Читать книгу Capital Offensive - Don Pendleton - Страница 9

Makran Coast, Pakistan

“Red alert!” a voice boomed over the PA system of the U.S. Navy frigate as Klaxons blared. “Red alert!”

Erupting into action, the crew of the USS Canton scrambled for their posts even as the Phalanx guns at the bow and stern swung about automatically and started roaring at full blast. Guided by radar, the Vulcan miniguns vomited a fiery barrage of 40 mm shells at the incoming missile, the rapid-fire cannons spraying a wall of soft lead and steel pellets into the air.

With a violent concussion, the two LAW rockets fired from the hills along the rocky shore exploded in midair, peppering the sea with hot shrapnel until the water appeared to be boiling.

The crew cheered and quickly reloaded their weapons. Riding low in the choppy water, the USS Canton was anchored just off the desolate Makran Coast of Pakistan. There were no fishing villages along most of the coastline, the sea being far too heavily polluted from the oil refineries of Iran to the west and the steel industries of India to the east. But this section was possibly the worst. The coast resembled the lunar surface with bare jagged mountain covered by stiletto-like spires. There was only sparse vegetation, raggedy plants and leafy weeds struggling to stay alive in a hostile land, only a few randomly scattered acacia trees. Nearby was a gurgling mud volcano, the geological phenomenon endlessly pumping out waves of bubbling mud, the sluggish river of muck flowing along the cracked ridges and dissolving the sandstone formations on its way to the murky sea. Visibility was almost nil in the thick waters, and if there were any fish in the area, the sonar operator of the Canton couldn’t find them. The crew knew they were still on the planet Earth, but had to keep reminding themselves of the fact.

On the bridge of the Canton, Captain David Henderson lowered his binoculars and grudgingly admired the strategy of the Afghanistan rebels. If they could get America embroiled in a shooting war with Pakistan, then the U.S. Navy would be hard-pressed to aid the NATO troops inside Afghanistan hunting down terrorist training camps.

“Ready a Tomahawk,” Henderson said calmly as the bow Phalanx fired again. Then it swung to a new position and fired twice more.

Barely visible in the swirling steam of the mud volcano, another missile exploded, only doing damage to the ragged plants along the crumbling cliffs.

“And let HQ know we are under fire from the hills,” the captain added over a shoulder. “These appear to be LAW rockets from the look of the contrail.”

“Sir!” a man replied from the communications board inside the bridge. Swiftly, the man started to relay the information to the Pentagon via satellite.

Stoically, Henderson went back to watching the shore. LAW rockets against a frigate? The Afghans had to be desperate to try that. Even if they hit the ship, which was highly unlikely, the rockets simply didn’t have enough power to punch through the armored hull. It’d be like throwing grenades at the Empire State Building.

“Tomahawks ready, sir!” a lieutenant reported crisply, with a salute. “On your command.”

“Double check the coordinates,” Henderson ordered, sweeping the coastline once more with the binoculars. “We want to hit that training camp outside of Safar, not the American troops encircling the damn place.” Three hundred miles wasn’t a long distance for a Tomahawk, but the old fortress the warlord ruled was small, and the troops in close quarters. The tiniest slip in the coordinates could spell a disaster.

On the stern deck of the Canton, sailors were returning fire at the snipers in the hills with an Armbrust. There was a snowy backblast of nitrogen flakes from the aft end of the launcher, and the rocket streaked away. But unlike the incoming LAW rockets, there was no smoke from the projectile to reveal its trajectory.

A few moments later there was a bright flash among the scraggly trees on a small cliff, and a fireball of white phosphorous spread across the ledge. Covered with flames, screaming men rose from behind the boulders to dash about madly. The sailors at the port-side gun emplacement opened fire with a .50-caliber machine gun and another Armbrust. In a muted crack, the ledge broke into pieces, slowly coming away from the sandstone cliff, bodies and boulders plummeting straight down into the gelatinous brown sea.

“Well done, men,” the captain said, trying unsuccessfully to keep a tone of satisfaction from his voice. “Lieutenant, fire the Tomahawks!”

