simone, a couple of hours to the
north of here."
  "Better let the Ironman know."
  "Let me know what?" Lyons asked as he walked
in.
    "That the Bear finally got the Lebanese's address
for us and we can go to work," Schwarz replied.
    "I'll start loading the car," Lyons said as he
turned to go into the makeshift arms room.

Bosnia

FINDING A VEHICLE took less time than Bolan had
even hoped. By the time the Stony Man team reached
the main road, they saw one of the tan Toyota pick-
ups slowly cruising up the dirt road from the castle.
This was one of the desert-vehicle conversions, in
which the metal cab was removed and replaced with
a canvas top so a machine gun could be mounted.
    A full squad of Iranians was in the truck--the
driver, a man on the machine gun and six men in the
back.
    With a whispered command over the comm link,
the team spread out into an L-shaped ambush. Man-
ning took the short leg of the L with his scoped Rem-
ington to take out the driver. The other five men put
their assault rifles on single-shot fire. To save dam-
aging the truck, they would take out its crew with
well-aimed single shots.
    Manning's silenced shot was the signal to pop the
ambush, and his aim was true. The driver took the
bullet and slumped over his wheel, his foot slipping
off of the gas. James targeted the machine gunner
and took him out with two rounds fired into his chest.
    The six men in the back barely had time to bring
their weapons up to fire before they, too, were cut
down. Only one of them got off a burst, but it was
cut short.
    Hawkins ran out of the wood line and, sprinting
to the slowly moving truck, swung himself up to
reach out and kill the idling engine.
  "Great," he said as he examined his catch.




i?

"There's no embarrassing bullet holes in awkward
places. It's almost as good as new."
    The Stony Man team quickly dragged the bodies
off the road and stashed them inside the tree line.
Scooping up handfuls of dirt, they covered the blood
before dropping their rucks in the back.
    A quick call to Katz put them on the right road to
chase their prey. After topping off the truck's fuel
tank from the jerncan in the back, they moved out.
James was behind the wheel with McCarter riding
shotgun with the map, radio and GPS gear.

DRAGAN ASDIK HADN'T been sorry to see Major Nas-
lin, his Iranian fanatics and his nerve-gas rockets
leave his territory. Hopefully that would be the last
he would ever see of the major. Now he could con-
centrate on doing what he had done before the Ira-
nians arrived--run his own affairs and make sure that
the men of his mountain battalion were ready when
the call came for them to fight again.
    Asdik was meeting with his subordinate com-
manders when the duty runner brought the news that
Naslin's last track had been ambushed and all of the
men killed. "The track?" he asked.  "They say it was missing, sir."
    The Bosnian briefly considered radioing to the Ira-
nian base camp to warn Naslin that the Yankee com-
mandos had captured one of his trucks. He knew that
it was his duty to warn his unwelcome ally, but he
just couldn't bring himself to do it. In his heart, he

knew that the Americans were no danger to him or
his people. They were after the gas rockets. How
they had learned of them, he had no idea. He was
beginning to think that the Yankees had spies every-
where. Why they had waited this long to do some-
thing about the rockets, again he had no idea. But
for once, he and the Americans were of one mind.
    The rockets were no good and he put no stock in
Naslin's claim that it was part of God's plan to bring
all of Bosnia under the rule of Islam. The Iranian had
talked endlessly about God's will, so Asdik decided
to leave the Iranian's fate to God's hands.
    If God wanted the rockets launched, he would act
against the Yankees. If he didn't want to see
thousands of civilians killed in his name, he would
allow them to catch up with Naslin.
    "Do you want the radio operator to tell the Ira-
nians about this?" the runner asked.
  "No," Asdik said. "It is in God's hands now."
  "As you command."

Stony Man Farm

THE PLAN TO TRACK the Iranian tracks carrying the
nerve-gas rockets was going very well. While Kurtz-
man was sleeping off his exhaustion, Hunt Wethers
was keeping an eye on the information being sent
from the spy satellite over Bosnia. With Akira To-
kaido as his able assistant, they had watched the




rockets being loaded into nine Toyota pickup trucks
and then convoyed north.
    Most of the route was open to the sky, but when
the trucks disappeared under the trees, the Keyhole
satellite switched from optical to its MAD sensors
and continued tracking them anyway.
    When Barbara Price stepped into the newly
cleaned computer room to see how it was going, she
was stunned to be able to see the floor of the entire
room for once. It was such an improvement that she
considered talking to the cleaning crew about making
hourly visits from now on.
"How's it going?" Price asked Hunt Wethers.
"I sure wish we had one of these Keyhole satel-
lites for our exclusive use," he said wistfully as he
watched the computer-generated icons that repre-
sented the Iranian trucks slowly traverse the map of
eastern Bosnia. "We should be able to do this all the
time."
    "It would break our budget for the next twenty
years to have one put in orbit for us," Price replied.
"And why buy a cow when the milk is free?"
    "Someday, someone in the NRO is going to figure
out what we're doing and slam the door on us and
lock it so we can't get back in."
    She smiled. "They already have, but Aaron keeps
finding where they hide the keys."
  "They've stopped moving," Tokaido announced.
  "Let's see where they are." Wethers's fingers

clicked on his keyboard and brought up a larger-scale
map.
    The radar map showed a rocky bluff with a flat
area in front of it and mountains on each side. The
readouts indicated that the flat area was densely for-
ested, but that was to be expected if this location was
in fact a major base camp. "This may be it," he said.
"This looks to me like a good place to hide."
    "You'd better call Katz and have him pass that on
to Striker."
  "Will do."

Bosnia

MCCARTER TOOK the radio call from Katzenelenbo-
gen. "The trucks have probably reached their desti-
nation," he told Bolan as he held out his marked
map. "At least they stopped in what looks like some
kind of forest hideout this time."
    Bolan wasn't surprised to hear that. If as many
Iranians had remained behind in Bosnia as Kurtzman
thought, the fortress they had left wasn't big enough
to hold all of them.
  "How far away is it?"
    "About sixty miles. We should reach it in three
or four hours."
    "It'll still be dark then," Bolan said, "and that
will let us get in close without being spotted."




CHAPTER NINETEEN

Northern Italy

After loading the tools of their trade into their rented
Lancia sedan at Aviano, Able Team had gotten a
good night's rest before hitting the road for San Si-
mone on the scenic Adriatic coast and the Lebanese's
remote villa to the north of the town.
    Like most small towns in that part of Italy, San
Simone's origins probably went back to Roman
times if not earlier. As Able Team approached the
town, many of the buildings had stone walls that
didn't look like anything that had been built in recent
memory. Interspaced with the older buildings were,
of course, modem, slablike concrete-block structures
with all of the charm of a large cardboard box. None-
theless, the place was charming; too charming to be
the home of a terrorist.
    "We should stop for lunch," Rosario Blancanales
suggested as they started into the town.
    "I had a big breakfast," Lyons countered, "and I
want to get on with this."

    "Talking to the locals may save us a lot of hassle
later," Blancanales reminded him. "In a little coun-
try place like this, they're bound to know what's go-
ing on at the villa."
  "You have a point," Lyons admitted.
    "Good," Schwarz announced as he awakened
from his nap. "I'm starving."
    Like in all older Italian towns, the twisting streets
were narrow and a smart person parked his car half-
way up on the sidewalk and hoped a bus didn't side-
swipe it on the way past.
    "The one on the right or the left?" Schwarz asked,
eyeing the two sidewalk caf6s, unable to make up his
mind.
  "The left-hand side. It's in the shade."
    The trio didn't have to wait long after seating
themselves at an outdoor table adorned with a check-
ered tablecloth and a small bouquet of mountain
flowers in a glass vase.
    "Can I help you?" the waiter asked in heavily
accented English.
    "What would you recommend for lunch?" Blan-
canales asked, glad not to have to use his clumsy
Italian. He was getting better at it, but still had a
ways to go.
    After taking their orders for the dally special, the
waiter departed.
    "This is the life," Schwarz said as he tore off a
chunk of bread from the loaf the waiter had left and




slathered it with butter. "When this gig is over,
maybe we can do a little R and R up here."
    "In your dreams, Gadgets," Lyons told him,
reaching for the bread himself. "Hal will want us
back home ASAP to check in on the latest crisis that
someone has invented. We're not authorized to take
time off. It's not in our contract."  "Bummer."
      "Excuse me," Blancanales called to the waiter af-
ter they had finished their meal.  "Yes, sir?"
    "We came up here to take a look at the Villa del
Norte. Do you know anything about the current own-
ers?"
    The waiter's face tightened. "I would not advise
you to go up there, sir. The owner is a foreigner, and
he does not welcome visitors."
    "We would be willing to compensate him for his
time."
    "He has no need of money," the walter said.
"Though the Virgin knows that he spends little
enough of it here in San Simone. He thinks that he
is--how do you say it? too good for simple people
like us."
  "Is he a German, then, or English?"
    The waiter laughed. "No, but he is just as bad. He
is an Arab."
    Bingo. Lyons smiled to himself. It seemed the first
mistake terrorists always made was to anger the lo-
cals. Whoever this Lebanese guy was, he should have

read Mao's Little Red Book before embarking on a
career of terrorism. Mao had written a manual for
guerrilla fighters, but the same principles worked for
terrorists, as well. If their prey had alienated the lo-
cals, they wouldn't be keen on watching the place
for him or warning him if trouble was coming.
    "We may try our luck anyway," Blancanales said
as he paid the tab and included a respectable tip.
"Thanks for the information."
  "My pleasure."

AS THE NAME IMPLIED, the villa was situated on a
low, barren hill to the north of town. After driving
past it on the main highway for a closer look,
Schwarz drove the Lancia up a cow path and parked
under a grove of olive trees behind the crest of an-
other low hill to the east. Taking their weapons and
surveillance gear out of the trunk, they walked to the
crest of the hill and set up to watch the villa.
    "There's not a hell of a lot of cover and conceal-
ment around that place," Schwarz noted. "We'll
have to crawl in on our bellies to keep from being
seen."
  "We'll hit it at night, then," Lyons said.
    "Did you see the lights on the poles around the
compound when we went by?" Blancanales com-
mented. "He's got the place lit up like a Christmas
tree."
    "And," Schwarz added, "I just spotted the dog
kennel in the back of the main house. They're penned




up now, but you know that he's going to turn them
loose at night."
    Lyons's instincts always pointed him toward using
immediate, overwhelming force to solve a problem,
any problem, which was why he was called the Iron-
man. This didn't mean, however, that he couldn't be
patient or subtle when he had to be, but patience was
always his second choice.
    With the lights and dogs to deal with, a more sub-
tle approach was clearly called for this time. "What's
your call, Pol?" he asked.
    "I say we keep an eye on this place and try to see
if we can establish their routine. If it looks like it's
going to be too much for us to handle, we may have
to call in the Italians to take care of him."
    That would be Lyons's last choice, but Blancan-
ales had a point. Regardless of their will to win, there
was only so much the three of them could do by
themselves.
    "If we're going to be staying here for a while,"
Schwarz said cheerfully, "I'm going back to the res-
taurant and get a little more of that bread and wine.
Maybe they'll have a nice cheese to go with it."
    "If you're hungry," Lyons said dispassionately,
"we've got MREs in the trunk."
    "Give me a break, Ironman. We're in Italy. We
can use the MREs to poison the dogs."
    "Just get back on your earphones and we'll eat
later."

THE SUN WAS GOING DOWN over the Villa del Norte
and there had still been no activity that Able Team
had been able to see. The same black BMW sedan
was parked in the front of the main entrance, and the
curtains were still drawn on all the windows.
    "It's about time to shift to the night-vision gog-
gles," Blancanales said.
    "I wouldn't bother," Schwarz replied. "When
those lights go on, you won't be able to see a damned
thing. We'll be better off using our day glasses."
    "You want me to go back and get our sleeping
gear?" Blancanales asked Lyons. Now that the sun
was going down, the wind was picking up, and as
high as they were in the mountains, the air was tak-
ing on a chill.
"And bring down some MREs, too," Lyons said.
"Heads up," Schwarz called out. "I've got a car
turning off for the villa."
    The villa was well off the highway and had about
a quarter-mile private road leading up to it. From
their observation point, they could watch the road all
the way from the turnoff up to the villa.
    "I make it out to be another BMW sedan," Blan-
canales said. "A white one this time."
    That was another mistake terrorists tended to
make, to pick out a favorite kind of car and stick to
it to the point that it became a signature. The car
bombs they were making had all been planted in Fi-
ats, but it seemed that the terrorists liked to drive
BMWs. They would have blended in better with the




local population had they driven the humble little
Fiats, but they were putting style before common
sense. They thought that they were important, and in
Italy, big men simply didn't ride in Fiats.
    Lyons had his field glasses focused on the front
door when the white BMW came to a halt while
Blancanales watched the car itself. Though the sun
was quickly setting, it was still light enough to see
that the man who opened the door wasn't Italian.
Neither were the three men who got out of the ve-
hicle. The'n: physical appearance and choice of cloth-
ing marked them as being from the Middle East. The
difference was subtle, but it was there if you knew
what to look for.
    "I think we just found our man," Lyons said.
"Definitely Middle Eastern, late twenties, early
thirties, five-ten, dark over dark. It's got to be him."
    "And he just turned the lights on around his
house," Schwarz commented.
    As Schwarz had predicted, the lights illuminated
the entire area, making it too bright for them to watch
the villa with their night-vision goggles.

FOR THE FIRST TIME in his career as an Islamic free-
dom fighter, Ali Nadal was concerned. He wouldn't
allow himself to even think of the word frightened,
but his actions were clearly those of a frightened
man. After the attack on the air base had been broken
up, he had fied to the safety of his villa. He was
convinced that there was a spy in his organization

and the only men who knew about it were men he
knew he could trust.
    It was true that he had struck a blow for the rev-
olution at Aviano, but he had just received a report
that the air base was back in operation already. And
if the planes were taking off for their patrols over
Bosnia again, that meant that he had failed. In the
Libyan desert, he had been taught that failure wasn't
an option. At least not a failure you lived to tell
about. For the revolution to triumph, Islam's holy
warriors were expected to win or to die fighting, sur-
rounded by the broken bodies of their enemies.
    He now realized that trying to attack the base on
the ground had been a mistake. But with the car
bombs being discovered, he'd had no choice. Taking
the car bombs away from him had been the critical
turning point in a plan that had been worked on for
months. And with the timetable he had been given,
he'd had no choice but to try to destroy the base any
way he could. That he had at least tried, though,
wouldn't be taken well. He had failed and he was
still alive.
    The only way he could see to regain his status in
the organization, and maybe save his own life, was
to find the man who had betrayed him and make him
pay the price for his betrayal.
    Looking back, he now realized that he should have
acted sooner. The raid on the garage should have set
him off. But he hadn't taken it seriously because he
hadn't had any warnings from his web of informants




in the Italian police and local governments. Usually
he had more than enough warning of what were
called antiterrorist raids. A police official would call
him and tell him if one of his warehouses was to be
raided or even inspected. He also got tips from his
Mafia connections because they depended on him to
be part of the smuggling pipeline.
    The only conclusion he could come to was that
there had to be a traitor within his organization, and
that traitor was somehow connected to that small
group of Americans who were operating out of the
Aviano air base. Even though he was targeted against
any and all enemies of Islam, the Yankees were the
Great Satan that had to be destroyed at all costs. That
was why he had sent the team in to try to capture
one of them. Had the Yankee been captured, he
would have told Nadal everything he knew before he
died.
    It could be that in his haste to learn more about
this mysterious group of infidels, he had made a mis-
take. He had been told that all of the team he had
sent in had been killed by that one man, but he
doubted that now. And he should have doubted it
much earlier. Had he clone so, he could have taken
better precautions. But that was all in the past now.
He wouldn't make the same mistake twice.
    Nadal broke from his self-recriminations when his
bodyguard, Ahmed, told him that the car was enter-
ing the driveway to the villa. It was bringing his three
most trusted lieutenants for a council of war. He

might have failed to take out Aviano air base, but he
hadn't been defeated. When he received his new or-
ders, he wanted to be ready to move on them.
    Nadal went to the front door to greet his visitors,
the two Palestinians and the Syrian who commanded
his subunits. A fourth man, another Lebanese, had
died in the attack on Aviano, and Nadal had taken
over his cell himself until a replacement could be
sent out from Libya.
    After Ahmed brought a tray of sweet tea and al-
mond cakes, Nadal got right to business. As were all
of their discussions, the meeting was conducted in
Italian or English. To keep a mistake from happening
in public, Arabic couldn't be spoken as long as they
were in Italy.
    "I know that there is a spy in our ranks," Nadal
stated flatly. "I just don't know who he is. I want
you to find him and kill him immediately. And at the
same time, I want you to take a careful look at all
of our Italian informants. If you find any reason,
however slight, to suspect anyone's loyalty, I want
them eliminated, as well. When I make my report to
Tripoli, I want to be able to tell them that we have
eliminated the weakness in the organization."
    "Some of our informants are highly placed," one
of the Palestinians protested. "It might bring atten-
tion to us if they disappear."
     "People disappear all the time," Nadal countered.
 "If it is done right, there will be no connection to
US.' '




 "What are we going to do about Aviano?" the
 other Palestinian asked.
     "We will do as we have always done, Nazir--
 obey our orders," Nadal said. "If we are ordered to
 make another attack, we will make it."
     "Even though they are on guard against us now?
 It would be suicide to try it again."
    "No matter what they do, we will obey our or-
ders."
    "But," Nazir began, attempting to continue the
conversation, "we will be--"
    Without changing the expression on his face, Na-
dal reached for the 9 nun Beretta holstered at the
small of his back. Drawing and aiming the pistol with
one swift movement, he fired a single shot into Na-
zir's chest.
    Ignoring the blood leaking onto his Algerian beige
leather couch, Nadal holstered the pistol. "Are there
any more questions?"
    The other two men didn't meet his eyes, and there
were no further questions.
    Ahmed had come running at the sound of the shot,
his Beretta subgun ready. "Take him out and feed
him to the dogs," Nadal ordered, nodding at the
corpse. "And you help him," he ordered the re-
maining Palestinian.
    Being eaten by dogs was the worst fate that could
befall a man. But the Palestinian dared not protest.
He knew how fast Nadal was with that pistol.

