Fireburst

“No, they were overconfident,” Nasser said with a sneer as if that was the worst crime it was possible to commit.

Checking the trunk of the first Cadillac, the major found only the shipping case for the .50-caliber machine gun and some spare belts of ammunition. Useless. However, the other SUV contained extra fuel, military rations and a small arsenal of handguns, assault rifles and ammunition. But there was no money. The major stiffened in rage. Obviously, al Qaeda had never planned on paying for the weapon, even if a deal could have been reached. How could he have been so foolish as to trust them?

Slamming the hatch closed, Armanjani glanced across the lake to see that the abandoned palace was on fire, red flames licking out the shattered windows to slowly expand along the balconies.

“That secret exit was why you chose this palace for the meeting. Am I right, sir?” Nasser asked unexpectedly.

“Knowing where to fight is half the battle,” Armanjani replied, holstering his weapon. “All right, let’s go.”

As Hassan got behind the wheel, Nasser took the passenger seat and Armanjani climbed into the rear, carefully avoiding the damp patch of sticky leather.

Taking a minute to familiarize himself with the controls of the new vehicle, Hassan then turned on the air conditioner and slowly drove away, following the double set of tire tracks in the sand.

“What now, sir?” he asked, turning onto the access road and accelerating. A wide dust cloud rose behind the speeding vehicle that soon obscured the view of the burning palace.

“We return to base and try to find more reasonable customers,” Armanjani replied, removing his sunglasses and tucking them into a pocket.

Nasser scowled. “Sir, what if we can’t find any reasonable customers, just more dogs like these fat fools?”

“Then we create some,” the major said, pulling out a cell phone to start thumbing a text message.

CHAPTER FOUR

Washington, D.C.

Tugging his necktie loose, Hal Brognola used the heels of his palms to rub his eyes, and then poured himself yet another cup of strong black coffee from an insulated carafe. Only a few drops came out, so he rose from behind the desk and crossed the office to start making a fresh pot.

The office was orderly and neat, the walls decorated with pictures of his wife and children and law-enforcement certificates. His suit jacket was hung across the back of a chair, and an old police-issue .38 revolver was holstered at the small of his back. The grip was worn from decades of use in the field, and long hours at the shooting range every weekend. It had been a while since Brognola had drawn a weapon, but he knew that when the need arose there would be no advance warning.

The big Fed returned to his desk with a fresh cup of coffee. Tapping some keys on a keyboard, Brognola reviewed the fact sheet he had been assembling for Mack Bolan and the President on lightning. The voltage and wattage widely varied, but generally they were around a hundred-million volts, which was more than enough to kill a bull elephant, much less a human being. The earth was hit by roughly 50,000 lightning bolts a year, and an average 3,000 people died every year from being struck.

Single-strike, multistrike, forked, chain, sheet, sprite, elves, trolls, Brognola hadn’t heard of half of the forms of lightning bolts he’d researched, and he had been startled to discover the old joke about a bolt from the blue was horrifyingly true. Blue lightning could arc in from five miles away. The sky would be perfectly clear, the wind calm, and a split second later you were a pile of ash in the grass.

“Good night, Chief!” his secretary, Kelly, called out from the other side of the office door. “See you tomorrow!”

“Drive safely!” Brognola answered back, casting a nervous glance out the window at the cloudy sky. It wasn’t raining in D.C. yet, but it would soon, at which point all bets were off.

On top of everything else, the list of possible targets hit by these snake charmers, as they used to call people who claimed to be able to make it rain, was getting longer all the time, and the death toll was rising faster than Brognola could keep track of. At first, it was mostly meteorologists and weather scientists. Now, it was financial experts, bank computers and underworld informers. Obviously, the snake charmers were systematically clearing the way for when they came out of the shadows.

“That’s when the blood will really hit the fan,” Brognola said softly, starting to drink from his mug, only to find it empty once more.

Suddenly, an alarm began beeping. A new icon was spinning on the monitor. He double-clicked, and it expanded into a view of the President of the United States sitting at his desk in the Oval Office.