In a double explosion of smoke, two metal lids blew open on the honeycomb on the main deck and a pair of sleek missiles lifted into the sky, then streaked away to disappear inland.

“Heading?” the captain asked, squinting after the Tomahawks. Funny, he actually thought that he could see the airborne missiles. But that was impossible. They were both much too far away by now to be spotted by the naked eye.

“Aye, sir,” a lieutenant replied, hunched over the radar screen. “Missiles are at…” He paused to work the controls, the beeps strangely coming faster and faster. Then the men looked up in confusion and horror. “Sir! One of them is coming right back at us!”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” the captain demanded, turning away from the coastline. “Double check your instruments! It must be just another LAW coming in, that’s all.”

“No, sir, this is a Hawk!” the man replied, the beeps almost a single tone now, they were happening so fast. His hand hovered over the self-destruct switch. “Should I abort?”

Was the man serious? Henderson thought. Snapping his head back toward the craggy coastline, the captain briefly saw something moving in the air, coming straight for the frigate. He waited for the Phalanx system to engage, but the guns did nothing, the military software of the computer-guided radar strictly forbidding the guns to fire upon any Navy missile, even one coming straight for the ship.

“Abort!” the captain bellowed.

The lieutenant slapped the switch, but it was too late. Moving almost too fast to visually track, the Tomahawk slammed directly into the open hatch it had just launched from less than a minute ago.

A strident explosion shook the entire vessel from stem to stern, the fiery blast blowing out the portholes and causeways, throwing burning bodies into the sea. For a single heartbeat, Henderson thought the internal firewalls might just hold.

In a thundering staccato, the rest of the complement of Tomahawks detonated belowdecks, and the Canton lifted from the water and burst from within, the armored hull rent apart from the multiple trip-hammer detonations.

For several long minutes debris and corpses rained from the sky, hissing as they plummeted into the dirty water. But when the hellish rain eventually ceased, the USS Canton was gone, completely obliterated.

T HREE HUNDRED MILES away from the coastline, the second Tomahawk cruise missile checked the GPS network and sharply veered around a tall mountain peak to flash down into a valley below, and then around another outcropping.

Running across the barren landscape, U.S. Army troops and tanks were steadily surrounding an ancient fortress carved into the rock of a hill. The resilient walls had withstood attacks by Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Napoleon and the Soviet Union. But now the rocks were cracked and weakening from the nonstop barrage of shells unleashed by the American tanks. A thousand Afghani fighters along the walls of the fortress were firing at the American soldiers with old AK-47 assault rifles, and doing very little to stop the steady advance.

The row of Abrams tanks fired again and a huge section of the sandstone palisade burst apart, the explosion and halo of rock splinters killing dozens inside the ancient fortress. Smoke and flame and blood was everywhere, and the screams of the dying men seeming to last forever.

Standing defiantly on the parapet, the Afghan warlord grimly watched the enemy come ever closer, knowing this was his last day alive, and that there was nothing he could do but try to die with dignity.

The Yanks will not pull me from some hidey-hole to parade on TV for the amusement of their fat children, the warlord raged internally, working the arming bolt of his Kalashnikov. I will die on my feet with a weapon in my hand like a man!

“Shar, incoming missile!” the bearded man cried from the old WWII radar console. A luminous green arm swept around the graduate screen, beeping softly.

The warlord raised an eyebrow at the pronouncement. Vaguely in the distance, he could see a streaking firebird, weaving a patch along the convoluted contours of the hilly land, avoiding the boulders and outcroppings as if it could see. Another Tomahawk so soon? So be it. Time to die. Damn the Americans and their technology!

Working the arming bolt of his assault rifle, the warlord started firing his weapon at the incoming missile. It wouldn’t work, of course, but there was nothing else to even try. Only a few more seconds now….

Incredibly, the American missile flashed by overhead, streaking past the old fortress and rolling over to dive down and impact directly upon an Abrams tank rolling up the sloped hillside. The titanic explosion covered the landscape in fire and thunder.