CHAPTER TWENTY

Bosnia

The trip to the Iranian camp had taken the Stony Man
team considerably longer than Bolan had thought it
would, but it couldn't be helped. For one thing, they
had driven the entire route with their night-vision
goggles rather than risk someone seeing their head-
lights, and that had slowed them. For another, even
with the Keyhole satellite and the GPS to guide them,
the roads had turned out to be little more than dirt
tracks through the mountains and had been difficult
to follow.
    With all the delays, it was daylight before they
closed in on the target, but the Farm passed the word
on that the trucks hadn't left yet, so there was still
time. Stopping a little more than a mile short of the
objective, David McCarter took a final GPS reading
of their location and checked it against the reading
from the satellite.
    "They're about eight hundred meters on the other
side of that point up ahead," he told Bolan.




"We'll take it the rest of the way on foot."
Getting back into their rucksacks, the commandos
moved out in a tactical formation. This close to their
camp, the Iranians were sure to have put out some
kind of security. Strangely enough, though, they
didn't encounter any sentries or guard posts along
the rocky mute. That kind of overconfidence was
welcome, because it usually had fatal consequences.
    Once they reached the mountain peak, the Iranian
camp lay directly in front of them, secreted under the
trees. From the air, there would be little or no sign
of it. But from a vantage point to the side and a little
above, such as the one the Stony Man team now
occupied, it could be seen.
    "It looks like they've got at least a battalion down
there, Striker," McCarter said as he handed his field
glasses to Bolan. "Heavy weapons and all."
    Bolan focused the glasses, and the scene jumped
out at him. Whoever was in charge of those troops
was good. The camp had a proper perimeter with
machine-gun bunkers, guard posts and what looked
like mortar pits all hidden under the trees. He
couldn't see any barracks or mess halls and figured
that they had been built inside the cave so their heat
signatures wouldn't register on the sensors of recon
planes or satellites.
    It was a thoroughly professional job, and at least
a full battalion of infantry with armor and artillery
support would be required to knock it out. Either that
or a massive air raid. But even if he could get strike

aircraft in, the Iranians could retreat to their cave and
be safe. Unless, of course, the aircraft could deliver
something big enough to drop the roof of the cave
on their heads.
    "We need to talk to Katz about this," Bolan said.
"We need his help on this one."
  "What's he going to do for us?"
    "Find us a couple of one-ton smart bombs to bring
that cave down on top of them."
    The Briton grinned. "That's a good idea. I rather
didn't fancy climbing down there myself."
    while Bolan placed the call, the rest of the team
got comfortable in the rocks and watched the activ-
ities below.

Aviano Air Base, Italy

Now THAT Able Team had gone after the Lebanese,
Jack Grimaldi and Major Hammer were working in
the Stony Man CP taking turns with the communi-
cations gear. When Bolan's call came in, Katze-
nelenbogen already had the satellite photos of the
Iranian camp on his desk and was able to confirm
Bolan's assessment of the situation. The question
was how to best deal with it. Since Brognola had
"borrowed" Hammer from the Air Force to be their
air adviser until the situation was over, this was the
time for him to start earning his pay.
  Calling him over, Katz pointed to the photos.




 "What's the best way to take out a place like that?
 A pinpoint attack or mass bombing?"
     Hammer looked at the satellite recon photos and
 the topographical map of the Iranian camp. "That
 cave makes it a little tricky," he said honestly, "but
 a couple of two-thousand-pound smart bombs in the
 mouth of the cave should do it nicely. If they don't
 bring the roof down, the overpressure should take
care of anyone inside."  "Overpressure?"
    When he saw the look on Katz's face, Hammer
added, "I think you ground pounders call it 'blast
effect.' In a confined place like a cave, you can get
a much more powerful effect with a smaller explo-
sion than you can out in the open. The cave will
contain the blast so it isn't wasted, but the trick is to
get the bombs in there."
    "And what's the best way to do that?" Katz
asked.
    "That's easy," the pilot said, grinning. "A stealth
fighter. It can come in from the west with a couple
of GBU-27s and drive them fight through the front
door. If Striker can illuminate the target the same
way he did for the STABO canister delivery, it'll be
a piece of cake."
    Katz looked at Hammer. His original intention in
having the pilot temporarily assigned to the team was
to keep him from letting anything slip about the Bos-
nian exercise. But since the pilot was on board, Katz
might as well try to get more out of him than merely

aeronautical advice. As always on Stony Man oper-
ations, the fewer people who knew what was actually
going on, the better. Katz didn't want to get another
aircrew involved unless he absolutely had to.
  "Can you fly a stealth fighter?"
    "Before I flew Night Owls, I was an Eagle driver,
but I've been checked out on the F-117."
    "Can you hit anything with their ordnance pack-
age?"
    "I can put a GBU-27 smart bomb within three feet
of the laser spot," he said with some pride. "We
carded them on our Strike Eagles, too, and I got all
good hits when I went Scud hunting in the Gulf."
    "Good," Katz said as he reached for the phone.
"Get ready to go flying while I see about rounding
up a stealth fighter for you."
    "That may be a little difficult," Hammer said.
"The stealth jocks are a little particular about who
they even let get close to their toys."
    "I'll just ask the Man to have the blue-suiters loan
us one."
    These guys were always talking about "the Man"
as if the words were all in caps and Hammer couldn't
help but think that it was the President of the United
States they were so casually referring to. "Who do
you guys work for, anyway?" He couldn't stop him-
self from asking.
    Katz smiled wolfishly. "I could tell you, Major,
but then I'd have to kill you and I need you to fly
for me."
  "Never mind."




HAL BROGNOLA also had copies of the satellite pho-
tos of the Iranian camp that Katz had examined and
he had also been thinking of an air strike. For some-
thing that big, there was no other way to take it out.
Phoenix was good, but they weren't good enough to
take on an entrenched battalion and suicide was not
an option.
    When Katz's request for the loan of a stealth
fighter and two smart bombs came in, he got right
on it. Since the nerve gas was on the top of the Pres-
ident's agenda, he immediately got to see him and
made the necessary calls to the Chief of Staff of the
Air Force from the Oval Office. There were some
perks with his job.

TWO HOURS LATER, ratz called Hammer back in.
"Get down to the flight line," he said, "and get
suited up. I've got a stealth fighter standing by for
you."
  "Just like that?"
    Katz grinned. "All you have to do is call the right
people, and things happen."
    Hammer shook his head in amazement. "I'm go-
ing to that cave site, right?"
  "I'll give you the coordinates once you're in the
air."

  "Can I at least know where I'm going?"
  "East, to Bosnia."

  "Damn, I was hoping for the Riviera."
  "They don't have any nerve-gas rockets there."
  "I'm on the way."
    As unlikely as it sounded, Hammer found that
Katz was as good as his word. When he walked out
of the ready room in his flight gear, he saw the
wicked shape of a night-black F-117A stealth fighter
waiting in the hangar for him, its twin GE F404 tur-
bines humming at an idle.
    "She's loaded up as directed, sir," the crew chief
said, saluting as he reported. "You have two
GBU-27s with laser-guidance heads."
    The two-thousand-pound GBU-27, better known
to the public as the smart bomb, had been the real
star of Desert Storm. During the air-war phase of the
Gulf War, the worldwide TV audience had sat in
front of their screens mesmerized as they watched
the bombs being guided into their targets with almost
magical accuracy. The American TV audience had
cheered when they watched smart bombs take out
single tracks on the road or blast down the air shafts
of command bunkers like a scene out of the Star
Wars movies.
    This had almost been video-arcade warfare, and
the public had eaten it up. But they hadn't enjoyed
it half as much as the pilots had. Until the advent of
laser-guided weapons, delivering the bomb on the
target had always been an art form, not a repeatable
science. With the smart bombs, though, it had be-




come a snap. They almost guaranteed first-round hits
under any conditions.
    "Thank you, Sergeant," Hammer replied, return-
ing the salute before climbing into the plane's cock-
pit. 'Tll take real good care of her for you."
    "You'd better, sir," the crew chief warned. "I
have my ass on the line because I have to personally
report back to the Air Force chief of staff when you
bring her back."
  'Tll be careful."

Bosnia

"KATZ HAS ROUNDED UP a stealth fighter with a cou-
ple of smart bombs on board," David McCarter re-
ported, "and it's on the way now. Hammer's driving,
and he wants to know if we can illuminate the target
for him."
    "No problem," Bolan said. "Put Gary and T.J. on
it again. They did a good job with the STABO can-
ister."
    Taking the target illuminator out of their rocks, the
two commandos found a good place in the rocks and
set up their equipment. If Hammer wanted it lit up,
they could accommodate him.

LIKE ms TR-3 Night Owl, the F-117A stealth fighter
Major John Hammer was flying was subsonic. But
for this kind of mission, speed was not of the es-
sence. The opposition didn't have emplaced antiair-

craft weapons, and there was no gauntlet of MiG
fighters or SAtMs that he would have to penetrate.
And with the heat-diffusing exhausts of the fighter
cooling his exhaust plume, the Strellas wouldn't be
able to get a lock on him, either. This would be a
milk ran.
    It should be a milk run, the pilot automatically
corrected himself. As every combat pilot was all too
aware, there was always the golden-BB factor to con-
sider. A golden BB was any shot, even a rifle bullet,
that was blindly aimed up into the sky, but that just
happened to hit something essential as you flew by.
It happened all the time in aerial warfare. Even the
Red Baron had fallen to a golden BB. In his case,
however, the something vital it had hit had been him.
    But along with the rest of the long list of things
that could end his career, Hammer was too busy to
worry about it. He had a mission to fly and two tons
of high explosive to deliver on the target. If he ran
into a golden BB, he ran into it. Worse things could
happen he could miss the target completely.
      Approaching the target area, he keyed his throat
mike. "Striker, this is Hammer, over."  "Striker, go."
    "This is Hammer, I am inbound vector two-eight-
niner. What's the situation down there? Over."
    "This is Striker," Bolan answered. "The target is
as briefed. There are no flak guns and no SAMs, so
you're free to do your thing. Over."
  "Roger, copy target clear," he acknowledged.




"Just make sure that you're well out of range. These
things make a big bang, over."  "Roger, we're clear."
  "This is Hammer. Light it up, then."
    Hawkins and Manning were on the laser desig-
nator, and they had it aimed at the middle of the
cave's entrance so all they had to do was switch it
on. Unlike the red lasers that were featured in all of
the action-adventure movies, this laser was invisible
to the naked eye. It wouldn't do to have their targets
see a big red dot appear on the ground right in front
of them.
    "The target's lit up," Hawkins radioed to Bolan
on the comm link.
    "The target's illuminated," Bolan radioed to
Hammer.
    "I got it," the pilot replied, seeing the pip appear
on his target-designator screen. After locking the
aiming point into his computer, Hammer waited until
the readout told him that the signal had been ac-
cepted by the bomb's guidance units in the belly of
his plane. When the red light came on, he banked
the F-117A around to come in on his bomb run and
opened the doors to the internal weapons bay.
    "Look out, baby," he called out over the radio,
'"cause here it comes."
    Coming out of the west, the aircraft was silent, as
well as being invisible to radar. There was no thunder
of jet engines to announce its presence and no smoke
trail in the sky as was the case with so many con-

ventional jet fighter bombers. Someone with real
good eyes might have been able to spot the black
speck in the sky, but would have had to know exactly
where to look for it.
    Because the dust that would be thrown up as soon
as the first bomb hit would obscure the laser marker,
Hammer salvoed his two weapons ten seconds apart.
That way, the blast of the first smart bomb wouldn't
affect the trajectory of the second, and it would al-
ready have its lock on the laser's aiming point so the
dust wouldn't affect its approach.
    With the fire-control computer controlling the
weapons drop, Hammer didn't even have to punch
the bombs off. At the right point, they were auto-
matically released.
    "They're on the way," he radioed as he pulled the
fighter bomber into a tight turn. "And I'm out of
here."
    "Roger," Bolan replied. "Thanks, and we'll call
in the BDA when it's over. Have a cold one on us."
    At Bolan's signal, the rest of the team hugged the
earth on the back side of the ridge. Four thousand
pounds of HE wasn't the biggest explosion they had
ever been close to, but it was more than enough to
want to take cover from.
    The first bomb went right through the mouth of
the cave and detonated ten yards inside. The cave
contained the blast of two thousand pounds of ex-
plosives like a giant cannon barrel. After banking off
of the rear and side walls of the cave, the blast




belched out the front, carrying bits and pieces of
whatever had been in its path.
    The second bomb hit a little farther out, but with
even more destructive force. In its case, the blast ric-
ocheted off the rock floor and smashed into the roof
of the cave with stunning effect. For an instant, ev-
erything seemed to be normal. Then, with a groan
that reverberated through the mountain, the roof col-
lapsed. Chunks of rocks weighing tons rained down,
finishing the destruction that the bombs had started.
    When the roar of the rockfall echoed away, the
silence was stunning. Then, the earth shook anew as
more tons of rock slid down the mountainside into
the void that had been left by the collapse of the roof.
    "Jesus, Mary and Joseph," Encizo muttered as a
cloud of smoke and dust boiled up into the air.
    For several long minutes, the entire camp was ob-
scured. Slowly the dust settled to reveal a scene of
complete devastation. The cave was gone, hidden un-
der a new face of the mountain. The rockfall had also
sent huge boulders smashing through the camp, de-
stroying everything in their path.
    Stunned survivors staggered around not knowing
what to do next. Most of their comrades had been in
the cave and were buried under tons of rock. Their
vehicles had been in the cave, as well, along with
the majority of their supplies. These Iranians were
finished as a fighting force.
  "That should take care of that," Hawkins said.

"And I am locked and loaded for a little R and R in
Italy before we have to go back."
    "Better keep it in your pants, T.J.," James cau-
tioned him. "Haven't you ever heard of a BDA?"
    "Katz wouldn't do that to us, would he?" Haw-
kins wailed.
    A Bomb Damage Assessment was a physical ex-
amination of the target area after the bomb run was
over. Usually it was done to see how much damage
the bombs had done to the target. This time, though,
it was pretty obvious that walking around down there
could be hazardous to one's health.
    "Katz wouldn't order us to do a BDA," James
agreed with him, and then paused. "But Hal Brog-
nola might."
  "Bummer!"




CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Stony Man Farm

As Air Force Major John Hammer was flying his
stealth fighter into Bosnia to deliver its belly load of
laser-guided HE, the primary Stony Man players
gathered again in Aaron Kurtzman's computer room
to watch the fireworks. The satellite video of the Ira-
nian camp was crystal clear, and they could almost
see the men on the ground right before the first smart
bomb struck.
    "All right!" Akira Tokaido yelled as he jumped
up and high-rived the empty air over his keyboard
when flame and smoke belched out of the cave
mouth like a giant cannon. "Go get them Air
Force!"
    Even Hunt Wethers smiled when he saw the re-
sults of his having tracked the Toyota pickup trucks
pay off big-time. He always tried to keep his emo-
tions closely in check so as not to influence his ra-
tional thinking process. Good problem solving re-
quired that a man keep a cool mind at all times. But

seeing these spectacular results of his work justified
a sense of satisfaction for a job well done.
    "That should pretty well take care of that." Hal
Brognola wore a satisfied smile as he watched the
thick, billowing cloud of smoke and dust rise in the
air where the cave had been. "And it's about damned
time, too. The President has been very concerned
about this situation, and I'll be happy to be able to
tell him that he can finally put this to rest."
    "Wait a minute," Kurtzman said, breaking in on
the round of mutual self-congratulation. "We may
have a stray truck that didn't get rounded up with
the rest.
    "No," he added after a pause, "make that two
strays."
  The silence that followed was deafening.
    The program that had put the satellite to tracking
the Toyota pickups from the fortress to the camp by
the cave hadn't been shut down and was still running.
And since the dust that obscured the target area
didn't impede its radar-mapping sensors, it was still
tracking two of the trucks. The rest of the vehicles
had entered the cave where not even the Keyhole
sensors could see them, but these two trucks hadn't
gone inside before the bombs stuck.
"What do you mean?" Brognola snapped.
Kurtzman pointed to the upper left-hand side of
his monitor. "I've got two of the marked trucks mov-
ing out of the area. They were the last two to arrive,




 and it looks like they weren't taken out in the at-
 tack."
    Brognola felt like a prizefighter had punched him
in the stomach. "Oh, no."
    "Oh, yes," Kurtzman said. "And I don't think
that's the worst of it."
  "What do you mean?"
    "I'11 have to run the tape back to check and make
sure, but I don't think that those particular two trucks
off-loaded their cargoes before the bombs hit. If
that's the case, we're back to square one again."
    The big Fed found an empty chair and sat down.
"Get Katz on the horn," he told Price, "and have
him alert Striker about this immediately."
"I'm doing that right now," she replied.
Wethers's smile was gone now as he brought a
detailed map of the area around the camp onto his
screen and superimposed the icons marking the last
two Toyotas. The cyber-chase was still on, and he
wasn't going to let the terrorists get away from him.
    Price saw him flick over to the map and asked,
"What're they doing?"
    "It looks like they're making for the road that runs
through the valley north of the camp. When they
reach that, they can go either west into Bosnia or try
to escape to the east."
    "They won't be going east," Kurtzman said.
"That's the Serb Republic, and they don't much like
Muslims, Iranian or not. They're going to continue

west, and they're still going to try to use that nerve
gas."
    Brognola's hand went into his pocket and came up
with two solitary, lint-covered antacid tabs. It was
time for him to break into Price's stash before he
flew back to report to the President.

Bosnia

As ~IE DROVE AWAY from the blazing camp, Major
Naslin knew that God had protected him from the
Yankees yet again because his work still wasn't
done. The nerve-gas attacks would have to be scaled
back now, but they would take place nevertheless.
He still had almost two dozen rockets in the two
surviving Toyotas. He would have to change the tar-
get list and concentrate on hitting the largest towns
and hope that panic among the infidels would do the
rest.
    There was still a good chance that when he was
done, all of Bosnia would be Muslim once again.
    He looked back at the sixteen survivors of his for-
mer hundred-man unit and realized that he was lucky
to have even that many left. On the trip out from
Asdik's fortress, each vehicle had carried only five
or six men. But some of the other crews had been
visiting with the crews of the two surviving trucks
while their vehicles were in the cave being fitted with
the rocket launchers.
  Naslin saw their survival as being another sign of




God's favor. He had fewer men, true, but those who
had been left were the toughest of the tough. They
had been through the fire and had emerged only
stronger in their faith and determination to bring
God's vengeance on the infidels. With even only half
a dozen men like these, he would still be able to do
his duty to the future of Islam.
    The modified Katusha rocket launchers he had in-
tended to use to launch the gas rockets were gone,
buried under tons of rubble along with the rest of
their supplies and equipment. But he wasn't going to
let that prevent him from carrying out his mission.
There were other ways to launch rockets, but even if
they couldn't be launched, the gas attacks could still
be made because of his men.
    As a last resort, Naslin vowed that he would send
his men to detonate the rockets themselves. And he
wouldn't hesitate if this time he had to die for the
revolution, as well. Suicide as such was prohibited
in the Koran, but freely giving up one's life in the
conduct of a mission against the infidels was highly
praised. The holy martyrs were welcomed into Par-
adise and sat on the right hand of God.
    He hoped to live to see the glorious triumph of
Islam in the West. But if it required his life to make
it happen, he was more than ready to die as a martyr
to the cause. As were, he was convinced, his men. If
he told them that their only path to heaven was
through martyrdom, he was confident that they would
follow him to death.

