Читать книгу Deadly Payload - Don Pendleton - Страница 11

The covert conference had reached its conclusion long before, giving McCarter time to report in to the Farm. The Mossad and Unit 777 operators were calling in, as well. All three teams were resting, burning away the morning hours so that they would travel in the heat of the day. It was harder going for all three groups, but fewer people would be out, and Phoenix Force and its allies would be less obvious.

McCarter’s neck hairs rose and he looked toward Gary Manning who had tensed up at the cavern’s entrance.

“Drone,” Manning whispered, his HK sniper rifle gripped firmly.

That awoke the entire group. Squinting, the Phoenix Force commander could barely make out the tiny speck against the sky. Though they were painted white, the Predator drone was difficult to see, the colorless hull blanking out against the halo of sun-blazed sky or clear blue. Manning’s face was set in a grimace of disgust.

“What’s wrong?” McCarter asked.

“It’s been following an orbital path around the cave for at least two minutes,” Manning replied. “And it had been following that course when I first saw it. I should have noticed it earlier.”

“You’re only human,” the Briton said.

Manning quirked an eyebrow. “I’m supposed to be better.”

“How did you even notice it?” Mahmoud asked. “It’s keeping the corona of the sun at its back.”

“Sharp eyes,” Manning answered. He shook his head. “It’s high enough that it can’t be heard, and staying near the sun keeps it secure against thermal imaging. I’d caught odd movement in my peripheral vision, so I used an old eclipse-gazing trick.”

Manning pointed to his cap. Small, circular vent holes near the crown to allow the seventy-five percent of body heat expelled through the head and shoulders to escape unhindered, was part of most headgear. He took the cap off and held it over a map that he’d put face down. He kept his fingers over all but one of the pinholes, and a disk of light showed on the map in his broad shadow. A dart-shaped object crossed the disk of light.

“Son of a bitch,” Reiser growled. “How did they know…”

Rafael Encizo spoke up, “One of your men is missing.”

“Kohn?” another Israeli asked. “He was supposed to be watching the mouth of the cave from the wash running past.”

“He’s long gone,” Calvin James interjected. “I don’t see any sign of him anywhere.”

Mahmoud looked at Reiser, his lips pulled tight. Dark eyes studied the Mossad commander for a moment. “Your suspicions were correct.”

Reiser sighed. “Let’s move…”

“We’d be right in the open,” Manning countered. “And our allies tell us that those drones can be armed with anything. One of our teams encountered machine-gun fire from the drones.”

Mahmoud looked up toward the sun, but the harsh glare made it impossible to see anything. He turned away. “They’ve also attacked with rockets, and this cavern would make a handy tomb with one warhead.”

“Who did you suspect Kohn of working for?” McCarter asked Reiser.

“There’s an organization made up of former and current intelligence officers and private citizens,” Reiser began.

“Abraham’s Dagger?” McCarter prompted.

“You’ve encountered them before?” Reiser asked. “I lost a good friend investigating those bastards.”

“Not personally,” McCarter replied. “But I do know of two operations they’ve been involved with. A Palestinian refugee camp, and the attempted assassination of several UN relief workers.”

“Abraham’s Dagger lives up to all the bad press the Israeli government gets,” Mahmoud stated. “They’ve caused Egypt enough headaches.”

“We try to do damage control,” Reiser said. “Trouble is, they have the unspoken approval of too many hard-liners in charge. The Dagger did enough to seem legitimate and supportable, but then they go and kill children of terrorists or people who could link them to atrocities.”

“That explains hitting a terrorist camp in Syria, but a flight of drones was sent toward Israel with bellies full of chemical weapons,” Hawkins reminded them.

“The Dagger has felt betrayed by the proper government,” Reiser told him. “A major terrorist attack, killing thousands, would give them all the support they’d need to make whatever first strikes they wanted. Naturally, they’d get all of their supporters out of the target area so that the Dagger’s agenda could be hawked in the aftermath.”

“Scary bastards,” Hawkins rumbled.

A Mossad commando scurried across the wash and crouched near the mouth of the cave. “We’ve got an unknown force coming toward us.”

Manning shouldered his MSG-90 and scanned the horizon with its high-powered scope. “Armored personnel carriers and jeeps.”

“An advance party, commandos on foot, are working their way closer,” the Israeli told them.

“Kohn’s buddies,” Reiser said with a sneer. “I’m going to kill that little fanatic…”

“Save it,” Mahmoud told the Mossad commander, putting a calming hand on his shoulder. “We should get out of the cave.”