But even before the mountain breeze cleared away the smoke, the warlord heard the terrible grinding noise of an avalanche. Still shaking from the concussion, endless tons of rocks and dirt came pouring down the side of the mountain to cover the startled American troops like a roiling blanket of death. The invaders disappeared from sight, then there came a series of dull explosions from under the rocks as the assorted munitions and ordnance of the Yankees detonated from the crushing weight of the devastating landslide. In a few minutes there was only a handful of American soldiers scattered about the valley.

“Ready the Jeeps!” the warlord bellowed, feeling his heart quicken with the taste of victory. “Charge the remaining troops and kill them all. Kill everybody you find! No prisoners! I want heads laid at my feet within the hour!”

“By your command!” A bearded man saluted and rushed off shouting orders to the troops.

“I rule Safar!” the warlord shouted at the sky, brandishing a gnarled fist. “Death to America! Death to all infidels!”

As the mob of screaming Afghan fighters came charging out of the old fortress, the few remaining American soldiers quickly made a defense circle and fought bravely, but it was all over in a few minutes. Without any support from the buried tanks, they were outgunned and outmanned. Soon, there were only still bodies strewed about the dusty ground. Then rusty axes began to rise and fall, gathering grisly trophies.

Utaudo, Puerto Rico

F LOCKS OF RAUCOUS PARROTS sitting in the tall banyon trees squawked loudly in protest as a VW truck rumbled past them on Route 111.

Smoking a cigarette, the armed driver ignored the noisy birds and shifted gears to take the steep hill coming ahead. The modified V-12 engine responded smoothly with a low growl of controlled power.

Although battered and dented, the truck was clean, and the smooth asphalt of the highway hummed beneath the six new tires, the outer rubber washed with diluted acid to make them appear old and worn. The ripped canvas sheet covering the sides of the vehicle had been expertly patched. The rear section was closed with a pair of hinged wooden doors instead of the usual loose flap, and several of the knotholes artfully were enlarged to now serve as crude gunports.

A passing police car paid the truck no attention, the uniformed officers completely unaware that twenty Kalashnikov assault rifles remained pointed in their direction until the natural rise of the landscape carried them out of view.

“Stupido.” The driver sneered, casting the lit cigarette out the window and expertly starting another using only one hand.

“Did you really want them to pull us over for littering?” the man sitting in the passenger seat asked incredulously. A sawed-off, double-barrel shotgun lay in his lap. It was the perfect weapon to use inside the tight confines of the cab. Even at only a yard of distance, a man could miss with a pistol, but not with a twin load of buckshot. There were a series of small notches on the wooden stock, one for every fool who had shoved his unwanted face into the crew wagon of the Miguel brothers, and was promptly blown straight to hell.

“I am not afraid of the police,” Esteban Miguel boasted hotly. But the driver checked the sideview mirror to make sure the officers were indeed long gone.

Shrugging in reply, Julio Miguel went back to watching for the exit. The sloped fields on both sides of the highway were heavy with tobacco plants, the broad leaves spreading wide to absorb the bright tropical sunshine. On the rubber floor mat between his shoes was an Uzi machine pistol, along with a canvas bag of spare clips and a plastic box filled with grenades.

When the call had come in through their agent in San Juan, the Miguel brothers had been uneasy about accepting the job. Nameless men asking for other nameless men to be killed on sight sounded like a sting operation by the U.S. authorities. Or worse, the military police. But then the bank confirmed the wire transfer of funds to their Swiss account, and the brothers dutifully gathered their full crew to head into the deep jungle mountains. It seemed like overkill, twenty guns to take out five tourists and blow up a building, but the client had insisted and paid the asked-for price, so who were they to complain? Besides, a job was a job.

We’d kill the pope, Julio thought, if the price was right, that is.

The cultivated farmlands fell behind and soon the truck was driving past a shimmering expanse of blue water. Hundreds of families were strolling along the public beach of Lake Coanillas, dozens of sailboats skimmed the low waves, and there seemed to be a endless supply of teenage girls in skimpy bikinis sunning themselves on the shore. The open display of young flesh was delightful.

