War Tides

War Tides
Don Pendleton

When the President needs immediate, covert intervention for a crisis too sensitive or desperate for normal channels, Stony Man strikes under the radar and beyond official government protocols.Baptized in the fires of justice, freedom and protection, Stony Man stands for the highest of ideals: dedication to duty and a fierce resolve to defeat those who would brutalize nations.It's called FACOS–Fast Attack Covert Operations Submarine–and is now in the hands of an elusive and violent group known as the Revenge of Allah. This supersub, capable of blistering speed and stealth, carries a first-strike nuclear payload, spelling a new world of terror for America. With orders to recover the stolen prototype or destroy it, Stony Man's mission goes beyond standard "terminate with extreme prejudice." With the warship poised to strike America's eastern seaboard, failure is not an option and neither is compromise. Stony Man must stop the show before the terrorists go live.

THE NUMBERS WERE RUNNING DOWN

McCarter didn’t feel they were any closer to eliminating the threat than the moment they stepped foot in this godforsaken desert. Sure, they had some idea of the terrorists’ plans but they didn’t really know where they would hit or how they would do it. And if Phoenix Force failed in their mission, it only increased the chances of the nuclear material getting to its final destination.

The fact remained that Able Team didn’t have any more ability to wage war against the nuclear threat than Phoenix Force. At the end of the day, they had to succeed. Failure wasn’t an option and neither was compromise. This time around, the stakes were high enough that there could only be one outcome for Phoenix Force: absolute victory! Because if David McCarter knew something with certainty, it was this.

Anything less would mean tragic defeat for America and her people.

War Tides

Don Pendleton

STONY MAN

AMERICA’S ULTRA-COVERT INTELLIGENCE AGENCY

www.mirabooks.co.uk (http://www.mirabooks.co.uk)

WAR TIDES

Dedicated to the brave warriors of the U.S. Navy SEAL team who rescued American maritime captain Richard Phillips from Somali pirates in April 2009.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

CHAPTER ONE

Washington, D.C.

At just after 0400 hours on a cold Thursday morning, four FBI agents hustled Dr. Philip Stout from his offices at the U.S. Navy shipyard into a waiting government SUV.

The reason for Dr. Stout’s visit to an emergency session of the Joint Chiefs of Staff was highly classified. None of the agents strayed beyond the polite conversation required by their jobs. Still, it didn’t take an advanced science degree like one of several possessed by Stout to guess that his visit likely had to do with the contents of the briefcase handcuffed to his wrist. Inside the reinforced-aluminum box were secrets so classified not a single one of the agents escorting Stout to the Pentagon had a security clearance high enough to know even the nature of its contents.

Not that they needed to. Their job was simple: transport the doctor from the shipyard to the Pentagon and keep him alive in transit.

As far as Philip Stout was concerned, the four men assigned to protect him were better off not knowing the things he knew. Stout had spent the past eight years of his career developing a prototype for the U.S. Navy, and he was about to deliver all of its secrets to the Joint Chiefs. In some ways, it made Stout feel like the member of a transplant team who had to get a badly needed heart across town with only a small window of opportunity. In some respects, it wasn’t that far from the truth. If the secrets he carried with him fell into enemy hands, it could well mean a whole new day of terror for America.

And while the FBI agents accompanying him may or may not have realized that, they did realize the importance of protecting him. Especially when their SUV stopped at an intersection a mere seven blocks from their destination and two black nondescript vans suddenly appeared in the deserted intersection.

It took only a moment for the agents and Stout to realize the intent of the passengers who poured from the backs of the two vans. They wore urban-camouflage fatigues, black hoods with red headbands, and toted SMGs. The agent riding shotgun rolled down his window as he ordered the driver to take evasive action. He reached into his jacket and withdrew a Glock pistol, leaned out the window and snapped off a few rounds. The resistance proved to be short-lived when the driver, while in the course of executing a J-turn, smashed into a massive garbage truck that had appeared out of nowhere. The truck was one of the front-loading types designed to pick up commercial Dumpsters, and one of its large steel bars punched through the SUV’s rear door with the screech of wrenched, torn metal and cracked glass.