    The sudden attack had brought home to him the
fact that he had seriously underestimated his ene-
mies. Someone, somehow, had leaked information to
the West, and the sudden attack was the result. His
suspicions were that one of the few Bosnians who
was in on the plan had been the traitor. If he survived
the next few days, he would track this man down and
make him pay for his betrayal.
    For now, though, he had to make good his escape
so he could deliver the rockets he had left to his
enemies.

As THE DUST SETrLED, the Stony Man team could
see the damage Hammer's bomb run had inflicted on
the base camp. The cave had completely vanished;
there wasn't even a trace of where it had been under
the tons of rock. When the bomb had brought the
roof down, the mountain had slid in to fill the void.
There was no telling how many men had been buried
in the collapse, but they would remain there for all
time. The presence of the nerve-gas rockets under the
debris made sure that no one would ever try to ex-
cavate the site.
    "Are we going to go down there and finish them
off?" Hawkins asked as he watched the dazed sur-
vivors try to figure out what had happened to them.
From the way they were aimlessly staggering around
down there, a decent Gift Scout troop could go in
and mop them up.
  Bolan shook his head. "No. We got what we came




 for, and someone else can worry about what's left of
 them. We need to leave something for the UN to take
 care of after we get out of here."
    "We may not be finished yet, Striker," McCarter
said as he took off the earphones of their satcorn
radio. "Katz says that Kurtzman's satellite is telling
them that two of the trucks escaped and are heading
west fight now."
  "Let me talk to him."
    Katz was apologetic when he explained the situ-
ation to Bolan. "I'm sorry, Striker," he said, "but
Hal wants you guys to keep after those trucks that
got away. From what they can see, they appear to be
carrying some of the rockets. He knows that you
have been pushing the limits, but you're all that we
have on the ground in the area. It's imperative that
none of those rockets are launched anywhere in Bos-
nia."
    Bolan saw the truth in what Katz was saying. He
also knew that the Israeli wouldn't commit them un-
less there was no other option available. And like
Katz, he had an abhorrence of chemical weapons.
Even if there was only one nerve-gas rocket unac-
counted for, he knew they had to go after it.
    "Jack and Hammer are loading up the Black
Hawk for another resupply run," Katz continued.
"And they'll have attopine injectors, full protective
suits and gas masks on board."
    Bolan knew that if the nerve gas was used, the
protective measures really wouldn't do them much

good. The suits and masks worked okay if you were
in a static position with medical backup and a de-
contamination unit close by. But the way this team
operated, they were more than useless, particularly if
the nerve gas involved was VX. With that particular
agent, a single drop on the skin would kill. A small
tear or leak in the suit would be as fatal as not having
any protection at all. Their only hope to survive this
was to make sure that the rockets weren't fired at all.
    "Hold off on the resupply," Bolan said. "We
have the chemical-detector unit you sent on the first
run, and the suits won't do us any good. We're okay
on everything else for the next three or four days,
but I'll call you if we need anything."
    "As you wish," Katz said before switching sub-
jects. "You'll want to copy down the route they're
taking."
  "Send it."
    As the Stony Man team drove away from the
mountain overlooking what was left of the Iranian
camp, McCarter had Hawkins give it a wide berth.
Even buried under tons of rock, there was no telling
if any of the gas had been released. Once they
reached the main road to the north of the camp, Bo-
lan checked in with Katz again to get an update.
    "They're moving fast," Katz said, relaying the in-
formation on the Iranian tracks Wethers was track-
ing, "and they're still heading west."
  "We'll head west, then."




 THE FARTHER WEST the Stony Man team drove, the
more populated the area became. Once they were out
of the mountains, the land became rolling hills and
valleys. Little villages and farms dotted the land-
scape, but too many of them proved to be destroyed
and deserted when they got closer. The few people
they saw in the distance stayed clear of them. They
weren't in a gun jeep or an armored vehicle, but with
the matte tan paint, the Toyota pickup had a decid-
edly military look to it. The locals couldn't tell which
side they were on, but experience had taught them
that any military unit could be dangerous.
    Now that they were coming into the zones pa-
trolled by the UN PROFOR, they had to keep an eye
out for them, too, and this was where the Farm came
in again. The same satellite that was tracking the Ira-
nians was also keeping track of the PROFOR units
and marking them, as well.
    At midday, Katzenelenbogen called McCarter.
"There's a French mech unit coming your way," he
reported. "They're about six klicks to the north, and
you need to clear the road to let them get past you."
    "Give me their grid coordinates," the Phoenix
Force Leader requested.
    After marking his map, McCarter wasted no time
telling Hawkins to get off the road and up into the
wooded hills to get under cover.
    Hiding from the good guys wasn't a new occur-
rence for the members of Phoenix Force. The clan-
destine nature of their work meant that they usually

had to stay hidden from everyone. This time, though,
they didn't have a cover story or false papers to let
them go free. If they were surprised by a PROFOR
unit, they would be disarmed and taken into custody.
Katz would be able to free them, but probably not
until it was too late.
    With their Toyota well hidden in the trees, the
commandos dismounted and watched the convoy of
a dozen armored cars and personnel carders rumble
past on the road below. When the French unit had
passed, McCarter let them get a mile or two down
the road before giving the order to move out again.

MAJOR NASLIN WAS also keeping a sharp eye out for
the PROFOR units. With as few men as he now had,
he couldn't afford to get into a firefight. And since
the Aviano air base hadn't been taken out of action
as the plan had called for, he had to be alert against
enemy aircraft, as well. Fortunately, though, the
trucks that had escaped destruction had been carrying
almost a dozen Strella missiles between them, so he
could fight back if UN aircraft appeared.
    The odds were against him as they had never been
before, but a merciful God had seen him through this
trial so far and the Iranian was confident that He
wouldn't let him fall now. Not when he was so close
to victory. He had been prepared to give his life for
the revolution since he had been a child. Never had
it been so close as it was now, and he was unafraid.




But his death would be so much sweeter if it came
as the price of this victory he sought.
    If he was successful, generations of schoolchildren
would remember his name on Martyrs' Day. If he
failed, even his family would curse his memory.

"WE'RE GOING tO need to get some gas," Hawkins
announced half an hour later, "and real soon."
      "How much more do we have?" McCarter
glanced over at the fuel gauge on the dashboard.
  "I'd say about another ten miles or so."
  "You should have let me know sooner."
    "I was a little busy trying to keep us out of sight
of the UN, remember."
    "We need a gas station ASAP," McCarter radioed
to Aviano. "Can you help us find one?"
    "A gas station or just a source of fuel?" Katz
asked.
  "Just the fuel."
    Katz studied the satellite video that was being sent
directly to the CP and compared what he was seeing
with the large-scale military map of the area on his
desk.
    "I have some kind of a garage on the edge of the
village right over the hill in front of you, a place
called Diminia. There's a couple of tracks parked
around it and what looks like an above-ground fuel
tank behind the building. I can't read any markings
on the tank to see if it's gas or diesel, but it's worth
a try."

  "We're on it," McCarter said and signed off.
  "What does he have?" Bolan asked.
  "There's a village right down the road, and Katz
says it has a gas station or a garage we might be able
to use."
  "We also need to try to find a couple more jerri-
cans, too," Encizo commented. "We can't count on
finding a gas station every time we need one."
  The village looked deserted when the Stony Man
team cautiously drove in. As Katz had told them, the
garage was on the edge of town and there were trucks
parked in front, but the place looked deserted, as
well.
  "What kind of village is this," Hawkins asked as
he looked around, "Serb, Croat or Muslim? I don't
know how to tell the difference between them."
  "Are you going ethnic on us," Encizo asked,
"and picking your targets by culture?"
  "No," Hawkins replied, shaking his head, "I'm
just trying to figure out the likelihood of someone
shooting at us based on what flag they're saluting.
It's strictly a rules-of-engagement kind of thing."
  "The rules of engagement are 'If someone shoots
at us, we will shoot back at them regardless of their
religion, creed or political faction.'"
  Hawkins grinned. "That's fair enough."
  "That's the only way we ever work."
    Luck was with them again, and the storage tank
behind the garage still contained fifty or sixty gallons
of gasoline. Rummaging around inside the garage,


they found a hand pump to transfer the gas. While
James and Manning filled the tank, Encizo and Haw-
kins scrounged three more serviceable jerricans to
add to the one that had come with the truck.
    As soon as the Toyota was refueled and the full
gas cans had been stashed in the back, the Stony Man
team was on the road again.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

San Simone

From Able Team's observation point overlooking the
Villa del Norte, Schwarz's acoustical scanner picked
up the sound of a shot coming from inside the build-
ing. "Someone just fired a pistol in there," he an-
nounced.
  "Just one shot?" Lyons asked.
  Schwarz nodded.
    "Maybe our man was expressing his dissatisfac-
tion with one of his subordinates."
    "Or maybe he was cleaning his pistol and had an
accident."
    "Someone's coming out the back of the house,"
Blancanales said. "Two men and they're carrying a
body."
    The two men took their burden to the kennel be-
hind the house, opened the door in the chain-link
fence and dumped it inside. In a flash, the dogs were
on it, tearing and eating the flesh.
  "God Almighty!" Schwarz muttered.




    "Okay," Lyons said. "Now we have him cold.
He's a hotheaded bastard and likes to feed the bodies
of his men to his dogs. Nice guy."
    "He's acting like a mafioso," Blancanales said,
"not an Arab terrorist."
    "Maybe he's been in Italy too long," Schwarz
observed, "and the Mafia has rubbed off on him like
a bad habit."
    "Now that we have a good ID," Blancanales said,
"and know that it's him, what are we going to do
about it?"
    Lyons was silent for a long moment. "Well," he
said finally, "I guess that we can always go down
there and bust his chops."
    "Or?" Blancanales could hear an unspoken alter-
native still forming in Lyons's mind.
    "Or we can just sit up here and see what plays
out down them. We're on him now, so the ball's in
our court.' '
    Neither Blancanales nor Schwarz could believe
what they had just heard. Carl "The Ironman" Ly-
ons was recommending caution?
"Are you feeling okay, boss?" Schwarz asked.
"I've never felt better, Gadgets. I'm just trying to
put myself into the mind of that bastard. He's got
some kind of problem, and I'd like to know what it
is. And I think he's just squirrelly enough that he'll
slip up and let us know before too long. Remember,
we don't just want him--we want everyone who's

working for him, too. That will save someone else a
lot of trouble later."
    "He has a problem other than the fact that every
cop in Italy and hundreds of NATO security people
are after him, you mean?"
    "Actually, yes. If he's shooting his own people,
he's panicking, and I'd like to see if we can work
that into something we can use."
    "I thought that was my line," Blancanales said.
"I'm the guy who's supposed to do all of the psych-
ing out and playing mind games around here."
  "Just consider it cross training," Lyons replied.
    "Does that mean that I'm going to have to start
busting down doors, then?"
    "Better get yourself some shoulder pads, Pol,"
Schwarz said, grinning, "or start taking steroids.
You're not built for going through doors like the
Ironman."

ALl NADAL PICKED UP the phone and was surprised
to hear the voice of his main Italian informant, the
head of the Italian police's drag-interdiction unit, on
the other end of the line. The Lebanese had other
midlevel police informants, but this man was the
most senior official he had in the Italian government.
    "You have a problem," the police colonel said
without identifying himself or passing pleasantries.
"There is a top secret American counterterrorist unit
operating against you. They are the ones who hit
your safehouses, and they foiled your attack on the




air base. They have also been able to break into your
computer communications and have released infor-
mation about you to the police and the UN."
    Nadal felt a chill shoot through him. "How did
they break into my computers?"
    "I do not have that information," the colonel con-
tinued. "I just know that they did. I also know that
they have access to everything you had in your com-
puter files. In short you have been compromised, and
I recommend that you leave the country immediately.
You are in danger every minute that you remain in
Italy, and there's nothing I can do to protect you
now. It's grown far too big, and I must protect my-
self. Once you are back in Tripoli, I will contact you
through the usual channels, but I can no longer afford
to have any contact with you here in Italy. Good
luck."
    The line went dead, and Nadal put the handset
back on the cradle. This couldn't have come at a
worse time. There would never be a good time for
him to hear that the network he had spent so much
time building had been compromised. But with the
decision about further attacks on Aviano still up in
the air, this wasn't the time for him to abandon his
operation and seek personal safety in Libya. His con-
trollers would take that as a sign of cowardice, and
the penalty for that was death.
    He didn't doubt that the colonel's warning was
true, but he couldn't go back to Libya now and still
live. The only way he could survive was to turn this

situation around. This special Yankee counterterrorist
team had to be the men he had been curious about
before. From the reports of his agents, there were
only five of them, and one was believed to be a pilot.
Surely he could come up with a plan to take out five
men.
    He hadn't forgotten that he had already tried to
capture one these Americans on the base and had
failed. It was clear to him now that he hadn't chosen
the right man for that job. When he targeted them
again, he would use every man he had to ensure that
the hit was made properly. Then, when the Yankees
were out of the way, he would see what he could do
to put his organization back together. He wasn't
about to stand by and watch while what he had
worked so long to put in place was brought to min.
    On his way back to the living room, Nadal put a
stem, determined look on his face. He couldn't let
his two remaining cell leaders know of the police
colonel's warning. They were both good men, but
they didn't bum with the same revolutionary zeal that
fueled everything he did. If they learned that the or-
ganization had been compromised, they might try to
run to save their lives. And that would be unfortu-
nate, because then he would have to kill them, too.
    "We have a new mission," he told them. "First,
though, as soon as you get back to your cells, I want
you to desh-oy all of your computers immediately.
The enemy has found a way to break into them, and
it is no longer safe to use them for communication."




"But everything we have planned is on our com-
puters, as well as all of our contacts."
    "Make printouts of the information if you have to,
but destroy the computers.
    "Then," he said, looking both of the men straight
in the eye, "there is a small group of Americans
based at the Aviano air base who must die as soon
as possible. There are only five of them and you can
use as many men as you have to to get the job done."
    "Are these the same men that Jamal went after?"
the Syrian asked cautiously. The failed assassination
team had come from his cell, and the man in charge
had been one of his best. Or so he had thought.
    Nadal nodded. "Yes. And this time you cannot
fall. They must be killed, all of them."
    The Syrian locked eyes with his leader. "Now that
the air-base security forces have been alerted against
us, it will not be as easy for us to get weapons into
the base as it was the first time."
    "I know that." Nadal kept his voice neutral. He
didn't want to have to kill this man, too. The cell
structure of his organization required good subcom-
manders, and he didn't have anyone to replace him
at this time. "But it has to be done anyway."
    The Syrian dropped his gaze. "I will set my best
men on it."
    "Both of you will do that," Nadal said. "And you
will lead them yourself."
He glanced at his watch. "Now, I want you to go

and ready your units. I will be in touch with you on
the phone tomorrow to work out the details."

"HEADS UP, GUYS," Schwarz sang out. "We have
movement to our front."
    In the glare of the security lights around the villa,
they saw the front door open. This time, there were
only two men who walked out and got into the white
BMW sedan.
    "You were right about him having been pissed at
one of his own guys," Blancanales told Lyons. "He
seems to have misplaced one of his visitors."
    "He didn't misplace him," Schwarz said. "He in-
vited him to be his dogs' dinner.
    "Do we follow these guys?" Schwarz continued
as he watched the two men start down the long drive-
way. After spending a day on the hill, a nice warm
car ride would go well right now.
    Lyons shook his head. "No, I got their mug shots
and the plate number, so we can track them down
later. Right now, I want the guy in the house."
  "So we're going to follow him?"
  "More or less," Lyons said.
    "Dammit, Ironman?' Schwarz exploded. "How
about letting us in on what's going down? I'm freez-
ing my ass off up here and I'm hungry. If there's
some purpose to this exercise, I'd really like to know
what it is."
  "Patience, Gadgets, patience. But since you're




burning with such a great desire to go into action,
there is something you can do for the cause."
  "What's that?"
    "Do you have any of your tracking beacons in
your little bag of tricks?"
  "Sure. I always have a couple."
    "Good. Here's what I'd like you to do. I want you
to sneak down there and--"
    "Forget it," Schwarz broke in. "I'm not going
anywhere near those man-eating dogs."
  "They only eat you after you're dead."
    "No way, Jack," Schwarz stated, shaking his
head. "My telephone psychic told me to stay away
from dogs this year."
    Just then, Lyons's cellular phone rang. "Lyons,"
he answered.
    "We have a problem," Katzenelenbogen told him.
He hated to call Able Team off of the chase, but with
the Bosnia mission going the way it was, he needed
them at the CP in case they had to be sent to back
up Bolan.
    "The situation in Bosnia has turned serious," he
explained. "The air strike didn't do the job, and the
guys have had their mission extended. I need you
guys back here to stand by in case they need
backup."
    "Damn!" Lyons said. "Things were just starting
to get interesting around here."
    "It can't be helped, Ironman. The guys have the
priority this time."

    "I copy," Lyons said. "We'll wrap up and head
back."
    "Make it sooner rather than later," Katz advised.
"And if you get hung up, call and I'll send Jack after
you."
  "Will do."
    "Katz wants us to break off here and get back to
Aviano ASAP," Lyons told his teammates. "Appar-
ently Striker's mission isn't going well."
    Schwarz didn't wish the other team any bad luck,
but getting off this cold hill sounded good to him.
"I'll start packing our stuff up."
    Lyons knew that Katz wanted them back ASAP,
but now that they had tracked the Lebanese to his
lair, a few more minutes one way or the other
wouldn't make any real difference.
      "Gadgets, did you get the phone number to this
place when you were tracking the E-mail address?"
  "Yeah."
    "I want to give our man down there a call and see
if I can get him to rabbit for us."
    "I thought you said that Katz needed us back at
the CP ASAP?"
    "He does. But I still want to put a tag on that
guy's car so we can find him later."
    "I told you that I'm not going down there with
those damned dogs, Carl. You can just forget it."
    "But there won't be any dogs where I want you
tO go."