“Perhaps afterward we can stop by for a snack, eh?” Esteban chuckled suggestively.

“Afterward,” Julio promised, placing the shotgun down to check the load in the 9 mm Uzi machine pistol.

Cresting the top of a hill, the truck slowed and Julio pointed to the left with the shotgun. Esteban nodded and turned onto Highway 607. The new asphalt turned into old concrete, and the noise from the tires changed to a higher tone. The landscaping along the major highway changed into wildwoods of kapok, mahogany and tall palm trees. A few miles later the truck reached a gravel road. A wooden barrier marked it as closed from mudslides, but the brothers knew that was a lie. The rainy season was long over.

Slowing to a crawl, Esteban nosed the VW truck forward and knocked the wooden planks aside. They fell with a clatter and then he shifted into low gear and proceeded. From there on, things got tricky and conversation between the men ceased as Esteban concentrated on driving. There were no guardrails along this steep section of hilly road, and the ground dropped away sharply to a rampaging river. Composed entirely of rain water, the river had no name because it would be gone in a few weeks. But at the moment, the white-water rapids rose and fell in crashing waves against jagged boulders that dotted the rushing torrent like broken islands. A slip at this point, and even if the men survived the fall—highly unlikely—they wouldn’t last a minute in the raging cascade.

Countless little creeks trickled along the steep hillsides like silver veins feeding life into the body of the tropical island, and the air became redolent with the rich smells of wild orchids and rotting fruit. Thankfully, the parrots could no longer be seen or heard. Then both men jerked as a monkey dropped from the trees overhead to land on the hood of the truck. The little animal screeched at them angrily, then scampered away, leaving a foul mess on the polished metal.

“I hate those fucking things,” Julio snarled, lowering the barrel of his weapon.

“Then go live in Miami,” Esteban suggested, curling a lip around the cigarette. “Get a skinny blond girl, pierce your ear and pretend you’re from Cuba.”

His brother’s reply consisted entirely of four-letter words.

Chuckling in amusement, Esteban slowed the truck as he found the next turnoff, and thankfully put the dangerous river behind them. Now they only had to worry about the men they had been hired to kill. Probably DEA agents. Everybody hated those.

As they moved deeper into the mountains, the road became dirt, a path of crushed plants with a few rusting metal poles here and there to mark the trail. Eventually, the brothers had to consult a map, and finally use a GPS receiver to get their exact location and to locate the isolated valley they wanted.

The foolish American DEA agents had actually asked for directions to this valley from the local police. Idiots! The brothers didn’t have any of the law officers in their pocket, but their sister was the radio dispatcher, and cops liked to chat among themselves. Everything the police knew, the Miguel brothers soon learned. The arrangement was expensive—their sister charged a fortune for her services—but her flow of information had saved their lives and kept them out of prison many times in the past. A short burst of hot lead given to an eyewitness was much more economical than paying a million pesos to some San Juan law firm.

“This is as close as we can go,” Esteban said, easing the truck to a halt below a poinciana bush. The plant rose thirty feet tall, its twisted branches spreading outward to form a fiery umbrella of impossibly bright red flowers. As he turned off the engine, the eternal sound of the jungle could be heard, rustling leaves, the tiny coqui frogs singing their mating song, and dripping moisture. Endless dripping.

“We’re here, amigos!” Julio called, thumping a fist twice on the wooden wall separating the cab from the cargo area.

There came the clank of a bolt disengaging, and the rear doors swung open wide, exposing a group of armed men. While two stood guard, the rest jumped out, stretching their limbs and yawning after the long confinement. Then the guards closed the doors from inside and worked the bolts once more.

“How much are we getting paid for this?” one of the men asked, squinting at the dense greenery all around. His boots sank a good inch into the carpet of soft moss that covered the land.

The leaves of a banyon tree moved and a huge spider crawled into view with a wiggling lizard in its mandibles. The colossal insect crouched as it prepared to jump at the men, then scuttled away into the gloom.