“Good evening, Hal,” the President said, pulling his hand back from a keyboard. Then he frowned. “Although, to be honest, I don’t think that it’s going to be very good for either of us now.”

“What has happened, sir?” Brognola asked.

“First, allow me to apologize,” the President said, running both hands through his black hair. “I didn’t believe in your theory of terrorists using lightning, but now…”

“What was hit?”

Tapping some keys, the President sighed. “See for yourself, my friend.”

The view of the Oval Office reduced to a small rectangle in the corner, the rest of the screen shifting to an outside view of military base in the desert. Dark, jagged mountains filled the horizon.

“Five-Star, this is Fireball Forward!” a colonel shouted into a handmike while trying to hold his cap on top of his head against a stiff wind.

In the background were rows of Buffaloes and Hummers, a score of 4x6 trucks, a dozen Abrams tanks and two Black Hawk gunships. The Hummers were equipped with light machine guns, while the much bulkier Buffaloes were actually armed with .50-caliber machine guns. A burst from those would flip over a Hummer, but not even shake the road dust off an armored Buffalo.

“This is Five-Star,” a voice stated. “Go ahead Fireball, we read you loud and clear!”

Brognola grunted at that. Five-Star was the code this month for the Pentagon.

“Five-Star, we’ve found the enemy camp,” the colonel shouted, the wind kicking up dust clouds. Soldiers were running for cover as the buffeted trucks rocked slightly. “But we had to take cover—there is a major sandstorm coming this way!”

Just then, lightning flashed across the sky, painfully bright even on the laptop monitor, and the picture scrambled for a few seconds from the accompanying electromagnetic burst.

Leaning forward, Brognola held his breath. Please guys, start running, he silently urged.

“Say again, Fireball?” the Pentagon demanded.

“Sandstorm!” the colonel bellowed as, in the background, the horizon rose like a wave at sea.

Billowing and churning, the stormfront swept toward the army battalion. In only a matter of seconds it engulfed the makeshift base and visibility was reduced to only a few feet.

A deafening howl dominated the picture as dozens of soldiers were slammed to the ground, and every loose item was sent hurtling about into the turbulent brown air. Then lightning flashed, and a truck exploded, the concussion slamming other trucks aside and sending a dozen men flying away into the building storm.

“Say again, Fireball, where is your location?” the Pentagon operator demanded, the volume bar sliding all the way to maximum. “Do you need assistance?”

The colonel said something about northern mountains when the lightning appeared again, going straight into the open hatch of an Abrams tank. The armored machine seemed to bulge outward for a moment before erupting, the hellish corona of shrapnel, corpses and broken machinery spraying outward to decimate a group of soldiers and flip over both of the Black Hawks.

“Get in those caves,” Brognola whispered, both hands clenched into fists.

Again and again, the lightning lanced out, destroying one tank after another, then the bolts began walking along the ground, leaving behind rivers of steaming lava. Screaming soldiers burst into flames, their weapons discharging, grenades mercifully ending their ghastly torment.

Feeling physically ill, Brognola wanted to look away, but forced himself to watch, filing away every detail of the savage attack. It lasted less than five minutes, then the lightning abruptly stopped, and there was only the howling wind. The dry sand quickly covering the tattered remains of what had once been a full battalion of men and women.

“Fireball, respond!” the Pentagon demanded. “Is there anybody still alive? Hello, is anybody there?” But the only response was the howling wind and the crackle of countless small fires.

The view froze and shrank, as the President returned.

“When did this happen?” Brognola asked, flexing his hands.

“Twenty minutes ago,” the President stated grimly, sitting back in his chair. “Search and Rescue teams are already on the way, but there’s little hope of finding anybody alive.”

“After that? I would hardly think so,” Brognola replied, fighting a rising wave of helplessness. An entire battalion destroyed in five minutes. Five minutes!

“Have you made any progress on finding these people? Or at least what they want?” the President asked. “These attacks are coming more and more often, and at bigger targets. Soon they’ll start on cities, and then…” His voice trailed off, his face a mask of repressed fury. “We have got to do something!”