    "What's the catch? Are you and Pol going to take
the dogs out first?"
    "Nope. I'm going to get our man to run, but I'm
going to create a diversion so we can tag his car. I
don't want to lose track of him."
    "Why don't we just shoot the bastard while we
have the chance and have done with it?"
    "Because I want the rest of his people, too," Ly-
ons replied, dropping the banter. "Leaving them in
place only means that someone will have to chase all
of them down later. And you know that I really hate
to leave things half-done."
  "What kind of diversion?"
    'Tm going to have Pol take the Lancia down there
and have a breakdown right at the end of the drive-
way. And then..."

WHEN ALI NADAL'S black BMW sports sedan ap-
proached the end of the driveway, he saw a silver
gray Lancia sedan off the road blocking his way. The
car's hood was up, and a man was leaning over as
if he was working on the engine. Drivers often used
his turnout to park, but he also knew a good ambush
site when he saw one.
    The phone call he had just received made an am-
bush a distinct possibility. The caller had said that
he was an American tourist who had seen the villa
on his way to San Simone and wanted to know if he
could come and take pictures of it in the morning.
Nadal declined the man's request, but the call made

him realize that while the remote villa offered him
security, it also isolated him as a target. If the call
had been to check if he was home, it could be a
setup.
    The lights illuminated the Lancia, and the man
came out from under the hood and waved. The ter-
rorist stopped his car a dozen yards away, but left
the lights on high. Reaching under the seat, he drew
out his Beretta subgun and flicked it off safe before
opening the door. Nadal slung the Model 12 at his
side with the pistol grip ready at his right hand as he
walked forward.

SCHWARZ LAY in the ditch well to the rear of the
Lancia, his 9 nun Beretta in his right hand. In his
left, he held two of the Farm's special vehicle-
tracking bugs. They had been put together by the
same company that made the SAR implants for the
military, and they worked on the same principle.
They activated only in response to a radio signal.
That way, they couldn't be detected by a bug
sweeper. Now, all he had to do was to get close
enough to the terrorist's BMW to attach them.
    Lyons was in position to the front of the Lancia,
his Colt Python ready in his hand. As much as he
wanted to police up all of the Lebanese's men, if the
terrorist made a single wrong move, he would settle
for just bagging him. A .357 Magnum slug in the
right place would do a lot to make Italy a safer place
to live.




    "I am so sorry I am in your way," Blancanales
said, gesturing expressively. "I will push my car out
of the way so you can get past it."

THE MAN'S ACCENT and halting use of the language
told Nadal that he was a foreigner. But it wasn't an
American Italian accent, so he relaxed a little.
      "I will help you," Nadal offered, making sure that
the foreigner saw the Beretta.  "You're too kind."
    While the Lebanese was helping Blancanales push
the Lancia, Schwarz ducked out of his hiding place
and dashed the few yards back to the BMW. Once
he was safely behind the car, he reached up under
the left rear fender to place the first bug. After mak-
ing sure that the magnet was timfly attached, he slid
around the side and put the other one under the right
front fender before fading back into the dark.
    "Thank you," Blancanales said when the Lancia
was clear of the driveway. "Again, I am sorry for
the inconvenience."
  "It's nothing," Nadal said.
    Getting back in his car, Nadal kept the Beretta
ready in his right hand. He didn't put the weapon
back under the seat until he was well out of range.

"DID YOU PLANT THEM, Gadgets?" Lyons asked as
he watched the BMW's taillights fade in the distance.
  "Yeah." Schwarz slapped at the mud coating his

night suit. "I planted the damned things and caught
pneumonia in the process."
    "We can stop and get you a little medicine on the
way back, some of that brandy you were talking
about."
    "Right. Bribe me and figure that I'll forget all
about laying in a muddy ditch for an hour."
    "If you two are through," Blancanales said as he
closed the hood of the Lancia, "we should probably
hit the road. Katz is waiting for us."




CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Bosnia

Since leaving the bombed-out forest camp, Major
Naslin had kept his drivers moving as fast as they
possibly could, but it hadn't been fast enough. He
wasn't covering as much ground as he needed to
make the rendezvous on time. The roads in the region
were the worst paved roads he had ever seen. Years
of neglect, as well as war damage, had reduced them
to little more than rutted tracks.
    Worse than that were the numbers of bridges that
had been destroyed. With the mountains to the west
supplying snow melt, the region was crisscrossed
with streams and rivers. There was a bridge every
few miles, and most of them were down. The time
it had taken them to find fording places had added
hours to the driving time.
    To make up for the lost time, they would have to
drive through the night and run the risk of having
their lights spotted. If the cave base camp hadn't
been destroyed, his drivers would be equipped with

night-vision goggles and the dark wouldn't be an ob-
stacle. But the trucks that had escaped destruction
hadn't been equipped before the bombs fell, and the
night-vision goggles were buried under tons of rock.
    Naslin was riding in the lead vehicle, doing the
map navigating, when the Toyota crested a hill. See-
ing a military convoy parked on the side of the road
below, he quickly ordered his driver to back up and
pull off behind the crest of the hill. After putting out
security, Naslin went to the top of the hill and
watched the vehicles. From the flags flying from their
radio antennae, they were French and it was apparent
that they were planning to spend the night down
there.
    The major couldn't believe that the PROFOR unit
had chosen to stop where it had. The valley was nar-
row here, and the road followed the river that cut
through it. A few hundred meters beyond the PRO-
FOR laager, the road forked to turn north and that
was the road he had to take. Without turning around
and going back several miles, there was no way he
could get past the UN troops. And to complicate the
problem, it would soon be too dark to drive without
using the truck's lights.
    With the sun going down, the wind had picked up
and was blowing from his back. When Naslin
reached to turn up the collar of his jacket, he got an
idea. It was a dangerous idea, but God always stood
at the side of those who put themselves in danger to
bring his revolution.




    There was simply no way for him to get past the
French unit without getting into a firefight, and there
were too many troops down there for him to make a
successful conventional attack against them. But with
the wind blowing away from him, the chemical rock-
ets in the truck could be used without even having
to launch them.
    The type of nerve gas in the rocket warheads was
called a binary agent. The warhead contained two
chambers holding the separate chemicals, each of
which was harmless until combined with the other.
But when the warhead detonated and the chemicals
were mixed together by the explosion, they reacted
and produced the deadly gas.
    He would send a volunteer down there with one
of the rockets, and the man would activate the fuse
to detonate the warhead. The man would die a mar-
tyr's death, but it would eliminate the PROFOR unit
completely.
    When he went to ask the technical sergeant in his
group about his idea, he learned the bad news.
    "The rocket's fuse has a setback arming feature,"
the sergeant explained. "It has to undergo launch
acceleration to overcome the setback and make the
fuse active. It's designed that way for safety."
    Naslin snorted. Safety during war was for women
and Western unbelievers, not for God's faithful. Is-
lam hadn't triumphed by trying to keep its holy war-
riors safe from harm by putting safety devices on
their weapons; only God could do that.

    "What will happen if you tie a grenade to the
warhead and set it off? That will break the containers
and spread the gas, will it not?"
    "Setting off a grenade tied to the warhead will
release the chemicals, and they will mix to form the
gas," the sergeant admitted.
    "Ready one of the rockets with a grenade and find
me a volunteer who is willing to do this for the rev-
olution."
    "The volunteer will not be able to get far enough
away in time to escape the effects of the gas," the
sergeant observed.
    "The martyr lives at the right hand of God," Nas-
lin reminded him.
The sergeant dropped his eyes. "That is true."
The man returned in a few minutes with one of
his soldiers at his side. This freedom fighter was one
of the youngest men in his unit, but his eyes burned.
The best martyrs were always the young, the ones
with the most to lose by dying early. But Naslin
wasn't reluctant to use him for this mission. The
young were also filled with the fire of devotion to
the cause.
    "Do you understand what you are to do for our
revolution?" the major asked him.
    "Yes, Major." The young soldier stiflened to at-
tention. "God is great."
    "Yes, He is," Naslin agreed. "And He will take
you into his Paradise tonight."
  "As God wills."




    The volunteer stripped off his field gear and left it
with his assault rifle and grenades. The rocket war-
head was the only weapon he would need in this, his
final battle, and it would send many more of the un-
believers to hell than his AK ever could. After the
youth covered his face and hands with mud, the ser-
geant handed him the prepared warhead. With a last
salute, he started down the hill.
    Naslin watched the French laager from the crest
of the hill through his night field glasses. They
weren't as good as using night-vision goggles, but
with the starlight from a clear sky, they gave him a
fairly good view. After watching the camp for a few
minutes, he tried to spot his volunteer, but couldn't
even find his track through the tall grass and that was
good. If he couldn't see him from above, the French
couldn't see him from where they were.

THE FRENCH mechanized company had put its ar-
mored personnel carders and scout cars into a cir-
cular laager for the night. The command-and-control
vehicle was in the middle of the circle, and the lights
were burning inside as the officers took care of their
daily after-action paperwork. Since the day's patrol
had been as routine as always, the paperwork was
minimal.
    The French had put sentries out, but they weren't
too far in front of their vehicles. Other guards kept
watch from the gun turrets of the scout cars. The
sentries wore night-vision goggles and they were

alert, but it was peacetime alert. After months of end-
less patrolling without even a single shot having been
fired at them, they weren't battlefield alert. Months
of seeing nothing had taught them to expect more of
the same--nothing.
    The Iranian volunteer made his way through the
tall grass flat on his belly. It was slow going, but
time wasn't crucial this night--approaching the tar-
get unseen was. He knew that God was waiting to
welcome him to Paradise, but he knew that he had
to wait until he was close enough for the gas to be
effective.
    Raising his head slowly until only his eyes cleared
the tops of the grass, he studied his objective. The
sentries were close by their vehicles, and there didn't
seem to be any other early-warning devices. Seeing
that he was as close as the sergeant had told him to
get, he reached for the pin on the grenade.
    "God's great!" the young volunteer shouted in
Farsi as he pulled the pin.
    The flash of the detonation blinded him, and he
gasped when red-hot grenade shrapnel sliced through
him. He wasn't in pain very long, however. The ex-
plosion tore open the binary warhead of the rocket,
and the gases instantly combined to produce the
deadly gas.
    Two quick breaths of it was all it took to paralyze
his nervous system. He died seconds later.
    Alarmed by the shout and the grenade's detona-
tion, the French tried to react. But they didn't get to




travel three steps before, twitching and shaking, they
died in their tracks.
    On the command-and-control vehicle, the auto-
mated chemical-attack alarm went off, sending its ra-
dio warning to the PROFOR headquarters. After the
first three seconds, though, no one in the laager was
alive to hear it.

FROM HIS POSITION overlooking the valley, Major
Naslin saw the flash of the grenade. A second later,
the sound of the muffled explosion reached him.
There were a couple of shouts, but they were quickly
choked off. Beyond that, he could see nothing chang-
ing in the laager. He knew, however, that men were
dying down there.
    He thought he smelled a sharp odor on the cool
night air, but he knew it was only his imagination.
The wind hadn't changed and was still blowing from
his back. Were it not, he wouldn't have made the
attack. Dying to further the revolution was one thing;
dying by mistake was a betrayal of God's will.
    Waiting impatiently, Naslin counted down the
minutes until the gas could disperse and it would be
safe to drive through the area. The sergeant had said
that it would take at least an hour before all traces
of the gas would be gone. He hated the delay, but it
couldn't be helped. He would make up the time by
driving with the lights on.
    "Is it time now?" he finally asked the technical
sergeant.

    The man looked at his watch. "It should be clear.
But we will still need to be careful. I will go ahead
on foot with the gas detector to check."
    "There is no need to do that," Naslin stated.
"God will protect us. Tell the men to load up."
  "As you command, Major."

Stony Man Farm

"BARBARA?" Aaron Kurtzman's familiar voice cut
through Barbara Price's dreaming mind and awak-
ened her. After encouraging the rest of the crew to
get some rest when they could, she had taken her
own advice. After a long hot shower, she had dressed
in fresh clothes then lay down on her bed just to rest
for an hour. Apparently she had fallen asleep.
    Opening one eye, she hit the intercom button by
the bed in her quarters. "Yes?"
    "We just picked up a gas-attack alert from one of
the PROFOR units."
  "I'm coming down."
    With everything focused on the chase of the two
trucks still carrying the nerve-gas rockets, Kurtz-
man's people were going all out to cover the area of
operation. And since the chase had moved into the
regions patrolled by the UN, that also meant moni-
toring the PROFOR radio communications.
    When Price walked into the computer room, the
place was abuzz. "What happened?"
  "We're not sure," Kurtzman admitted. "Most of




the PROFOR units are equipped with automatic
chemical-detector alarms that broadcast a warning,
and one of them sounded an alert just a few minutes
ago over--" he moved an arrow on the map into a
valley with a fiver running through it "--here."
  "Has there been anything since then?"
    "No. The alarms are set to transmit for a few
minutes and then reset themselves."
  "Is there any radio traffic from them?"
    "No. Their headquarters keeps trying to call them,
but no one is answering."
  "Do you think that they were attacked?"
    "It sure as hell looks that way," he said. "I've
got the satellite scanning the area fight now, but it
doesn't show any movement. I'm getting stationary
heat signatures from generators and commo vans,
that kind of thing, but that's about all. I'm not pick-
ing up any moving warm bodies."
    "You'd better tell Striker what's going on," she
decided. "If it is a gas attack, I don't want them
running into it. And, while you're doing that, I'll go
wake up Hal and talk to him. The President is going
to need to know about this. It may be time for us to
pull out completely and hand this mess over to the
UN."

    Kurtzman could hear the fatigue in her voice
mixed with concern for the Stony Man commandos.
She never liked to admit defeat, but there was only
so much they could do even under the best of cir-
cumstances. And this situation had gone far beyond

the call of duty. "I'11 get the chopper pilot on the
pad," he said.
  "Do that."

BARBARA PRICE SAW that Hal Brognola was also
sleeping fully clothed, but he hadn't bothered to
change into fresh clothing before going to bed. He
had been kept in the air so much lately that he hadn't
even had a chance to set his dirty laundry out to be
washed by the Farm support staff. She'd make a
point of sending someone up to gather his laundry in
the morning.  "Hal?"
    Brognola muttered something incoherent and
rolled over.
  "Hal?" Price's voice was more insistent.
  "Yeah," he said, finally awake, "what is it now?"
    "Aaron thinks that one of the PROFOR units has
been hit with a gas attack."
    "Oh, shit!" Brognola sat up and swung his legs
around to put his feet on the floor. "What hap-
pened?"
    "We're not sure yet, but a French PROFOR con-
voy in a night laager just sounded a chemical-attack
alarm. It was one of those automatic transmitter
alerts, and Aaron picked it up on a routine commu-
nications intercept."
    Brognola hoped against hope that it had been a
malfunction of the equipment and, as unlikely as that
was, he had to ask. "Has it been confirmed yet?"




    "No," she replied, "but their own headquarters
isn't able to get anyone to answer their calls."
    "I assume that it's in an area that could have been
reached by the missing Iranian tracks?"
    "In fact the target trucks have been parked a cou-
ple of klicks away for some time now."
    Brognola shook his head. "The President is get-
ting tired of being awakened up and seeing my face
the first thing in the morning. It might be different if
I was bringing him good news at least once in a
while."
    "Well, that's why he makes the big bucks and gets
to live in the White House. He's the Man, and he
gets to make all the big decisions."  "Have you alerted Striker yet?"
    "Aaron was calling Katz to pass on the word
when I left to come up here."
    "How far away from the French laager site are
they?"
"About a two-hour drive during daylight hours."
"Have them move in to confirm the incident if
they can," he ordered. "But tell them to be danreed
careful. They do have a chemical detector with them,
don't they?"
  She nodded.
    "Good. Tell them that I do not want them to take
any unnecessary risks."
    She refrained from commenting that the only way
to be completely safe around chemical weapons was
to not be anywhere near them.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Bosnia

At first light the next morning, David McCarter
drove into the valley toward the French laager with
only the gas detector riding on the seat next to him.
Checking to see if there had actually been a nerve-
gas attack as the Farm thought was a one-man job,
and no one was better suited to do it than him. Both
Manning and Hawkins had argued about his going,
saying that since he was the Phoenix Force leader,
he couldn't be spared if the gas was still present.
    But, as far as McCarter was concerned, the job was
his precisely because he was the leader. His SAS-
trained concept of leadership was that the head man
got paid the big bucks to lead, not to send men into
danger in his place. Plus Kurtzman had assured him
that since the nerve gas involved was likely to have
been manufactured to the Russian formula, it would
have dissipated in an hour or so and would be com-
pletely gone by now.
  He stopped the truck a quarter of a mile away from




the PROFOR laager and took another reading with
the detector. The air was still clean. Picking up his
field glasses, he scanned the silent camp. The French
armored vehicles had been parked in a circle with
their machine gun and autocannon turrets facing out-
ward.
    It had been a good move and would have worked
against almost anything they could have expected to
come up against in Bosnia. But guns and armored
vehicles were no protection against deadly nerve gas.
Putting the Toyota in gear, he drove the rest of the
way in, keeping one eye on the detector all the way.
    The first bodies he came to were right outside the
ring of vehicles and would have been the sentries.
The bodies bore no visible signs of the cause of
death. There were no bullet holes and no blood. Their
sprawled postures told of their having died in mid-
stride as it were.
    The only sign that they had died unnaturally was
that most of the faces were in a grimace of death that
told of their nervous systems having been attacked.
The gas hit so fast that the poor bastards probably
hadn't even known what was killing them.
    Inside the laager, one of the officers in the com-
mand vehicle, a captain by the stripes on his rank
straps, had died with a radio microphone in his hand.
Another officer lay where he had fallen halfway out
the back door. Some of the troops were in their sleep-
ing bags under their vehicles, sleeping the long sleep.
McCarter hadn't been a stranger to war for more

years than he liked to count. He was well acquainted
with violent death and had seen every way that a
human could possibly die. But there was always
something obscene about the victims of gas attacks,
either military or civilian.
    These men had been soldiers, and putting their
lives on the line in combat was part of their job de-
scription. But they hadn't been killed in combat like
soldiers. They had been slaughtered like so many
sheep without even having had a chance to defend
themselves.
    After making a count of the bodies, McCarter
turned the Toyota around and was driving back to
rejoin his teammates when he passed a single body
beyond the ring of sentries. This man was wearing
desert camouflage instead of the olive drab battle
dress of the French. Stopping the truck, he got out
and rolled the corpse over with his boot. The soldier
wasn't French unless he was of Algerian extraction,
and the uniform was a dead giveaway. The Iranians
at the fortress had worn this kind of desert camou-
flage.
    Close to the Iranian's corpse was what looked like
a half-exploded round of some kind. Moving in
closer to look at it, McCarter thought he caught a
faint bitter smell and jerked back. He felt silly be-
cause if there was gas present, he would already be
dead. But he went back to the track to get the chem-
ical detector to check this round anyway.
  When the detector showed that the air didn't con-




tain any lingering traces of nerve gas, he looked
closer at what he had found. The thin-walled round
appeared to be a chemical rocket warhead, but the
nose fuse was still intact and hadn't exploded. Seeing
the safety pin of the grenade by the corpse's hand,
he realized what had happened.
    This had been a suicide attack. This Iranian had
sneaked up close to the French laager and had det-
onated some kind of explosive device to rupture the
gas warhead.
    Suicide bombers weren't as common in Islamic
national armies as they were in terrorist bands, but
they weren't unknown, either. The lure of immediate
entrance into Paradise was strong and enticed many
men to martyr themselves.
    Leaving the evidence where it lay for the UN to
find, he got back into .the truck and drove to where
he had left Bolan with the rest of the team.
    "They've raised the ante," he informed Bolan as
he stepped down. "The French were gassed."
    Hearing the expected, Bolan reached for the radio
to make his report to Katz.