“Not enough,” another man replied curtly, easing his grip on the AK-47 assault rifle. “I hate the fucking jungle!”

Several other men agreed with the sentiment, and one of them spit in disgust.

“Shut up,” Julio snapped, climbing down from the cab. “No more chatter until the job is done. And no smoking! That’s an order.”

The group of men grumbled softly, but complied. The bosses knew their stuff. The mercs had been in business for a long time and put a lot of people into the ground while the Miguel brothers were still alive and making steady money. It was hard to argue with that kind of success. Alive and rich was a winning combination.

“All right, let’s spread out and find these fools and their secret warehouse,” Esteban directed, loudly yanking back the bolt on an ungainly M-60 machine gun. The M-60 had been phased out of service by the U.S. military, replaced with the much lighter and faster M-249. But Esteban liked the big gun. The ventilated barrel and dangling ammo belt made it look as impressive as hell, and it threw down a thundering storm of .308 long AP rounds. The body armor of DEA agents stopped 9 mm rounds, and even .357-caliber bullets, but the oversize .306 armor-piercing rounds blew through the armor as if it were a banana leaf.

“Should be a couple of hundred yards to the north of here,” Julio added, slinging an M-2 satchel charge across his back. “If we find the mainlanders, do nothing. Let them go inside the warehouse, then we’ll blow it and do both jobs at the same time.”

“What’s the place look like?” a short man asked, thumbing a 40 mm round into the grenade launcher of the Russian assault rifle.

Tucking the sawed-off shotgun into a holster along his leg, Julio snorted. “What is this, downtown New York?” he snapped, picking up the Uzi machine gun. “We find a building, that’s the one we want. Let’s move out!”

Nodding agreement, the mercs checked their weapons and started along the crude path, their Kalashnikovs sweeping the lush greenery for targets.

Time passed slowly and the two hundred yards gradually became three, then four hundred. Suddenly the jungle broke and the group of men found themselves on a mossy escarpment overlooking a wide, swampy valley. Mist moved along the watery surface and bats hung from the banyon like grotesque fruit. There was no sign of any building, only dank muck and boiling swarms of buzzing insects.

“You sure we went in the right direction?” Julio demanded softly, scowling at the primordial morass in annoyance.

Resting the M-60 on a shoulder, Esteban pulled out the GPS receiver and checked the indicator again. “Yeah, this is it,” he said slowly. “But there’s nothing here, and never has been. So what the…oh shit.” He dropped the receiver and used both hands to swivel the M-60 at the dense jungle.

“It’s a trap!” Julio yelled, dropping to one knee and spraying the nearest greenery with a burst from the Uzi.

Snarling a curse, Esteban cut loose with the M-60, the big rounds chewing a path of destruction through the moist foliage. Instantly the rest of their crew hosed streams of copper-jacketed rounds in random directions, the spent brass from the chattering Kalashnikovs flying everywhere. The leaves violently shook in the dripping trees and birds erupted into the sky even as bloody monkeys tumbled dead to the mossy ground. Hot lead was poured into every bush and flowering tree, even the stagnant pools of water far below. But nobody fired back or shouted out in pain.

After a moment Julio called a halt and listened intently. The gunfire echoed along the swampy valley, but other than that, there was only silence. The jungle was momentarily still from the thundering barrage of military ordinance.

“What the fuck is going on here?” Esteban whispered nervously, digging into the nylon bag at his side to extract a spare belt of fresh rounds. With fumbling hands, he flipped open the breech and tossed away the last few remaining inches of linked cartridges, then laid in the new belt of fifty rounds.

Watching the greenery for anything suspicious, Julio licked dry lips. “Don’t know, don’t care,” he stated forcibly. “Everybody back to the truck!”

Dropping spent clips, the mercenaries reloaded on the run, charging through the strangely quiet jungle. As the VW truck came into view, one of them tripped and went sprawling, his Kalashnikov sliding away into the damp bushes.

“Go get it, stupid!” Esteban snarled, then stopped as he saw a human eye blink in the carpet of leaves alongside the fallen man.

