Act Of War

“Mother of God,” whispered the first officer, lowering his glasses. “Was…that our fish, or the Russian?”

“Who can tell?” the captain retorted, sounding excited and angry at the same time. “Look, there’s the second fish!”

Another submerged object streaked past the bow of the frigate on a divergent course as the two aquatic hunters tried to find each other. Now it was machine vs. machine.

“Bridge, I want a sonar reading,” the first officer said into a hand radio lashed by a cord to his belt.

“Negative, sir,” came the prompt reply. “We’ve got a lot of hissing, but we can’t track where it’s coming from. They’re just too damn fast, sir!”

“Both of them?”

“Aye, sir!”

“Excellent,” the captain said, looking like a kid on Christmas morning.

Moving incredibly fast, the Firelance and the Squall zigzagged around the Atlantic, one of them trying to hit the submerged submarine, the other trying to prevent that very action. Then they were both gone and there was only the choppy waves.

Suddenly there was a tremendous flash of light from deep below, and the cold waters churned as the bubbling explosion rose to the surface. Every sailor on the Harlow cheered in victory at the sight. An explosion meant the Firelance had taken out the Squall! The Russian superkiller had just been defeated!

Maintaining a tight zoom on the churning patch of ocean, the boson frowned as he heard an odd ticking sound from behind, or rather, a sort of clicking. Suspiciously the sailor attempted to keep the video camera still as he glanced over a shoulder at the closed hatches of the missile launcher set into the main deck. The ferruled steel lids on the honeycomb were all tightly closed, but there was the oddest smell and then incredibly he saw fat sparks crackle on the outside of the WE-177 nuclear depth charges sitting in their launch rack. Stunned beyond words, the boson dropped the camera. Impossible! Those weren’t even armed!

A split second later the Harlow was vaporized, the concussion traveling through the water to crush both of the British submarines in the area, the airborne blast also taking out the RAF Harrier jumpjet carrying the Minister of Defence who had wanted to see the live-fire test, but from a supposedly safe distance. Only seconds later, the British spy satellite relayed wire-sharp photos of the destruction to the headquarters for the Ministry of Defence, and the prime minister was immediately alerted. The United Kingdom had just joined the list of nations attacked by the unknown terrorists.

Memphis Airport, Tennessee

W ITH THE WHINE OF controlled hydraulics, the aft ramp of the colossal C-130 Hercules transport slowly lowered to the tarmac with a muffled crash, and a civilian van drove out of the huge airplane, jouncing hard as it make the transition from the sloped ramp to the smooth asphalt.

“Good luck,” the voice of Jack Grimaldi said in the earphones of the men of Able Team.

“Same to you,” Carl “Ironman” Lyons replied, shifting gears and moving away from the secluded landing strip.

As the man drove the van toward an access road running alongside the landing strip, the loading ramp of the Hercules rose upward and closed with a clang.

When the members of Able Team had arrived at Reagan National Airport outside Washington, D.C., they had found Grimaldi waiting for them in the Hercules, with their equipment van already loaded and strapped down for an immediate takeoff. En route, the men changed their clothing and reviewed the information of the nuclear detonations while checking over their stores of weaponry. They had to move fast. If the enemy discovered that Professor Gallen was still alive, they would send an army of mercenaries to kill the man. Or worse, some other group would learn about the scientist and kidnap him, bringing a third party into the matter. It was possible that the Stony Man operatives would simply drive into Memphis, find the man, hustle him back to the Hercules and fly off without any trouble. But every second that passed put the odds against them.

“Hit the hotel first?” Hermann “Gadgets” Schwarz asked, draping a camera around his neck. Then he adjusted the silenced 9 mm Beretta pistol clipped to a breakaway holster on his belt. Taking on the role of a tourists for this assignment, the Stony Man team was casually dressed in loose slacks and loud Hawaiian shirts that perfectly covered the NATO body-armor underneath.

“Nobody stays in their hotel room on a vacation unless they’re sick,” Rosario “The Politician” Blancanales replied from the passenger seat, tucking a .380 Colt pistol snug in a similar holster at the small of his back. “We should hit Graceland. That’s the Mecca for all Elvis fans.”

“Mecca?” Schwarz asked with a wry smile, checking the batteries in a stun gun.

“Metaphorically speaking.”

“We’ll hit the hotel first,” Lyons stated, slowing the van as it headed for a tall wire fence that closed off that end of the Memphis airport. “Best to make sure he’s actually here, before we hit Graceland. If we find the room in disarray with blood on the carpeting, then there’s no sense looking for a corpse already floating in the Mississippi River.”

“Plus, we can leave a bug behind, and lowjack his suitcase,” Schwarz added, tapping the pocket of his shirt. “Just in case we miss him and he tries to run.” Several ordinary-looking pens were clipped there, each of the intricate electronic devices worth more than most cars on the road.

“Readiness is all,” Blancanales agreed, reaching up to slide aside a fake panel in the ceiling to take down a M-16/M-203 combination assault rifle. With expert hands, the former Black Beret made sure the 40 mm grenade launcher was loaded with a gel-pack stun bag. Just in case the professor didn’t want to come along peacefully.

The so-called stun bags were nylon bags filled with soft gelatin pellets. The cartridges held only half-charges, but the nonlethal rounds still hit with enough force to break bones.