Stony Man Farm

"McCARTER FOUND the bodies." Yakov Katzene-
lenbogen's face on the Farm's video screen showed
his concern. "It was a French patrol, platoon size,
thirty-eight men, and they're all dead. There was an-
other body close by that David thinks was an Iranian

who had a chemical-rocket warhead with him, so it
looks like it was a suicide attack. The Iranian got in
close to the laager site and detonated the warhead."
"Poor bastards," Kurtzman muttered.
    "Have the French headquarters been notified?"
Barbara Price asked.
    "They had choppers in the air at first light looking
for the unit because they lost communication with
them last night. They were approaching the site right
as our team was pulling out of the area. I told them
to move out so they wouldn't get hung up with the
um,"

  "Good call," Brognola said.
    "What are your instructions at this point?" Katz
asked formally. He was the Farm's tactical adviser,
but the ultimate decisions were on Brognola's shoul-
ders. Particularly a decision of such magnitude.
    This was the first time that war gases had been
used in Europe since the end of World War I, and it
was an important escalation of the long Bosnian cri-
sis. The decisions that would be made could have a
dramatic effect on the future of Europe, and he didn't
want to be the one who had to make the call.
    'Tll be damned if I know," Brognola answered.
"Until I can get a conference with the President and
see what he wants to do, have the guys continue
tracking the bastards and hope that they can make
contact before any more of the rockets are used."
  "Striker and the team are closing in on them,"




Hunt Wethers commented. "I have them no more
than an hour or so behind the targets at this time."
    Since Wethers had set up the tracking program that
was tagging the Iranians' lxucks, he was keeping
watch over the progress of the long-distance chase.
    "Can we vector in a NATO gunship to destroy
those trucks now?" Katz asked. "This is a serious
enough incident that it should be enough to cut
through the usual bullshit to get some prompt ac-
tion."
    Brognola thought for a moment. "This has upped
the threat," he agreed. "There's no doubt about that,
and I'll argue for an immediate air strike, but I can't
even begin to guess what he'll say."
    "Urge him to take quick action, Hal," Katz said.
"Since we've seen that they are more than willing
to use the gas, the team is in danger, as well."
    "I'11 try my best," Brognola replied, knowing full
well that he had little chance of success. Anything
that was linked to the UN in any way defied quick
action. "But I don't want to pull the guys off them
yet. I want them to keep trying to get within striking
range. And tell them that if they can attack, I want
them to do it immediately. They're the last, best
chance we have of putting a quick end to this."
    "Will do," Katz said. "But you have to give them
warning if you can get an air strike authorized. A
bomb blast hitting those rockets would be even more
dangerous than launching them, and I don't want our
people to be caught in the open."

    "I understand." Brognola read between the lines
of what Katz had explained. An air strike would re-
lease the deadly gas, and nerve gas didn't care whom
it killed.
    He turned to the bank of printers against the wall
and reached for the satellite photos of the French
laager that were coming out of the photo printer.
"The President will want to see these."

Aviano Air Base, Italy

WHILE KATZENELENBOGEN waited to hear back from
Stony Man Farm, he mulled over the report McCarter
had made about the gas attack. One thing stuck in
his mind that he didn't understand. Why had the Ira-
nians made a suicide attack instead of launching the
rocket the usual way?
    It was true that the trade-off had been good--one
Iranian KIA for thirty-eight French. That was a good
combat equation, but this hadn't been real combat.
Considering that the Iranians had taken a beating in
the bombing at the camp, they had to be short on
men. Even if those two pickups were packed to the
sides of the bed, they couldn't have many more than
two dozen men all told.
    Maybe there was a simpler explanation. Maybe a
suicide bomber had been sent in to take the French
out because the Iranians didn't have a launcher with
them to fire the rocket from.
  Katz was well aware that a rocket launcher wasn't




a big deal--a chunk of sewage pipe would work if
it was big enough. He even knew that the Viet Cong
had often launched Russian 120mm rockets by rest-
ing them on crossed sticks stuck in the ground. Using
the proper launcher, however, did give a better guar-
antee of hitting what you were aiming at. But that
was only important when you were dealing with con-
ventional HE rocket warheads. With an HE round, if
you couldn't hit it, you couldn't blow it up.
    With chemical rockets, however, accuracy wasn't
really important. What was important was making
sure that you were upwind from the target. Dropping
the rocket almost anywhere upwind from the in-
tended target would do the trick when the gas was
released. And if he assumed that the Iranians didn't
have a launcher, he could narrow down the number
of possible targets. If that was in fact the case, the
best target would be anyplace where people were
gathered in large numbers.
    His mind flashed to something Brognola had said
about the importance of getting Richard Lacy back
in American hands in time for an important meeting.
Had it been something about an election? Or was it
so he could take part in the renewed peace talks?
    Grabbing the phone, he hit the key to activate the
video hookup and called the Farm. "I need you to
help me with something," he told Aaron Kurtzman.
"What's that?"
    "Tell me again what was so important about our
getting Richard Lacy back on time."

    "Katz, that's old news. You're supposed to be
chasing after a shipment of nerve-gas rockets, re-
member."
    "To be a little more precise," Katz replied, "I'm
supposed to be chasing nerve-gas rockets so they
won't be used. And part of solving that puzzle is
figuring out who they are going to be used against.
I think that your man Lacy might be a key to solving
that puzzle."
  "I'11 bite how?"
    "I think that the Iranians may not have a launcher
for those rockets. That would go a long ways to ex-
plain why they used a suicide attacker to take out the
French when they're low on men. My thought is that
if they have to use up a man every time they pop
one of those rockets, they'll want to make sure that
they get their money's worth. They're going to want
to hit a large target."
    Kurtzman was silent for a moment. "The elec-
tions. They're having another round of regional elec-
tions in the Serb and Croatian sections of Bosnia.
The Bosnian Muslims have gotten their stuff together
as far as choosing their own leaders, but the Serbs
and Croats are still working on it. The elections are
scheduled to start--" he glanced at the calendar
"--in the cities on the day after tomorrow."
  "Which cities?"
    "Let me find out and get back to you," Kurtzman
said. "I know that not all of the cities were chosen
as election sites. There was some concern about




fraud, and the UN wants to oversee the vote this
time, so the elections have been consolidated. People
from the outlying districts and smaller towns will
have to travel to cast their ballots, and that's why it's
a two-day vote."
    "That could be it," Katz said. "A bunch of people
gathered to vote would be a perfect target for a sui-
cide bomber armed with a nerve-gas rocket."
    Kurtzman had worked with Katz long enough to
recognize that particular tone in his voice. It meant
that he had just put two and two together and come
up with twenty two instead of merely four. "I'11 get
right on that."

Now THAT HE HAD a likely target, Katz put his battle-
trained mind to work to ensure that the attacks
weren't carried out. According to McCarter's report,
a single man had been responsible for the attack on
the French, and it was possible that they would try
that tactic again.
    A single-man attack had a lot going for it. One
man could hide better than a rocket-launching team,
and the warhead could be easily concealed. However,
considering that the attackers were more than likely
Iranians, they probably wouldn't speak the local lan-
guage. That and cultural differences would make a
lone Iranian bomber vulnerable to the security mea-
sures that he knew the UN PROFOR monitors would
have put in place to protect the election.
  Two men would have a better chance, particularly

if they came in from different directions. Better yet,
two men coming in under the cover of a diversion.
If the main body of Iranians attacked a PROFOR
outpost, they could draw the UN to that area and
reduce the security somewhere else. That was how
he would do it, and he couldn't make the mistake of
underestimating the enemy commander. So far, he
had done a very good job and couldn't be counted
on to make a mistake.
    The Iranians had pulled off some very skilled ter-
rorist attacks over the years, and while this was being
done under the guise of military action, it was a ter-
rorist attack nonetheless. To Katz's mind, any time
that a state of war hadn't been declared and the pri-
mary targets were civilians, even the actions of sol-
diers was terrorism pure and simple. He didn't buy
the story that any action was justified as long as it
got the desired results.
    He had sympathy for the Bosnian Muslims. They
had been the victims of brutal Serb and Croatian ag-
gression ever since the Turks had pulled out of the
region. During the Bosnian War, they had taken the
most serious casualties both on the battlefield and in
the so-called ethnic cleansing that the Serbs had con-
ducted.
    The mountains of Bosnian Muslim dead called out
for justice, but this wasn't the way to get it for them.
Killing other civilians wouldn't bring back the dead.
Further, justice in Bosnia wasn't going to be pro-
moted by anything the Iranians were likely to do. The




Western concept of justice wasn't part of their think-
ing in any way. If they were involved, it was for their
own reasons and would benefit the Bosnians only as
an afterthought.
    The key to solving any tactical problem was to
find what was in it for the attackers. If he could figure
out what the imams of Tehran had to gain by getting
involved in Bosnia, he would know how to counter
their moves.

CHAPTER BA/ENTY-FIVE

Bosnia

Major Naslin approached the appointed meeting with
the Bosnian Muslims with extreme caution. Dragan
Asdik had set up the rendezvous, but that didn't ease
the major's mind. Though Naslin had worked closely
with Asdik for months, he still didn't completely
trust the man. In fact he trusted very few of the Bos-
nian Muslims he had encountered since arriving in
the country, even the ones he was meeting today--
and they were the reason he had embarked on the
plan.
    Though the Bosnian Muslims were followers of
the Prophet, they weren't Arab. Being an Iranian,
Naslin wasn't exactly an Arab, either, but Arabic cul-
ture and thought was the bedrock of Middle Eastern
Islam. Having been cut off from the motherland of
Islamic thought for so many centuries, the Bosnian
Muslims thought and acted too much like their Chris-
tian European neighbors for Naslin's tastes. In par-




ticular, they were prone to changing their minds
when the going got too tough.
    That was why the Iranian felt it was so important
for his mission to succeed. As soon as the new Bos-
nian Muslim government was recognized by the
other revolutionary Islamic states, it would be rein-
forced by thousands of troops from several Islamic
nations. Iran, Syria and Libya were just three of the
Islamic states that had offered arms and men to the
Bosnians to help them defend their new state.
    Once the new nation was secure and well estab-
lished, even more Islamic people would come, civil-
ians this time. In effect they would colonize Bosnia
and make the country over in the image of the Mid-
dle East. The native Bosnian Muslims wouldn't be
pushed off their lands like the Serbs and Croats had
tried to do to them. Nor would they be imprisoned
or restricted in any way. But within a very few years,
they would be blended into the new population and
would become proper revolutionary Muslims.
    Naslin knew that the transition wouldn't be easy,
especially once strict Islamic law was imposed. But
if it could be done successfully in a nation as corrupt
as prerevolutionary Iran, it would work in Bosnia, as
well.
    The major and the four soldiers with him found
the Bosnians at the appointed place. The leader of
the Bosnian National Rebirth Party, Hukan Rezak,
was a typical Bosnian mountain man, as Naslin
called them--a big, bearded, scowling man who, like

so many Bosnians, had the light-colored eyes of a
demon, not the dark eyes of a proper human. His
greeting was short, and he got right down to the busi-
ness at hand.
    "I was told that you would have a dozen trucks
and a hundred men with you," Rezak said in good
but accented Arabic, "but I only see two trucks and
a handful of troops."
      "The Yankees bombed our camp," Naslin ex-
plained, "and these are all the men I have left."
  "And the rockets?"
    "I have enough for several attacks if you can get
me a Katusha launcher."
    "Exactly how many rockets do you have?" Rezak
sounded suspicious. The plan that would put him and
his party in power depended upon the mass slaughter
of his opponents, and that required having enough of
the nerve-gas rockets to make this great killing all
on one day.
    "I have eighteen, no seventeen, left. I had to use
one of them on a PROFOR unit that was blocking
my route."
    Rezak frowned--attacking PROFOR troops
wasn't a wise move. The UN might be a bumbling,
uncoordinated entity, but even so, like an elephant,
it was to be feared. So far, he had been able to keep
his organization a secret from the UN. No one in the
PROFOR had any idea that the National Rebirth
Party even existed, and he wanted to keep it that way
until he took over the country.




    "Did you leave any survivors behind?" Rezak
asked. "The last thing I need right now is for PRO-
FOR to connect that with me."
    Naslin wanted to laugh at this slow-thinking man.
"Of course there were no survivors. Anyone who
gets even a whiff of the gas dies. Nothing was left
behind to point to either you or me." Except, of
course, for the body of the martyr who had detonated
the warhead. But Naslin was confident that there was
no way to get information from a dead man.
    Rezak heard the unvoiced contempt in Naslin's an-
swer and frowned. Like Dragan Asdik, he had no
love for the Iranians, but he welcomed their arms and
supplies. His group wasn't a part of the Bosnian na-
tional army. In fact it was an outlawed party, so there
was no way that he could draw supplies from them.
Were it not for the Iranian connection, his men
wouldn't even have small arms, to say nothing of the
rockets that would be his springboard to power.
    The plan to use the nerve-gas rockets to free his
country had originated with Rezak. The way he saw
it, in the aftermath of freeing Bosnia from everyone
who wasn't Muslim, he would be positioned well to
become the leader of the new regime. Now, though,
Naslin was telling him that his plan couldn't be car-
ried out as he had envisioned it.
    "How is it that the Americans learned about your
camp?" he asked. "I was told that it was a secret."
    "I do not know." Naslin didn't feel like going into
the story of Richard Lacy and the capture of the Yan-

kee pilot. "All I know is that they attacked us with-
out warning with one of their stealth fighters."
    The mention of the almost mythical, radar-
invisible plane was enough to calm the Bosnian's
fears of Iranian incompetence. Though no one in
Bosnia had ever seen a stealth fighter, the stories of
their unimpeded sorties over Baghdad during the
Gulf War were legendary. ff the entire armed might
of Iraq hadn't been able to even damage one of them,
there was no hope that a small Iranian unit could
defend itself from one of them.
    "But," Naslin continued, "with the rockets I have
left, we can still carry out the plan. It is true that it
will be more difficult. We will have to choose the
targets more carefully and may not get the results we
originally planned. But it is still possible to free your
country from Serbian and Croatian domination as
you want."
    "With so few rockets, we will have to attack the
Serbs first and eliminate them. They are the main
enemy. The Croats can live a little while longer."
    Serbs or CroafiansmNaslin could hardly tell the
two of them apart. Both groups, though, were ene-
mies of Islam and would have to be exterminated
sooner or later. For now, though, he was willing to
allow the Bosnian to pick the targets for his rockets,
and killing the Serbs first was fine with him. Since
there were fewer Croats, they could be easily taken
care of later--ff need be, with AKs.
  "Agreed," Naslin said. "Now, to ensure success,




can you get me a Katusha launcher? I need one of
the single-barrel types, or if that is not possible, a
three-barrel launcher."
    "That may be difficult." Rezak frowned. "I do
not have one available right now. The authorities
confiscated all of our heavy weapons and put them
in holding areas."
    "Can these holding areas be attacked? Is there any
way we can free a launcher?"
    Rezak thought for a moment. "There is one of the
UN artillery parks not too far from here. And the
garrison is not very large."
  "Take me to it."

BOLAN AND McCARTER were both studying the map
while Hawkins and James refueled the truck from
another deserted gas station. Encizo and Manning
stood guard, but again the village seemed to be com-
pletely empty. They knew, though, that they were
being watched by the frightened eyes of those who
had gone into hiding at their approach.
    "It looks like they're headed for Spivak," Mc-
Carter said as he plotted the latest locations of the
Iranian vehicles he had just received from Aviano.
  "That's as good a bet as any," Bolan replied.
  Katz was sending them updates every half hour,
  and they were slowly closing the gap. But since they
  were in the same kind of truck that the Iranians were
  driving, they didn't have any advantage over them.

Not even with Hawkins taking care of most of the
driving chores.
    McCarter was convinced that if he looked into the
Southemer's background, he would find that Haw-
kins had a misspent youth making white-lightning
runs through the back country of Georgia or Ken-
tueky. Either that or he'd grown up around a
NASCAR track. McCarter was an accomplished race
car driver him~eff, but Hawkins had a real flair for
rough-road driving.
    Even so, they were still behind their prey and time
was running out. "Catch up with them," McCarter
told him as soon as they were refueled.
  "I'm on it, boss."