Faster than ghosts escaping from the grave, five large men in military-camouflaged ghillie suits erupted from the ground, the MP-5 submachine guns in their hands blowing flame and death. Five of the mercenaries died on the spot, the rest of the group diving for cover in the ferns and poinciana bushes.

“They’re underground!” Julio bellowed unnecessarily, the Uzi spraying lead. One of the subterranean warriors dodged out of the way. But another took a full burst in the chest. Yes! However, the 9 mm rounds only tore off patches of wet fabric from the ghillie suits, exposing some sort of molded body armor underneath.

Snarling, Esteban added the yammering fury of the M-60 with the same results. The sight sent icy-cold adrenaline into his stomach. Body armor that could stop a .308 round? These weren’t DEA agents, but U.S. Special Forces! What was going on here?

Spreading out, the five camouflaged strangers moved into the greenery, their weapons firing in short, controlled bursts. Screams of pain and bitter cursing came from everywhere. A grenade exploded, the fireball pushing back the jungle dampness for a searing heartbeat.

Bracketing the blast with suppressive rounds from the hammering M-60, Esteban knew that wasn’t one of their grenades. It was something the Army called Willie Peter—white phosphorous—and it could roast the flesh from a person in under a heartbeat.

Constantly on the move, Kalashnikovs yammered in the gloom, the fiery flowers from the muzzles strobing in the thick foliage. The MP-5 submachine guns answered briefly in return, and more mercenaries shrieked into agonizing death.

Firing steadily, Julio backed toward the truck. When the Uzi clicked empty, he dropped the weapon to draw the shotgun. Crouching, the merc leader waited for a target. A shadowy figure lurched from the dripping vines and Julio gave it both barrels. In the bright muzzle flash, he was horrified to see that it was one of his own men. Fuck! Spinning, the mercenary tumbled back into the bushes, leaving a ghastly crimson trail.

Then a big man rose from the bushes, dropping a spent clip into his MP-5. Cracking the sawed-off shotgun, Julio frantically ejected the spent 12-gauge shells and shoved in fresh ones. Raising the shotgun, he saw that the other man was holding a crossbow, of all things. They fired in unison. The shotgun blast obliterated the plants alongside the big soldier, and Julio staggered backward, the long black quarrel from the crossbow sticking out of his shoulder.

Blood gushing from the wound, Julio tried to stanch the flow with his bare hands when he violently collided with a tree, the blow almost knocking him unconscious. He lost his vision for a time period, and silence filled the world.

Sight and sound returned with a vengeance, the jar shocking him painfully alert. Machine guns and assault rifles blazed away constantly all around him, then a grenade exploded nearby and Julio weakly looked up just in time to see his brother flying limply into the air, his arms and legs traveling in different directions. Fury filled his mind, but his body refused to obey and Julio slumped weakly against the tree, tears of rage coursing down his dirty cheeks.

A few moments later it was over. Only the five strangers were still standing, the bloody ground of the crude jungle path dotted with shiny spent brass and twitching corpses.

“T.J., give me a BDH,” David McCarter ordered brusquely, reloading his MP-5 machine gun. “Calvin, see to that man! Everybody else, watch the perimeter.”

The members of Phoenix Force moved without comment.

Gingerly checking his neck, McCarter found that he was bleeding slightly from a graze along the side where one of the mercs had come too close with a thrown knife. A former member of the vaunted British SAS, and now the leader of Phoenix Force, David McCarter was surprised a mercenary had gotten that close. Most professional soldiers held mercs in the same low esteem they did body lice, just something to crush when they got annoying.

Going to the panting leader of the Puerto Rican mercenaries, Calvin James looked down at the man and said nothing for a moment, watching how the blood came from the arrow wound. It was flowing, but not pumping. No arteries had been nicked, then. Good. This guy might just live if he cooperated. The tallest member of the team, Calvin James was a Navy SEAL, the field medic for the team and one of the best underwater demolitionists his teammates had ever seen.