McCarter looked at Manning. “Got a good withdrawal route?”

“Two. The other would take us right down the throats of the advancing force,” Manning stated. “But all have cover against that Predator up top.”

McCarter looked at the horizon. “We’ll take that route.”

“You’re going to hold them off?” Reiser asked. “No. We’ll all withdraw.”

“Actually, we weren’t intending on holding them off,” James said, knowing his commander. “We’ll knock a few answers out of those chumps.”

“He’s right,” McCarter said. “We might have a chance to interrogate an enemy prisoner or three.”

“He never takes the easy route,” Manning added. “You two withdraw and go on to your phase of this operation. We’ll contact you if we learn anything.”

Mahmoud nodded. “Allah be with you, my friends.”

McCarter’s eyes narrowed, a mirthless grin tightening his lips. “God’s going to sit this one out. We’ve got the devil’s work to do, mate.”

C APTAIN Z ING H O , a North Korean officer, heard the American woman’s voice on the phone and took a deep breath, his stomach flip-flopping. It had been a while since a mysterious warrior had given him a new lease on life, saving him from a massacre in an illegal chemical weapons lab. The tall man in black protected him, and later, a group of computer hackers smoothed over all the wrinkles left by association with Major Huan. Now, as a military attaché in the North Korean consulate in Beijing, he had been contacted by the tall warrior’s allies, given access to a fistful of information.

“We need to make certain that cool heads prevail here,” the woman said to him. “The documents in your e-mail will help with that.”

“North Korea, being the voice of reason?” Ho asked.

“It’s a long shot. Just present it to the ambassador,” Barbara Price informed him. “You know that Ambassador Chong is a good man. So do we. He could do a lot to defuse the situation.”

Ho nodded. “Nobody wants China to go to war with the British and American fleets over Taiwan. Too much chance of things going nuclear. And we’re right in the backyard in case a few megatons fall short.”

He paused for a moment. “But, won’t your contacting me show up on the Chinese government’s radar?”

“You know that deal with the search engine and the Chinese government?” Price asked.

“You’re kidding me,” Ho said.

“Nope. Putting the blocks on those searches also gives us a lot of wiggle room for covert communication. The same scrambling encryptions are protecting every e-mail and Internet broadband phone communication that we are putting through,” Price answered.

Ho took a deep breath, feeling safer now. “You arranged that?”

“More of taking advantage of a blind spot,” Price told him.

Ho looked at his printer. Sheets piled up in the output tray. Even at eight pages a minute, it seemed to take forever. “Tell your man…thanks again.”

“He doesn’t do it for the gratitude,” Price explained. “But when I see him again, I’ll let him know.”

“Provided the world doesn’t turn into a smoking crater,” Ho muttered.

“The documentation you have will go a long way toward cooling that off,” Price returned.

With the overview finished and a CD-ROM burned containing actual records, Ho was ready.

“Thanks,” Ho said.

“If this works, thank you,” Price countered.

Captain Ho popped the CD from his drive, took the overview document and headed for Ambassador Chong’s office.

“W ITH THE N ORTH K OREANS confirming the information we’ve sent our contacts in the Chinese intelligence community, we might actually pull this off,” Price said hopefully.

“Taiwan is a tempting prize,” Kurtzman stated. “The hard-liners who want all of China unified will be hard to dissuade.”

“We just have to keep playing the back alleys,” Price answered. “Keep hitting the Red Chinese with reason until they back down from their urge to hit the Nationalist Chinese for retaliation.”

“Reason has rarely been an effective tool against invasion,” Kurtzman replied. “If an administration is gung ho and ready for battle, almost nothing slows it down. For every war that we pulled the plug on, another took place somewhere else.”

“So just because we have misses, we’re supposed to give up?” Price asked. “We didn’t shut down because we couldn’t prevent the Towers from falling. And we didn’t give up because the President ignored our recommendations of force application in Iraq. We just keep plugging to save the world, whether it wants it or not.”

“I’m not saying to throw in the towel,” Kurtzman said. “I’m just not counting on this to be resolved by common sense, which isn’t as common as you’d think.”

“We’ve made a difference before. It’s what we do. Batting a thousand isn’t possible, but humanity’s still here.”

Kurtzman nodded. “You’re right, Barb.”

“How is everything on the files we pulled out of Phoenix’s haul?” Price asked.

“Hunt’s going through it. He’s thorough, and there’s a lot of herrings and worms crawling around in there,” the computer wizard explained. “It’s not going quickly, but he’s pulling clues out of the drive.”

“I just thought he was slow,” Price said with a wink and a grin.