Tim UN ARTnJ.~.Y PARK had been ~tablished at
what had been a Yugoslavian police barracks back
in the good old days before the breakup of Yugosla-
via. When the PROFOR came in, heavy weapons
ranging from T-64 tanks to artillery and rocket
launchers had been taken from the warring factions
and stored for the duration. Neither the extent of that
duration nor the final disposition of the weapons had
yet been decided. But as long as the UN PROFOR
units were patrolling Bosnia, the weapons would be
kept under guard.
    The guards, however, weren't keen about the job
they had been given. For one thing, the troops were
Spanish, and they weren't experienced combat sol-
diets. And there was only one platoon---forty men---




stationed there at any one time. The rest of their com-
pany, another three platoons, was nearby. But if an
emergency was to occur, it would take the reinforce-
ments at least half an hour to respond.
    As Major Naslin scanned the artillery park with
his field glasses, he considered using another one of
his rockets to wipe out the troops guarding it. In one
way, that would be the quick solution, but then he
would have to wait two hours for the gas to dissipate
before he could get the launcher he needed. It was
better to save the rocket for the civilians and take
this place with his AKs and RPGs.
    "The troops guarding this site are Spanish, you
say?" he asked the Bosnian leader.
    "That is what I have been told." Rezak shrugged.
"I do not recognize their national flag, but all foreign
flags look the same to me."
    "I am going to go down there with a truck full of
my men," Naslin said, "and pretend to be a UN
officer from Algeria. While I am talking to them, I
want you to come in and surround them so no one
gets away."

THE YOUNG S?nmSH lieutenant in charge of the gar-
rison at the depot was new to the assignment and
wasn't aware that there were no Algerian PROFOR
units in his sector. He also was young enough that
he didn't want to check with his headquarters before
letting the track full of armed men inside the main
gate.

    These were common mistakes that any inexperi-
enced officer could make, but the Spanish lieutenant
wouldn't get a chance to grow any older or wiser.
    With a gun to his head, the lieutenant was quick
to order his men to surrender. A quick radio call to
Rezak brought the Bosnians in, as well, and the depot
was secured. While the Spanish troops were put un-
der guard, Naslin went with his technical sergeant to
find a suitable rocket launcher.
    The heavy weapons had all been tagged as to
which faction they had been taken from, then sepa-
rated into types. All of the rocket launchers were in
one place, and Naslin immediately spotted one of the
Yugoslavian-made, three-barreled Katusha launch-
ers. These lightweight weapons were mounted on
wheeled carriages that could be towed behind the
Toyota pickups with no difficulty.
    "What do you want to do with them?" Naslin
asked Rezak as he hooked a thumb in the direction
of the disarmed Spaniards. "I do not have men to
spare to guard them."
    "I do not, either," the Bosnian answered. "And
they are infidels anyway."
    Naslin called his sergeant to his side and, when
the man reported, gave his orders. "Kill the prison-
ers."
    The sergeant paused for a moment. "They are UN
troops, Major."
    "I know that, you fool!" Naslin exploded. "I
want them dead."




  "As you command, Major."
    None of the Spaniards spoke Arabic, but they
didn't have to understand what was being said to
know what was in store for them. In any language,
a firing squad being formed was easily recognizable.
Several of them tried to make a mn for it and were
gunned down. Others fell on their knees and begged
for mercy, but there was no mercy to be found in the
old police barracks that day.
    When the last shots echoed away, the air reeked
with burned cordite and the smell of slaughter. The
Spanish lay in piles, leaking their blood into the ever
thirsty soil of Bosnia.
    Naslin surveyed the results of his handiwork and
smiled. More infidels had been sent to hell. It was a
good warm-up for what would happen in the morn-
ing.
    "Get the men mounted up," he told his sergeant.
"We have a long ways to go yet."
  "As you command, Major."

Stony Man Farm

"I TH~qK we've got a problem," Hunt Wethers told
Aaron Kurtzman. "I think the Iranians just raided a
UN weapons depot."
    Kurtzman closed his eyes for a brief moment.
When was this ever going to end? "What hap-
pened?"
 Wethers quickly explained that the two target re-

hicles had stopped next to the UN compound and
drove on after an hour. Since the depot was manned
by UN troops, they wouldn't have gone there without
a good reason, and they wouldn't have been able to
not go in shooting.
    "There's a possibility that they were looking for
a launcher to fire their rockets," he concluded.
    Kurtzman hit the uplink for the satcom. 'Tll tell
Katz. You talk to Barbara."

Bosnia

KATZENELENBOGEN'S CALL tO McCarter came as the
Stony Man warriors were driving down a road a few
miles and one ridgeline away from the artillery park.
The Phoenix Force commander didn't want to break
off the pursuit, but he knew that they had no choice.
"We'll check it out," he said.
    Half an hour later, they drove through the deserted
main gate of the compound. One look at the pile of
bodies, and it was all too apparent what had hap-
pened. The small garrison guarding the depot had
been taken by surprise and had surrendered. This
wasn't the first time that a UN PROFOR unit had
laid their weapons down and stuck their hands in the
air rather than get into a firefight with one of the
Bosnian factions. Usually these incidents ended with
the UN making threatening noises while granting
concessions and the hostages were released.
  This time, though, the surrender hadn't gone ac-




cording to the accepted UN game plan. Rather than
being turned loose as further proof of the UN's in-
ability to deal effectively with armed opponents, the
soldiers had been gunned down to keep them from
talking about what had happened.
    "There's no way to tell if they took anything,"
Encizo stated, "but my bet is that they came here to
get something to launch those rockets from. There
are some Yugoslav Katusha launchers in the park,
and they're small enough to tow. They could have
hooked one up to their trucks."
    "Get everyone loaded up," McCarter said as he
reached for the radio. "I don't want us to get caught
anywhere around this place."

WHEN THE COMPANY commander of the Spanish unit
at the artillery park couldn't get anyone to answer
his calls, he got his driver and drove the five miles
to their compound. As they rounded the bend in the
road and approached the old police barracks, he no-
riced a tan Toyota pickup truck heading the other
direction. The vehicle wasn't wearing the UN PRO-
FOR insignia on the door and he didn't know of any
of the UN contingents that painted their vehicles that
color.
    As he drove up to the main gate, the red-and-gold
flag of Spain was flying, but the sentries weren't at
their posts. Drawing the Astra pistol from his holster,
he stopped his jeep and walked through the gate.
Though the day wasn't yet warm, the smell hit him

like a hammer blow. Unlike most of his troops, the
captain had been in combat and he knew well the
smell of blood and cordite.
 Death had come to this outpost today.


CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Aviano Air Base, Italy

Now that Able Team was back at Aviano, Yakov
Katzenelenbogen was having second thoughts about
having called the trio in from the field. With Jack
Grimaldi and the Air Force major hanging around,
as well, the small building was getting crowded. As
always, Lyons was the most restless with the forced
inactivity. He was pacing the floor and staring out
the window, driving Katz nuts.
    Katz made a mental note that if the Farm ever sent
Able Team with him to another CP, he'd make sure
that he brought a cage to keep the Ironman in when
he didn't have anything to keep him busy.
    At least Kurtzman had sent him a list of the towns
that were due to hold elections tomorrow, so he had
something useful to do. Looking at the map, he saw
that three of the cities were arranged in an arc around
the location of the artillery park that had been raided.
Considering how close they were to the last known

location of the Iranians, they were the most likely
targets.
    He had no idea how many rocket launchers the
Iranians had taken from the artillery park after mas-
sacring the Spanish garrison. What was worse, there
was no way for him to find out what was missing
until the UN made its investigation of the incident.
Knowing the UN as he did, however, he knew that
it would be weeks before they were finished. And
that was time the Stony Man team didn't have. If he
was right, and he had to think that he was, the attacks
would take place tomorrow on election day.
    That meant that he had to choose between the
three towns and decide which one to send the com-
mandos to, and he didn't have a clue as to which one
of them would be the target. Then it hit him; it had
to be the Serbian town of Spivak. According to the
information the Farm sent, the other two places had
a mixed Serb and Croatian population, but Spivak
was solely in Serb hands.
    Of the Bosnian Muslims' two enemies, the Serbs
were the strongest and had caused them the most
problems since the breakup of the former Yugoslav
republic. In fact the Muslims had even briefly allied
themselves with the Croats against their common en-
emy. If the Muslims wanted to strike the strongest
blow, it would be against the Serbs first.
    When he made contact with the Farm, Kurtzman's
face came on the video screen. "It's Spivak," Katz
stated. "They're going to hit Spivak."




"How do you know?" Kurtzman asked. "The sat-
ellite doesn't show that yet."
    "I applied a little reason and logic, and that's how
it came out. It's going to be Spivak because that's a
Serb town and the Muslims hate the Serbs more than
they do the Croats. They're going to want to get the
most bang for their buck, and that's where they'll get
it."
    "Okay," Kurtzman stated. "We'll watch for the
satellite indicators and get back to you."

Stony Man Farm

THE GAS ATTACK on the French laager and the mas-
sacre of the Spanish troops at the artillery park had
ratcheted the already tense Bosnian situation up yet
another notch. Now the UN PROFOR was aware that
the rockets were present in their area of operation.
But rather than this being a help to the Stony Man
team's efforts to stop a major tragedy from taking
place, it was only making their situation more dan-
gerous. The PROFOR command had put every avail-
able troop they had in the field looking for an enemy
force moving in tan vehicles, and that put Bolan and
Phoenix Force in their sights, as well.
    After getting the latest update from Katz, Barbara
Price went out to the helipad to greet Hal Brognola
as he returned from his latest flight north to update
the President.
  "Hal, the mission has been compromised and I

want to bring the guys home before something else
goes wrong. With the gas attack and the massacre of
the Spanish troops, this situation isn't any kind of
secret anymore. PROFOR has every troop under its
command looking for terrorists. And with all those
trigger-happy UN grunts racing around looking for
nerve-gas rockets, they're going to get shot up as
soon as someone spots them in that tan Toyota."
    "That was what I was thinking, too," he admitted
as he keyed the lock on the door, "and I discussed
mission closure with the President."  "And?"
    "And he said it's a no go. He thinks that since the
guys have been in on it since the beginning and are
still closing in on the Iranians, they're still the best
bet for stopping them in time."
    Like it or not, Price knew that Brognola was right.
"Okay, then," she said, "since the cat is out of the
bag, as it were, I want to go all out. We're blown
and it's just a matter of time now before someone
scopes our people out and shoots them up. So, since
we're compromised, there's no need to maintain our
secrecy, and I want to pull out all the stops."
    "What else can we do that we aren't already do-
ing?"
    "We can send Grimaldi in with a gunship to give
them some aerial mobility and fire support. The elec-
tions are tomorrow, and they don't have much time
left. Going aerial may be our last chance to catch up
with them in time."




  "Do it," he said.
    "I've got an armed Black Hawk on standby at
Aviano. With it, Grimaldi can carry them to the con-
tact and then provide a little air support, as well."
    Brognola sighed. Once more Barbara was second-
guessing him, but he also knew that there was noth-
ing he could do to get her to stop doing it. After all,
that's why she had been chosen to be the Stony Man
mission controller.
    "Just do it and I'll worry about the political fallout
later."
    Price clicked in her comm link. "Aaron, tell Jack
to launch."

Aviano Air Base, Italy

"I WISH I WAS GOING with you this time," Hammer
said as he walked out of the ready room beside Gri-
maldi.
    "I know. But like Katz said, this has gone well
beyond what we normally do on our missions. We'll
be facing the PROFOR guys now, as well as those
Iranians. It's going to get nasty, and he doesn't want
you to have to answer the same questions we're go-
ing to have to answer when this is all over. It won't
be a good career move if you know what I mean.
Plus you're still our ace in the hole, son. If I get a
Strella up the ass, you'll get to fly in and pick up
what's left."

    "Nonetheless," Hammer replied, "I feel like I'm
not holding up my end of the stick."
    "You've done a lot for us already," Grimaldi said.
"And it's all been things you didn't sign on to do
when you took up wearing the blue suit. If you
hadn't made that bombing mn for us, the guys would
be facing several times the number of bad guys that
they are now."
  "I still wish I was going with you."
    The UH-60 Black Hawk Grimaldi strapped him-
self into this time was another loan from Aviano spe-
cial operations squadron. It was painted matte black
and looked like it had had a nose job. In this case,
though, it had been a nose extension and not a re-
duction.
    In fact the nose-gun package from a AH-64
Apache gunship had been grafted onto the Black
Hawk to give it more firepower. And the 25 mm
chain gun packed a lot of firepower in a small pack-
age. With the chain gun and the 7.62 nun Minigun
on the door mount, he could work his way through
almost anything short of heavy armor. Since the Ira-
nians were driving Toyota pickups, he shouldn't have
any problem putting them out of action as soon as
he could get them in his sights.
    Hammer watched until the Black Hawk was out
of sight before getting back into the jeep and driving
back to the CP. Like Grimaldi had said, there was
still a chance that he'd get into the game.




GmMALDI'S MODIFIED Black Hawk chopper also had
up-rated turbines to go along with the extra arma-
ment and equipment. And since he was flying with-
out a strike team in the back, he made record time
across the Adriatic. As he approached the coast of
Bosnia, he flipped the switch to the IR-emission units
mounted on both the belly and the back of his ma-
chine. They emitted strobe-light-like bursts of high-
energy infrared radiation and were designed to bum
out heat-seeking-missile guidance systems. It was a
passive defense, but every little bit helped.
    Then, to try to keep off of anyone's radar screens,
he activated the chopper's ECM suite. The chopper's
Electronic Counter-Measures weren't as good as the
ones on bigger aircraft, but he felt more comfortable
with the unit turned on.
    Lastly he armed the chain gun in the nose turret
and selected the armor-piercing ammunition feed.
The 25 mm bullets would chew through most any-
thing he might encounter.
    With everything set to rock and roll, the pilot tight-
ened the fingers of his flying gloves before flipping
on the TFR navigation system. The Terrain-
Following Radar would let him get right down in the
dirt for a nap-of-the-earth flight, which was another
way of saying that he'd be flying closer to the ground
than most of the local bumblebees. No big deal,
though. If he had to, he'd roll in on the chopper's
landing-gear wheels. Anything to keep him out of
the sight of the Strellas.

    As he nudged forward on the cyclic to drop the
Black Hawk's nose, he keyed his throat mike to let
the boys know that he was on the way. "Stony Man,
this is Flyboy. I'm inbound to your location, over."
    "Flyboy," McCarter's voice came over his ear-
phones, "this is Phoenix One, copy inbound. Wel-
come to the party. What's your ETA? Over."
    Grimaldi glanced at his nay screen and his air-
speed indicator. "I'd say a little under an hour,
over."
    "Roger. We'll keep on trucking until we can find
a good Lima Zulu. Over."
  "Roger, I'll be looking for you."

ALl NADAL NEVER THOUGHT that it would come
down to this. Since that day of death in Beirut, he
had seen himself as a holy warrior, killing the ene-
niles of Islam wherever he found them. He had al-
ways assumed that he would die somewhere along
the way as did all the best holy warriors. He only
feared death because it would take him away from
his quest for vengeance. A dozen or more Westerners
had died in the attack at Aviano, but that wasn't
enough blood to even begin to pay for the deaths of
his family. The blood of a hundred Americans
wouldn't be enough to pay.
    But he had never thought that he would ever have
to offer himself to God this way, as a human bomb.




He knew the stories of other freedom fighters who
had strapped explosives to their bodies and then
walked up to Israeli patrols before detonating them.
It was a tactic that had worked particularly well with
young female suicide bombers before the Israelis
learned to fear Muslim women, as well as the men.
    The call he had been expecting from Tripoli had
finally come in, and he had been ordered to eliminate
that secret American team at Aviano at all costs. And
he hadn't been given the option of failure this time.
When he explained that he had come to the same
conclusion and was already moving against the Yan-
kees, his superiors wanted to know how he intended
to attack them. But when he explained his plan to
smuggle in small arms, it had been turned down cold.
    Tripoli wanted a bigger attack, something that
wouldn't only take care of the American special unit,
but that would do more damage to the base itself. A
suicide-bomb attack had been ordered, and he had
been told to lead it himself. Tripoli couldn't afford
to take any more chances.
    The explosive strapped to his body was RDX,
Rapid-Detonating Explosive, and was several times
more powerful than an equal amount of C-4 plas-
tique. To increase the fragmentation effect, the RDX
had been studded with small pieces of hardened steel
rod. When the RDX detonated, the steel rods would
fly out in all directions like a thousand machine-gun
bullets. But, being square-tipped rods instead of
pointed bullets, they would do more damage when

they hit, tearing through flesh and bone instead of
punching a hole.
    The system had been extensively field-tested
against the Israelis and it worked well. Anyone
within twenty yards of the blast would die, shredded
by the projectiles. He would die in the blast, as well,
but it would be a death well spent if he could take
the Yankees with him.
    When he stepped out of his black BMW, he left
the keys in the ignition. It had been a great car, but
the booby trap under the seat now made it yet another
weapon against the West. Whoever tried to drive it
from the parking lot would become another victory
for the revolution.
    Walking across the parking lot, he got into the
waiting ambulance.

Stony Man Farm

WHEN HUNT WETHERS checked his satellite-orbit
monitor, he saw that he had another satellite coming
up on a pass over Italy. Thinking that he would get
a jump on what he knew Lyons would be asking him
to do before too much longer, he programmed it to
activate the position trackers Gadgets Schwarz had
planted on the terrorist's car.
    No sooner had he told the satellite to send the
activating signal than he got a return. Flashing the
map up on the monitor, he saw that the icon marking
the bugs was motionless in what looked like a park-




ing lot on the western side of the Aviano air-base
perimeter.
    He uplinked the satcom video connection, and
Katzenelenbogen's face immediately appeared.
    "Katz," Wethers said, "you may have a problem.
I don't know what to make of something I just came
up with here."
  "What's that?"
    "I punched in the code for those trackers Schwarz
put on the Lebanese's car and it came back that it's
parked right outside the air base."
    Katz didn't need to hear any more; neither did
Lyons.
    "Gadgets," Lyons snapped, "Get your locator
and see if you can pick up your trackers. The Farm
says that we have company coming."
    "What is it this time?" Hammer asked. Since Gri-
maldi's departure, the Air Force pilot had been mon-
itoring his progress to pick up the Stony Man team.
  "I think we have a hit team coming after us."
  "But that's impossible," Hammer said. "This
  base is closed tighter than a nun's knickers. There's
  no way that any Iranians or Libyans are going to get
  in here."
    "Electrons don't lie," Schwarz said as he watched
the directional needle of his bug locator swing.
"They're here or they're going to be real soon."
    He looked over at Katz. "You want me to notify
base security?"
  The Israeli smiled. "Let's not do that this time.