“Drop the knife,” James ordered, his accent a growl of pure southside Chicago. He was still holding the MP-5, but his finger wasn’t on the trigger.

Looking down, Julio was surprised to see that he was holding a switchblade knife. He had no recollection of pulling the weapon. Forcing his fingers apart, he let the blade drop into the moss.

“Better,” James said, slinging the weapon and swinging around a medical kit. “Now, I can stop the bleeding, but it’s going to hurt. And I mean a lot.”

“B-bah. I—I am not…not afraid,” Julio wheezed, sweat running down his pale face.

“You should be,” James replied stoically and, without another comment, he yanked the arrow free.

White-hot pain lanced through Julio, and he barely had a chance to scream before completely losing consciousness.

As the merc went limp, James pulled out a knife to start cutting away the crimson-soaked fabric so he could clean the wound.

With a Beretta in one hand and the MP-5 in the other, T. J. Hawkins warily approached McCarter, his expression grim.

“We’ve got a problem,” Hawkins stated. “I count seventeen dead bodies.”

Every member of Phoenix Force heard that over their earplugs and went instantly alert.

Standing with his back to a kapok tree, Rafael Encizo tightened his grip on the MP-5 just as drop of moisture fell from the leaves above to hit the hot barrel. The water sizzled into steam. A heavy, stocky man with catlike reflexes, Encizo was less than handsome, his face carrying the scars of too many battles. But the rough looks beguiled a razor-sharp mind.

“You sure about that?” Encizo whispered, studying the area.

Trying to appear casual, Hawkins scratched his nose. “Definite.”

“Shit.” Gary Manning grunted at the pronouncement. The big Canadian shrugged the massive bolt-action rifle strapped across his back to a more comfortable position. Manning was the sniper for Phoenix Force, and his weapon of choice was the infamous .50-caliber Barrett rifle. The colossal weapon fired a bullet that could penetrate most light-tank armor and blow holes through brick walls from a mile away. The colossal Barrett was a deadly machine of distant termination, but only in the hands of an expert marksman.

“Seventeen,” Manning whispered, squinting at the still forms scattered in the gory mud. “But I thought that Aaron said the Miguel brothers always rode with a crew of twenty.”

Down the jungle path, the headlights of the truck suddenly came on, bathing Phoenix Force in a harsh illumination.

“They do!” McCarter yelled, moving and firing at the same time.

As the team separated fast, the V-12 engine loudly came to life and the truck started rolling forward, rapidly increasing speed. From behind the vehicle, something even brighter flashed and smoke puffed.

“Rocket!” James cursed, dragging the unconscious Julio behind the massive tree for some protection.

The fiery dart of a LAW rocket streaked down the leafy pathway and plowed into a stand of sugarcane. A split second later, a thunderous explosion tore the sweet plants apart, spraying debris into the misty sky.

Lumbering along faster, the truck kept coming, and now Kalashnikov assault rifles cut loose from behind the vehicle, the three ducking mercs only partially in view.

Bobbing and weaving among the dripping ferns, Phoenix Force arced through the jungle on both sides of the crude road, only to reappear and close upon the truck from opposite sides.

“T.J. and Gary, go!” McCarter commanded over the radio.

Rising into view, the two members of Phoenix Force hosed the truck with 9 mm rounds from their MP-5 submachine guns.

Forced to quickly take cover behind the moving vehicle, the three mercs pulled grenades from their pockets, clawing to get off the strip of safety tape holding down the arming levers. As the tape came loose, the mercs yanked out the arming pins.

That was when McCarter and Encizo stepped out of the ferns and stitched the three with prolonged bursts. Crying out in shock, the mercs threw their arms high as the copper-jacketed rounds tore them apart, the safety handles falling away free.

As the dying men collapsed, Phoenix Force rapidly took cover, and a split second later the grenades detonated, the entire jungle seeming to shake from the triple blast.

Crouching in the bushes, Hawkins grunted as something slammed hard into his belly. Slapping a hand to the spot, he quickly checked for blood, but his NATO body armor had stopped the shrapnel from penetrating. It had hurt, a lot, but he would live.