Since they've decided to come all this way just to
visit us, I think we should get ready to give them a
nice warm welcome."
    "You guys are completely nuts!" Hammer ex-
ploded. "You've got a terrorist hit team coming, and
you're acting like they're invited houseguests."
    "But they are, Major Hammer, they are," Katz
said soothingly. "Lyons and the gang have been
looking for them for a long time now. And since
they've decided to come to us, they've saved us a
trip to see them later and we should be properly
grateful."
  "Jesus, save me from these people."
    "You can sit this one out if you want," Lyons
offered. "I don't think we'll be very long."
    "Oh, no, you don't," the pilot replied as he turned
to dig his AK out from under his bunk. "My mama
always told me never to let people shoot at me unless
I had something to shoot back with."
    "Smart mom," Schwarz said. "It's a good thing
that you listened to her."
    "Obviously I didn't listen to her well enough or I
wouldn't be here with you maniacs."
    Just then, a thundering explosion shook their small
frame building.
  "Show time," Lyons said, smiling.
 The second blast only emphasized the obvious.




CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Aviano Air Base

Ali Nadal repressed a smile as a roiling fireball rose
over what had been the pilots' ready room at the
Aviano base's main hangar. More unbelievers had
just been sent to hell, and before the hour was out
even more would join them. Despite the air base's
security having been so dramatically increased, it had
been almost child's play to get the bombs in. Not
even a highly motivated security guard wanted to
search a reeking sewage-pumping track too closely.
    Since the terrorist's contacts included several key
men in the companies that provided facility mainte-
nance for the base's buildings, it had been easy for
Nadal to arrange for the track to come in. He didn't
even have to forge the work order or pass that ex-
plained the presence of the vehicle to the gate guards.
The smell of the contents of the tank on the truck
had done all the rest.
    When a second explosion sounded by the base ve-
hicle-dispatch office, it was time for Nadal to make

his move. After making sure that his medic's white
coat was buttoned over the blocks of explosives
strapped to his body, he started his vehicle and pulled
out of the parking lot. With the ambulance's sirens
walling and lights flashing, he drove up to the air
base's main gate and screeched to a stop in front of
the barricade.
    "Do you need medical help?" he asked the Italian
sergeant in charge of the security detail at the gate.
    "You guys sure got here fast enough," the ser-
geant said when he saw the Aviano hospital logo on
the ambulance.
    "We were just driving by empty when we saw the
explosion." Nadal shrugged. "It was just good
luck."
    "Not for those poor bastards in the hangar," the
sergeant answered as he hit the button to raise the
barrier. "Go on in and see if you can help."
  "Will do."
    As soon as the barrier was out of the way, Nadal
stomped on the gas pedal and the ambulance shot
forward. Once he was out of sight of the main gate,
he killed the lights and siren and turned down the
street leading to the building housing the American
special unit. He knew God was guiding his footsteps
today and nothing could go wrong.
    Reaching behind his head, he slid open the win-
dow that opened into the rear of the ambulance. "Get
ready to go," he told the eight men sitting in the
back. "We are almost there. When I crash the truck




into the fence, get out and go to the glory that awaits
you."
    "God is great." One of the men raised his fist in
a defiant salute.
    The other suicide bombers weren't dressed as
medics. Instead, they wore battle dress and carried
AKs, as well as the bundles of explosives strapped
around their waists. Even a man willing to die a mar-
tyr's death liked to have a little something in his
hands when he went out.
    "God is great," Nadal answered, and he was sur-
prised at how calm he felt.

LYONS, BLANCANALES, Schwarz and Hammer had
all taken cover around the windows and door on the
front side of the building. The thin walls wouldn't
provide much protection, but it was better than noth-
ing. Katz had his Uzi coveting the two windows in
back.
    Over the wailing of the alert sirens and the clamor
of emergency vehicles rushing to aid the wounded,
they heard the roar of an engine rapidly approaching.
"Company's coming," Lyons called out.
    Schwarz flicked his M-16/M-203 combo off safe
and prepared to open the party with a little long-
range fire. The M-20Ys 40 mm round was antiper-
sonnel, but it also did wonders against thin-skinned
vehicles. If the terrorists showed up in an armored
car, though, they'd be in trouble.
  When a red-and-white vehicle rounded the comer

a hundred yards away, he smiled as he drew down
on it.
    "For Christ's sake," Hammer shouted, "don't
shoot. It's an ambulance!"
    Schwarz ignored him and triggered the M-203
anyway. They hadn't requested medical assistance,
and there was no reason for an ambulance to be rac-
ing toward them. If it did turn out to be legitimate,
the U.S. government could always buy the hospital
a new one. Right now, though, ambulance or not, he
didn't feel like taking any chances with it.
    The 40 mm grenade arched out and connected
with the middle of the vehicle's grille. The explosion
blasted the radiator to fragments and blew the hood
up, covering the windshield. Though unable to see,
the driver kept on coming.
    Sliding the breech of his grenade launcher open,
Schwarz loaded another round, snapped it shut and
had the weapon raised in an instant. This time, he
sent the grenade into the right front tire.
    The explosion shredded the tire. The robber rem-
nants rolled off the tim and dropped the vehicle
down onto the steel wheel. This jerked the ambu-
lance to the right, and the wheel smashed into the
curb, bending it and dropping the vehicle onto its
frame. The ambulance came to a skidding halt well
short of the chain-link fence.
    Before the vehicle stopped rolling, the back doors
were flung open and half a dozen men stormed out,




AKs and Beretta subguns blazing in their hands as
they charged the fence.
    As Schwarz ducked to escape the storm of fire, he
thumbed the selector switch on his M-16 back to full-
auto and sent a short burst into the center body mass
of the lead gunman. To his complete surprise, the
terrorist vanished in a blinding flash and a puff of
dirty black smoke and red spray.
    Schwarz instinctively ducked, and the shrapnel
passed over his head. "They're suicide bombers!"
he shouted.
    Hearing the warning, Lyons shifted his point of
aim to send his .357 Magnum slug into his target's
belly. The best way to stop bombers was to detonate
their explosive packages far enough away to keep out
of the blast radius.
    Lyons's heavy slug connected, and the gunman
disappeared. Unfortunately a large section of the
chain-link fence diasappeared along with him as one
of the fence posts was blown over. Seeing the gap
in the fence, the remaining terrorists raced toward it.
    From his window position, Hammer was snapping
out 3-round bursts from his captured AK. Right after
one of his bursts cut the legs out from under one of
the terrorists, the bolt of his AK locked back on an
empty magazine. When he ducked to change maga-
zines, the man escaped by crawling for cover behind
the team's Lancia sedan.
    When the Air Force major got into his firing po-
sition, he found himself trading bursts with the man

behind the car. when neither one of them could score
on the other from cover, the terrorist struggled up to
get a better shot. Hammer hit him with a long burst
that ended with another detonation. Fortunately, most
of the shrapnel was absorbed by the Lancia.
    A frustrated Nadal watched his assault quickly
falling apart. He had expected the Yankees to run for
their lives from his human bombs. But that wasn't
what they were doing. They were fighting like men
possessed and not quailing like the cowards he knew
them to be.
    To make things worse, since the ambulance hadn't~
been able to crash through the fence, his men were
being forced to try to fight their way into the com-
pound through only two entrances--the gate and the
one hole that had been blown in the wire.
    Only two of his men were on their feet when Na-
dal made his decision that the time had come for him
to kill the Yankees himself. Yelling for the two gun-
men to rush the hole in the fence, he jumped out
from behind the fender of the ambulance and dashed
for the gate.
    With his left hand holding the detonator and his
right wrapped around the pistol grip of his Beretta
subgun, he raced across the open ground screaming
"God is great!"
    As he ran, he saw a big blond man step out into
the open door of the building with a pistol in his
hand. The Yankee showed no fear as he sighted the
pistol. The calmness of his enemy infuriated Nadal,




and he screamed his defiance right as the Yankee
fired.
    The .357 round took him in the face, on the right
side of his nose, and blew his brains out the back of
his skull. A twitch of dying nerves pressed his hand
against the detonator and the ten pounds of RDX
detonated with a bright pink-tinged flash.
    Nadal hadn't even made it to the gate, and he
didn't hear the other two explosions that marked the
deaths of the last of his suicide squad.

"Is EVERYONE OKAY?" Katz asked.
    "Nothing major," Lyons said as he examined a
couple of minor shrapnel hits. Even slowed by the
fence, some of the fragments had still had the power
to cut.
    "I hope we've seen the last of these guys,"
Schwarz said as he looked over at the wreckage of
the team's Lancia. "Look what they did to our car.
I was really beginning to like that thing. We'll have
to see if we can get another one."
    "We've seen the last of them in human form at
least," Lyons declared. "Bits and chunks of meat
and things aren't likely to cause us much more trou-
ble."
    "Unless they don't get this mess cleaned up
quickly enough," Blancanales added. "It gets a little
too warm around here for this to lay in the sun very
long."
  Hammer looked a little green around the gills.

Shooting people was one thing; seeing them explode
was another. "Can I be excused now, guys?" he
asked plaintively. "I think I've enjoyed just about all
of this that I can stand. I feel a distinct urge to
vomit."
    "Go ahead." Biancahales sounded sincerely sym-
pathetic. "We understand. It happens to all of us at
first. You'll get used to it."
  "Jesus, I sure hope not."
    "Heads up, guys!" Schwarz shouted when he
caught the sound of more vehicles racing toward
them.
    Rounding the comer came three jeeps of Air Po-
Lice, their weapons at the ready.
    "Not those clowns again," Schwarz moaned when
he recognized who they were. "I'm in no mood to
sit in their jail again until the Farm can spring me."
    "That's not going to be a problem this time."
Katzenelenbogen sounded determined. "Ground
your weapons, and I'll talk to whoever's in charge."
    Katz walked out through the blasted hole in the
chain-link fence and stepped over the remains of a
suicide bomber to meet the security vehicles. As he
had expected, the officer in charge was none other
than Colonel Waters, the senior U.S. officer at Avi-
ano. As a professional chair-borne warrior, the Air
Force colonel wasn't well prepared to deal with the
realities of combat he was facing.
    The ground in front of the CP building looked like
someone had driven a couple of cows into a spinning




airplane propeller. Most of the bleeding chunks of
meat weren't even recognizable as having ever been
human. The odd dismembered arm with a hand still
attached to it was a dead giveaway, however.
    "I see that they hit you, too," Waters said, his
eyes avoiding the pool of blood at his feet. "Obvi-
ously this was a diversion attack designed to keep us
from--"
    "We were the real target," Katz cut him off
abruptly. "Not the air base. The bombs at your han-
gars were a diversion so your security force would
let the ambulance inside the perimeter without
searching it."
    The colonel realized where this conversation was
going and tried to recover. "But it was a real emer-
gency," he bleated. "We had causalities that needed
immediate medical assistance. No one ever thought
that the terrorists would use an ambulance to get
through the gate."
    "Did you think that they were going to drive up
in armored vehicles flying the Palestinian flag?"
    "But," Waters repeated, "they were in an am-
bulance."
    "You might want to have a talk with your chief
security officer about your vehicle-admission proce-
dures before someone from the White House does."
  The colonel blanched. "Yes, sir," he said.
    "And now, if you're through here, Colonel, I need
to file my report on this incident."
  "Of course, sir."

    On the way back to his vehicle, Colonel Waters
was very careful about where he put his feet.

Stony Man Farm

FOR A CHANGE, the entire staff of the computer room
was on duty when Katzenelenbogen called in to re-
port the suicide attack on the CP. They had all caught
up on their sleep and wanted to be in on what they
hoped would be the final hours of the mission.
    "Are you all okay?" Barbara Price asked after
Katz gave his report.
    "The Ironman and Pol picked up a few shrapnel
nicks," Katz reported, "but nothing serious, and we
can take care of it here."  "That's good news."
    "The best news," Katz said, "is that I think that's
the end of the Lebanese's operation. If he had to
resort to using suicide bombers, that tells me that he
didn't have anything left to use against us. Now we
can devote all of our energy to supporting the Stony
Man team."
"Are you still functional, then?" Price asked.
"We've got a bunch of new holes in the walls,
and the windows will never be the same, but it ap-
pears that none of our comm gear was damaged. We
can still coordinate the operation from here."
    Knowing that the CP was still in operation, Price
switched subjects. The second Aviano attack had just




become old business. "What's the status on the air
option?"
    Katz glanced at his watch. "Jack's approaching
the LZ, and the guys should be on board within the
next ten minutes or so."
    "Good," she said. "Hunt has a new location
where the Iranians have stopped, and they should get
on it as soon as they can."
    "Great," Katz replied. 'Tll pass that on as soon
as they're in the air. Maybe we can actually get this
thing wrapped up today."  "Cross your fingers."
  'Tve got everything but my ears crossed."
    "Just as long as it's not your wires that you have
crossed."
    "Never happen." Katz laughed at her pun. Laughs
had been hard to come by lately and he liked how it
felt.

Bosnia

AFFER A GROUND-HUGGING, tree-hopping flight
across half of Bosnia, Grimaldi was vectored into the
landing zone by radio. The pilot spotted Hawkins
standing in a clearing beside a road and clicked in
his throat mike. "Got your Lima Zulu," he radioed.
"Bring it on down," McCarter answered.
    Grimaldi flared out and brought the chopper down,
but kept the rotors spinning. "Come on, guys, come
on!" he radioed. "We don't have all day."

    "Keep calm, Flyboy," McCarter sent back. "We
have to grab our gear."
    "Katz is on the horn for you." Grimaldi held out
a headset when Bolan entered the cockpit.
    "Hunt has come up with a location you need to
check out," Katz said. "The satellite shows that the
target trucks have been parked there for some time
now."
  "Send it."
    Bolan marked the coordinates on his map and
passed it over to Grimaldi. "Here's the target this
time."
    McCarter slid into the copilot's seat and entered
the coordinates into the navigation computer. "Let's
do it."




CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Spivak, Bosnia

Major Naslin was glad to have finally reached his
destination--the hills overlooking the Serb-held
town of Spivak. Though the town was less than sixty
miles from the artillery park, it had taken him hours
to get into position. One reason for the delay was
that the area was crawling with PROFOR units, and
they had been forced to use the back roads and forest
trails to reach their position unseen.
    Then, on Hukan Rezak's recommendation, he had
abandoned the Toyotas he had driven since leaving
the bombed-out camp for half a dozen ex-
Yugoslavian army Mercedes Unimog trucks. As the
Bosnian had pointed out, the Unimogs were painted
olive drab like the PROFOR vehicles and wouldn't
be as noticeable as the desert tan pickups. Now, back
under the trees of the wooded hillside, they were well
camouflaged and impossible to spot from either the
air or the ground.
 As he watched the town below, Naslin went over

the plan in his mind. Rezak's information was that
there would be some fifty or sixty thousand people
in Spivak in the morning. That would make a good
first killing for what would become known as the
Day of Death. Of the seventeen rockets, he would
send eight of them screaming down on Spivak,
spreading their yellow death.
    As soon as he had launched the rockets at Spivak,
he would hitch up the Katusha launcher and tow it
to Daniva, where another twenty or thirty thousand
people would be gathered. Two volleys of three rock-
ets should take care of them. Then, the last volley of
three would be fired at Zubor and another twenty
thousand Serbs or so would die.
    By noon, well over a hundred thousand Serbs and
Croats would be dead, not counting their children,
and Bosnia would be well on its way to becoming
an Islamic state.
    When word of the fate of these towns spread, and
the agents of Rezak's party were prepared to see that
the word did get out quickly, the ensuing panic
would clean thousands more of the infidels out of
Bosnia. Fear of more chemical attacks would send
Serb and Croatian refugees stampeding out of Bosnia
back to their national homelands.
    Naslin would rather simply kill them now and
have done with it, but that wasn't possible with so
few rockets. He knew that every able-bodied man
who fled to the Serbian or Croatian territories would
one day come back with an AK in his hand to try to




retake Bosnia. But by the time they returned, the Is-
lamic troops would be in place to protect the Mus-
lims and they would die then.
    Even with all he'd had to overcome since leaving
Asdik's fortress, the plan would still work. All he
had to do to bring this to pass was to keep out of
sight of the UN patrols until the morning. He had
been informed that UN aircraft would be less of a
problem because another attack had been launched
against Aviano that would cripple their ability to
send ground-attack fighters over Bosnia.
    Even so, Naslin had been told before that the air
base would be shut down, and it hadn't happened.
And since he still had several Strella missiles, he
ordered that they be sent out to the sentries with in-
structions that they keep watch for any aircraft flying
too close to their hideout.

MCCARTER WAS FLYING in Grimaidi's copilot's seat
and manning the weapons in the nose turret as they
approached the location Hunt Wethers had vectored
them into. In the back, Hawkins was on the door-
mounted Minigun while the others searched the
ground below for their targets.
    Bolan was on the radio to Aviano, where Katze-
nelenbogen was forwarding the latest tracking coor-
dinates from the Farm's borrowed satellite. "The
Farm says they haven't moved."
    "Damn," Grimaldi said as he nosed the Black
Hawk even lower so he could look into the edges of

the tree line. "They've got to be somewhere down
there." The forest was thick here, and flying over it
wasn't cutting it.
  "There they are!" McCarter stated.       "Two
o'clock, fifty meters inside the wood line!"
    Stomping on the rudder pedal, Grimaldi snapped
the gunship around to face the trucks. McCarter's
hands were on the firing controls for the 25 mm chain
gun, but he couldn't find a target. Nothing was mov-
ing in the wood line, and no one was firing at them.
    "Set it down," Bolan told Grimaldi, "and we'll
go in on foot."
  "You sure?"
 Bolan nodded.
    Going into a low hover, the pilot bled off his lift
until the landing-gear wheels scraped the dirt. The
instant he touched down, the Stony Man team, minus
Hawkins, exited the chopper in an assault mode.
    Grimaldi pulled the chopper back up in the air and
kept both the nose turret and Hawkins's Minigun
covering the trucks as the team fanned out. When no
one shot at them, James and Manning ran toward the
trucks. Once inside the wood, they found that the
Toyotas had been abandoned.
    "We've been suckered." James sounded disgusted
over the comm link. "No one's here."
    The trampled earth and tire tracks around the two
tan Toyota pickups told the story. The Iranians had
met up with someone and had transferred the chem-
ical rockets to other vehicles. And since the satellite's




computer hadn't been told to be on the alert for a
switch, it wasn't tracking the new trucks.
    "Now what in the hell do we do?" James asked.
That question was on everyone's mind, and he had
just been the first to voice it.
    McCarter's jaw was set. "I'll be bloody well
damned to hell and back if I know. Unless the Bear
can pull another one of his bloody rabbits out of his
bloody hat, we're bloody well screwed."
    Bolan was on the horn to the Aviano CP and gave
Katz the bad news. After talking for a moment, he
pulled out his map and turned to McCarter. "Katz
says that he thinks they're going to hit three towns
not too far from here."  "Show me."
    Bolan's finger traced an arc covering the three po-
tential targets. "He's saying that it's going to be Spi-
vak first."
  "That's his hunch?" McCarter asked.
  Bolan nodded.
    With the exception of Hawkins, who was the new
kid on the block, all of the Phoenix Force comman-
dos had worked off of Katzenelenbogen's hunches
for years and knew that they were usually better than
hard intel.
"You want to go with it?" McCarter asked again.
"I can be there in twenty minutes or so," Grimaldi
said, cutting into the conversation as he glanced at
his nav screen.
  "Let's do it," Bolan said.

    The teton was loaded back on the Black Hawk and
headed west as fast as the beating rotors could carry
it.

Stony Man Farm

HUNT WETHERS was working overtime trying to find
what had happened to the Iranians. The vehicle
switch had taken him completely by surprise, and he
wasn't a man who liked surprises.
    Operating on Katzenelenbogen's hunch, he was
focusing on the area within a twenty-mile radius of
the town of Spivak as the primary target. It was a
gamble to put all of his efforts in just that one area,
and if Katz was wrong about his prediction of the
target, a lot of people would die. But there were those
times when you had to go with a hunch, and this was
one of them.
    Using the borrowed satellite yet again, as quickly
as he could identify them, he was marking the ve-
hicles of the PROFOR units. Then, by telling the
satellite to ignore all of the marked vehicles and only
show him the ones he hadn't yet tagged, he was
working his way through all of the traffic in the
search area. He wasn't sure exactly what he was
looking for, but he knew that he'd recognize it when
it flashed on his monitor.
    After tagging all the PROFOR units he could find,
he marked all the buses and trucks in the belief that
it would be unlikely for the Iranians to want to drive
to their targets in something big and clumsy. They




would want four-wheel-drive rigs if possible, or at
least something that had good cross-country mobil-
ity.
    With that done, he started to look for anything he
had missed on the first go-around. He passed on sin-
gle vehicles, figuring that since the Iranians had
stayed together since leaving the camp, they'd be do-
ing that now. It was an assumption, but in this busi-
ness assumptions had to be made or nothing would
ever be done.
    The satellite's radar showed him a group of ve-
hicles that was registering as being Mercedes Uni-
mog trucks. The versatile four-wheel-drive German
trucks were used all over Europe by both the military
and civilians. There was no way for him to tell if
these were from a UN unit or a group of civilians.
Their location, however, was suspicious. According
to the radar, they were clustered in a tight group in-
side the tree line of a hill overlooking the town.
    When that was all he could come up with, he
uplinked to Katzenelenbogen in Aviano.
    "I've got a group of vehicles that look out of
place," he reported. "According to the computer,
they're Mercedes Unimogs, but I can't tell if they're
military or civilian. Anyway, they're hiding under
the trees, and I had to use the radar to find them."
    "Even in Bosnia," Katz replied, "vehicles usually
don't hide under the trees unless they're trying to
hide from somebody. It might be a long shot, but

they're hiding in the right area, so they're worth tak-
ing a closer look at. I'll pass this on to the team."
    "And I'tl keep on looking," Wethers said as he
signed off.

Bosnia

MAJOR NASLIN HEARD the sound of the Black
Hawk's rotors long before the chopper appeared.
Any helicopter flying over Spivak was his enemy,
and this close to his victory, he wasn't going to let
anything stand in his way.
    "Use the missiles!" he shouted. "Bring that heli-
copter down!"
    Fearing that the chopper might have radioed his
position to other UN forces, Naslin raced for the Uni-
mog that had the Katusha launcher hitched to the
rear.
  "Start the truck!" he yelled to his sergeant.
    He knew that there would be even more Serbs in
Spivak when the polls opened in the morning, but
the town was already packed with them as it was.
He wanted the greatest kill he could get. But as it
was said in the holy Koran, God didn't promise any
man tomorrow, so the time to do his work was al-
ways today.
    "What are you doing?" Hukan Rezak shouted.
"They will see you if you drive out there."
  "I am going to kill Serbs for you."




EVEN THOUGH the previous target had been a dry run,
Grimaldi was taking no chances as he came up on
the new target Katz had just called in to them. He
came in along the back side of the wooded area, fast
and low.
    "Keep a sharp eye out, guys," he called to the
team in the back.
    From his observation post in the rear of the chop-
per, Gary Manning saw the puff of smoke as the
Strella was launched from the wood line.
    "Missile!" he shouted over the comm link.
"Coming in from our six!"
    Grimaldi shoved forward on the cyclic and aimed
the Black Hawk for the ground. If he had been in a
jet fighter, he would have zoomed up toward the sun
to use the solar glare to confuse the heat-seeking
warhead. As close to the ground as he was, though,
that tactic wouldn't work. Their only chance to sur-
vive this was for him to get the chopper in the dirt
and present a tail-on, jinking target to the Strellas as
he was fleeing the area.
    In the back of the chopper, the Stony Man com-
mandos braced for an impact, but the missile was
thrown off by the high-energy IR-emission units. Af-
ter passing by a little too close for Grimaldi's tastes,
it impacted on the hillside and detonated harmlessly.
    "We have another one coming in from star-
board!" McCarter yelled.
  "Another one on our six!" James reported.
  With two Strellas coming in from different direc-

tions at once, Grimaldi had to stop running and go
into missile-evasion maneuvers, but he made his
move a microsecond too late.
    The Strella coming in from the side missed them
completely. But though the heat seeker of the missile
coming in from the rear was thrown off by the IR
emitters, its nose grazed the top of the Black Hawk's
tail fin and detonated.
    The hardened-steel triangular fragments embedded
in the warhead's explosive charge sliced through the
chopper's skin as if it were tinfoil. Some of the frag-
ments slammed into one of the U-joints on the tail
rotor's driveshaft and kept it from rotating properly.
Under the driving power of the turbine, the spinning
torque shaft flexed against the immovable U-joint
and snapped.
      "Oh, shit," Grimaldi muttered when he felt the
tail rotor give way. "We've lost the tail rotor."
  Bolan keyed the mike to call Aviano.
    "We're going down," Bolan said calmly. "You
might want to inform the UN boys and tell them to
come and collect the pieces."
    "Good luck," Katzenelenbogen replied. "I'11
make the call."
    Katz knew that Hal Brognola had been trying to
keep the UN out of this because the President wanted
it that way. But the time had come to get some out-
side help, and he wasn't going to bounce the idea off
the Farm. This was his call, and he was making it.
 Even so, he also wasn't going to involve the Eur-




opean PROFOR units unless he had to. There were
American PROFOR units in the Spivak area, and he
knew what buttons to push to get them involved.
Reaching for the phone, he tapped in a number at
the PROFOR headquarters on the other side of the
base.
    "U.S. PROFOR," the operator said after picking
up on the first ring. "How can I help you?"
    "This is Mr. Brown," Katz said, "and I'm calling
on a Code Aurora Three Zero priority. Let me speak
to the U.S. commander."
  "Wait one moment, sir."
    "This is General Tucker," a gruff voice said sec-
onds later. "Whoever you are, mister, you're taking
my time and I'm a busy man. So who the hell are
you and what do you want?"
    Katz smiled. After dealing with the wishy-washy
Colonel Waters, it was refreshing to talk to a man
who knew how to get to the point.
    "My name is Brown," Katz said. "As in boot.
Code word is Falling Star. I need to have one of your
units in Bosnia do me a favor."
    "You've got the right buzz words, Mr. Brown,"
Tucker replied, "but there'd better be a damned good
reason for this call. If you haven't heard, we're up
to our collective asses in alligators right now."
    "I know, General," Katz said soothingly, "and
that's why I'm talking to you. I'm the man who can
drain the swamp and make the alligators go away."
  "I'm listening."

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

Aviano Air base, Italy

When Katzenelenbogen put down the phone, he
turned to John Hammer. "I know you're not a chop-
per pilot, but I'd like you to get down to the flight
line and get another Black Hawk cranked up. rll
have a rotary-wing pilot standing by to fly it, but I
want you in command of the aircraft."  "Are they still alive?"
    "I don't know," Katz said bluntly. "You'll find
out when you get there."
    Hammer took a deep breath. If Grimaldi had run
afoul of those Strellas, he could be shot down, too.
But going in was the least he could do for the men
who had risked their lives to rescue him. "I'm on
the way."
    "I'm going with you," Lyons said. "You'll need
someone on the door guns."
  "Bring them back here, Ironman."
  "One way or the other," Lyons vowed.




    He didn't have to add that he meant he'd return
with them dead or alive.

JACK GRIMALDI HAD BEEN able to keep the stricken
Black Hawk under some control almost all the way
down. With the tail rotor disabled, the torque of the
turbine shaft wasn't being counteracted, and it made
the ship's fuselage want to turn against the rotation
of the main rotor. As long as he kept his airspeed up,
he could do what was called slip stream. That meant
using the pressure of the air streaming past the fu-
selage to keep it aligned with his flight path. But he
had to kill his speed so he didn't crumple the Black
Hawk into a ball when it hit.
    The instant he came off the throttles, the fuselage
started to turn, sending the ship into a slow, flat spi-
ral. Feeling that he was losing control, he yelled out,
"Hang on, we're going down!" and dumped pitch
to the main rotors.
    The Black Hawk fell out of the sky like a stone.
At the last possible moment, Grimaldi hauled up on
the collective, pulling full pitch to the still spinning
main rotor. The blades caught the air and cushioned
the impact.
    The abrupt stop jammed the landing gear legs up
through the bottom of the fuselage and tipped the
chopper over onto its side. Grimaldi killed the fuel
feed, but the spinning rotor tips slammed into the
ground and snapped off at the hubs. The Stony Man

team could only hold on while the machine beat itself
to death.
    By some miracle, when the chopper came to a rest,
the fuselage was right side up.
    Dazed by the impact, Hawkins pulled himself up
to his feet by grabbing on to the Minigun mount.
Looking out the open door, he saw the winking of
muzzle-flashes in the wood line 150 yards in front
of him. Then he heard the pings of AK rounds
punching through the chopper's skin.
    Getting shot down and crashing was bad enough,
but to have someone shooting at him when he was
down really angered him. Checking the ammo feed
for the Mini, he saw that the indicator light for the
gun's power source showed that it was still on.
    Settling his hands on the butterfly grips, he smiled
as he depressed the trigger. Shoot at him, would
they? He'd show them what it felt like to be shot at!
    The Mini growled and whined as a solid stream
of 7.62 mm tracers reached out and savaged the
wood line like a laser beam. The slugs tore through
everything in their path, animal, mineral or vegeta-
ble.

HOK~a~ REZ^K'S Bosnians, Naslin's Iranians and
trees alike suffered under the hail of lead. At first,
the Bosnians didn't know what was happening to
them; they had never experienced the raw fury a
Minigun could unleash. The eerie, whining howl of
the motor driving the gun barrels echoed inside the




hollow fuselage, adding a frightening note to the rip-
ping roar of the steady muzzle blast.
    The stream of fire went from one end of the enemy
line to the other and back again, as if the man in the
fallen helicopter were holding a water hose. Unlike
a stream of water, however, this fiery stream brought
sudden death. After watching their comrades in-
stantly chewed to death as dozens and dozens of 7.62
mm slugs tore into them, the fainthearted broke and
tried to save their lives.
    One of the first to run was Hukan Rezak. The Bos-
nian had once been a soldier, but the slow poison of
Balkan politics had leached all traces of courage
from his character along with his humanity. The man
who had planned to murder tens of thousands of his
fellow citizens didn't make it even three steps before
Hawkins saw a flash of movement and gave him a
short squirt.
    At six thousand rounds per minute, even a short
burst from a Minigun meant complete destruction.
After the stream of fire passed over him, the Bosnian
was no more than ragged chunks of bleeding meat.
    With Rezek gone to bloody ruin, there was no rea-
son for anyone else to stay. As fast as they could
run, Iranians and Bosnians dropped their weapons
and fled.
    Suddenly the Mini fell silent except for the whine
of the electric motor spinning the barrels, and Haw-
kins released the trigger. "Yeeee-haaa!" Hawkins
yelled over the comm link. The adrenaline racing

through his veins made his voice shrill as he sounded
the battle cry of his ancestors, the rebel yell.
    Waves of heat shimmered above the overheated
Mini, and the barrels glowed dull red. He had just
delivered some twenty thousand 7.62 mm rounds on
target, and he felt fine. In fact he would have liked
to have another twenty or thirty thousand to give the
bastards. Shoot at him, would they?
    With Hawkins's masterful work on the Mini keep-
ing the enemy's heads down, the other Stony Man
warriors were able to get out of the wreckage and
take cover.
    "T.J.," McCarter called on the comm link, "if
you're done screwing around in there, we still have
work to do."
  "I'm coming, boss."

NASLIN HAD PAUSED just long enough to watch the
Black Hawk fall out of the sky and destroy itself
when it hit the ground. He had been on the verge of
congratulating himself for having sent the Strellas
out with the sentries when he heard the eerie, howl-
ing growl of the Minigun.
    Panicked that the Yankees would turn their guns
on him, he stomped on the gas. With his attention
focused on the downed Black Hawk, he hit a boulder
that sharply slewed the vehicle sideways to the steep
slope of the hill. The Unimog simply rolled over onto
its side and skidded to a halt. The swivel hitch tow-




ing the Katusha launcher turned far enough to keep
the weapon from overturning, as well.
    Jumping out of the truck, Naslin saw that the
launcher was still usable. "Help me with the Katu-
sha," he shouted to his sergeant.
    He was at the extreme range of the rockets. But
even so, they would reach the edge of the town and
the wind would carry the gas as far as he needed it
to go. The Serbs would die. "Hurry," he snapped,
"before the Yankees can get here."
    The two men quickly unhitched the launcher,
spread the trail legs and locked them into position.
Each rocket had to be loaded in the breeches of the
launcher and the firing contacts lined up. When the
third round had been loaded, Naslin cranked the el-
evation screw wheel to give the rockets maximum
range. A half crank of the traverse wheel aimed the
rockets at the middle of the town.
    Jumping out of the launcher's back-blast area,
Naslin shouted, "Fire!"
    The technical sergeant was reaching for the
launcher's firing button when his head snapped back
and he crumpled to the ground.
    Looking back at the crashed helicopter, he saw one
of the Yankees with a long rifle in his hands, a
sniper.
    Screaming his rage, the Iranian backed away from
the launcher as the sergeant took another hit where
he lay. Pulling his pistol, he aimed at one of the

nerve-gas rockets that had been laid out for the sec-
ond volley and fired.
    In his haste, his first shot missed. He never got a
chance to take a second one.
    Manning's sniper rifle spoke again, and the 7.62
mm NATO round crossed the four hundred yards to
his target in a heartbeat and drilled through the center
of Naslin's chest.
    The Iranian staggered from the impact and tried to
aim his pistol again. Manning's second round took
him in the throat, and he went down.
    Not being in a mood to take any chances, the
sniper sent a third round into his head as the major
lay on the ground.
  "Target down," he called over the comm link.

"Is THAT THING INTACT.9" Hawkins anxiously asked
as he and Encizo approached Naslin's body and saw
the rocket round on the ground beside him. It was
an unnecessary question because if the warhead had
ruptured, they would all be dead. But it was one of
those questions you asked just to reassure yourself
that what your brain was telling you was true.
    "It's okay," Encizo said with obvious relief. "The
safety pin on the fuse is still in place, and he didn't
hit it."
    "Thank you, Jesus," Hawkins muttered softly.
Suddenly he was tired. Like everyone else, he had
been running on adrenaline for longer than he could




remember, and all he wanted to do was to take a
long nap. The long-overdue shower could wait.
    "Heads up, lads," McCarter called out on the
corem link. "We have company coming up on our
six. This may not be over yet."
    Bolan turned around and was relieved to see the
good old Stars and Stripes flying from the antenna
masts of the PROFOR vehicles charging up the hill
from Spivak toward them. At least American forces
would treat them well until Brognola could get them
released from wherever they would be incarcerated.
  "It's okay," he said. "It's the U.S. Cavalry."
    "'Bout damned time they showed up," James
growled.
    When the vehicles stopped, Bolan saw that the of-
ricer in command was an infantry major. Normally a
lieutenant would command such a unit, so this was
an indication that Katz had gotten through to some-
one and explained the seriousness of the situation.
He stepped forward to meet the major.
    "Are you Belasko?" the major asked as he
jumped down from his Hummer.
  Bolan nodded. "I'm Mike Belasko, yes."
    "I'm Major James Worthington, American contin-
gent, sir. I have a message from my command to take
you and your men into protective custody and to se-
cure a chopper LZ for your immediate extraction."
    Bolan repressed a smile. Once more the Farm had
been handed a lemon, but had made lemonade out
of it. He didn't like handing over his weapons, even

to U.S. troops, but it beat falling into the hands of
the UN.
    "We're certainly ready to leave here, Major," Bo-
lan replied. "Where do you want us to put our weap-
ons?"
    "You're to keep your weapons, sir." The major
seemed to be surprised at Bolan's question. "We're
just here to reinforce you and to provide security
until your extraction. Let me make the call now, be-
cause your chopper is already in the air."
      "Does your headquarters have access to a chem-
ical-decon unit?" Bolan asked.  "I think so, sir. why?"
    "You might also want to notify them that there's
a truckload of Iranian nerve-gas rockets over there."
He pointed to the overturned Mercedes Unimog.
"They might want to get some security on them, as
well."
    The American major blanched. 'TII do that im-
mediately, sir."
    "And if you don't mind, let's find an LZ upwind,
as well."
  "That's most affirm, sir."

THE NEXT MORNING, hundreds of thousands of Ser-
bians and Croatians stood in front of their designated
polling places to cast their ballots for the future of
their war-torn nation. Old men and women, families
with children and young adults all waited patiently
for the chance to take the power of the vote in their




hands. It was a solemn moment, but one filled with
joy because they saw their voting as a sign that the
long war was finally over and they could live without
fear.
    While the Bosnians waited in line, in Italy a small
group of men also waited. But they waited to board
their C-141 Starlifter for the long flight back to An-
drews Air Force Base. Like the Bosnians they, too,
were joyful. Once more they had put their lives on
the line to make the world a better place for ordinary
people to live. Once more they had gone into the pit
and had come out alive, leaving the bodies of their
enemies behind them.
  That was the way it should always be.