Continuing through the smoky trees, the truck jounced over the still corpses of the mercs lying in the bloody mud, until it wandered into the plants and rumbled away out of sight, the dripping leaves and flowery vines closing behind the vehicle.

“Anybody hurt?” McCarter demanded over the radio, slapping a fresh clip into his weapon. These three made twenty mercs total, but he was staying sharp in case the Miguel brothers had brought along some friends.

“No breakage,” James replied, still kneeling alongside the unconscious leader of the mercenaries. He was in front of the man, protecting him from incoming rounds.

“And the area looks clear,” Hawkins reported, scanning the jungle with IR goggles. The optical device registered heat sources, and aside from the Stony Man commandos and the sugarcane conflagration raging out of control, there was nothing within sixty yards that was bigger than an iguana.

“Stay sharp,” McCarter directed, walking over to James and his patient. The Stony Man commando had the mercenary propped up against a banyon tree, and was just finishing off a temporary bandage around the ragged wound.

“What’s his condition?” McCarter asked.

“He’ll live,” James said, adjusting the knot. Satisfied, he moved away from the man and reclaimed his weapons. Only a fool tried to heal an enemy with a gun at his side. “Just not sure how useful that arm will ever be.”

“Can you wake him?”

James gave a curt nod. “No problem.”

“Do it,” McCarter ordered.

Pulling a preloaded syringe from the compact med kit, James gave the unconscious merc a combo shot of morphine, digitalis and amphetamine, a battlefield cocktail guaranteed to rouse the dead if the bodies were still fresh.

He’ll have a splitting headache tomorrow, James thought, injecting the devil brew directly into a vein. But then again, the stupid son of a bitch is lucky to still have a head. Mercenaries he could tolerate. Drug dealers he could execute in cold vengeance. His kid sister had died of an over dose of smack, and there weren’t enough bullets in existence ever to balance the score.

With a low moan, Julio sluggishly came awake. “You…” the man mumbled in blurry recognition. “What did you give me?”

“Something for the pain,” James said, putting away the empty syringe.

Along with other things to try to make me talk, Julio rationalized, waves of soothing warmth spreading through his arm and then his chest. The pain vanished, leaving him feeling slightly disconnected from reality. Then the memory of the fight, along with the death of his brother, came rushing back and he snarled in raw hatred.

“What do you want with me, gringo?” Julio demanded, his tongue feeling thick and awkward. “I tell you nothing. Nothing! Go ahead and haul my ass to jail. I will call my lawyers and be free in a day. A day!”

“That might be true, if we were the DEA or the police,” McCarter said, glancing sideways at Hawkins.

Giving a wink, Hawkins recoiled from a corpse on the ground. “Hey, this guy is still alive!” he cried loudly.

“Too bad. We already have their leader,” McCarter said. “So we don’t need him.”

“No problem, sir.” Pulling his Beretta, Hawkins worked the slide and fired a couple of 9 mm Parabellum rounds directly into the chest of the dead man. The body jerked at each impact, almost seeming to die all over again.

The brutally callous execution caught Julio completely by surprise. These mainlanders were insane! Most definitely not U.S. Army, or even the CIA.

Crouching on his heels, McCarter lit a cigarette and offered it to the prisoner.

As if suspecting another trap, Julio hesitantly accepted and sucked in a ragged breath. He held the smoke for a long time, then let it out slowly. “Okay, okay, you win, I’ll talk,” Julio muttered grudgingly. “What do you want to know?”

“Don’t want to know anything,” McCarter said incredibly. “What you will do is send a message that this job was a total success. We’re dead, and the warehouse was burned to the ground.”

Smoking away steadily, Julio said nothing but his eyes narrowed in suspicion. “Why?” he asked, puzzled.

“Our business. And don’t try to lie that it has to go through your sister,” McCarter warned. “She is already in custody, and we’ve raided her files.” Or rather Kurtzman and his cybernetic team had, the Briton thought, which was pretty much the same thing. “We know that she only relays information. Your brother runs the crew, but you make the deals.”