“Having a few guns doesn’t hurt, either,” Schwarz agreed, doing the same for his own assault rifle and then preparing the Atchisson autoshotgun for Lyons. The first couple of 12-gauge cartridges in the ammunition drum for the Atchisson were stun bags, the other twenty-four were stainless steel fléchettes. Perfect for blowing down locked doors or cutting a man in two.

When done, Schwarz tucked away the excess ammunition and closed all of the hatches until there was no sign of the arsenal within the ceiling and walls of the Ford Econoline 450. The van was a rolling arsenal of military weapons, and the rear was a compact electronic lab for Schwarz. Hidden compartments were filled with munitions, weapons, cash, clothing, medical supplies and anything else needed for the team out in the field. There were also three large blocks of thermite hidden inside the chassis in case it was necessary for them to destroy the vehicle. Burning at 2,000 Kelvin, the thermite would reduce the armored vehicle to a puddle of molten steel in a matter of seconds. It would be impossible for any police forensic expert to track who, and where, the van had originally come from.

Easing on the brakes, Lyons stopped the vehicle just past the wire fence and Blancanales climbed out to lock the gate behind them. Then the team proceeded toward Interstate 240. The traffic was light, the sky overcast, but not raining yet, and soon the sprawling city of Memphis loomed on the horizon.

Soaring skyscrapers marked the downtown area, bright steel and sparkling glass reflecting the streetlights. Neat rows of apartment blocks lined the bank of the mighty Mississippi, with small parks scattered around in artful disarray.

The water in the mile-wide river was dark and slow, with only a few pleasure craft darting across the murky surface. A fishing trawler moved slowly against the sluggish current, and a brightly lit paddle-wheel casino lolled majestically along, looking like something from another century.

“Behold, the Paris of the South,” Schwarz quipped.

Dominating the entire southside of the bustling city was a colossal pyramid, the sloping sides tinted purple from neon lights. Lyons knew that was the Memphis Sports Arena, named not for the place of its birth, but for the ancient city the modern day metropolis was itself named after, Memphis, Egypt, on the Nile River. The gigantic arena was twenty-three stories high, taller than the Statue of Liberty, and easily held a crowd of twenty thousand people. Illuminated by searchlights at night, the Pyramid Arena could be seen for miles, and airline pilots had it listed on their visual reference chart as a landmark in case of any trouble with their GPS units.

“Huge place. We’ll be shit out of luck if we have to hunt for Gallen in the Pyramid,” Blancanales noted pragmatically, tucking a Homeland Security commission booklet into a pocket.

Few police actually knew what the ID looked like for HSA agents, and virtually no civilians did. So the booklets would open a lot of closed doors for the Stony Man commandos, and even if somebody called Washington, the official HSA records properly listed the three men as duly authorized operatives, thanks to a little creative hacking from Kurtzman and his team. As soon as this mission was over, the HSA files would be deleted, only to be recreated when needed. But there was much less of a chance of somebody in Homeland Security spotting any irregularities in the government files if the records didn’t exist between missions.

“Caruthers,” Lyons corrected. “The name is Caruthers now.”

“But calling him Gallen let’s the professor know that we are aware of who he really is.”

“Fair enough.”

“Sure hope he hasn’t donned a disguise,” Schwarz agreed somberly, pulling up a pdf on his U.S. Army laptop to check the picture of the scientist. “We can’t exactly call out something in Finnish. That might give him a heart attack.”

“Agreed. We may have to split up to hit more places,” Lyons said, swerving to get out from behind a Mack truck hauling live hogs. On their way to the slaughterhouse, the fat animals peeked out from the dark interior, squealing unhappily as if somehow sensing their imposing doom. Lyons felt a brief impulse of sympathy for the animals, and only hoped it wasn’t prophetic for the team. “If there’s any trouble, we rendezvous at the Hercules.”

“Check,” Blancanales answered.

“No problem,” Schwarz added, slinging the laptop over a shoulder. The portable computer had a thousand and one uses in the field, from opening electronic locks to deactivating low-jacks on civilian cars. It was also sheathed in galvanized titanium and was bulletproof to any caliber up to a .357 round at point-blank range. There were several small dents in the tough casing, testifying to the truth of the manufacturer’s claim.

As they neared the downtown area, the traffic grew thicker, and Lyons tried to look confused as they drove past a Memphis Police Department patrol car, the officers casually watching the assorted cars and trucks flow past. To add some credence to the air of confusion, Blancanales pulled out a crumpled map, and started scowling unhappily until the police were left behind and out of sight, blocked by a Main Street trolley.

“And there she blows,” Schwarz said, pointing a finger to the right. A few blocks ahead of them was the hotel-casino. It was definitely from the old school, the sort of thing that would have been seen in Las Vegas twenty years earlier, before the corporations took over and cleaned up the infamous Sin City.

But here, the Tunica Hotel was festooned with neon lights that blazed brightly even in the direct sunlight, announcing the hottest slots in town and a famous comic for an two additional weeks. The night’s performance was marked as sold out.

Sparkles, garish paint, mirrors and plastic tinsel adorned everything else, and set among some neatly rimmed bushes were two colossal searchlights patiently waiting for the arrival of night. Cheery music played from speakers hidden in the bushes, a nearby water fountain spiriting up columns to match the beat of the country-western tune, even though it was performed only by violins and pianos. Rolling into the parking lot, the members of Able Team exchanged dour glances, but said nothing. Compared to the rest of the stately Southern metropolis, the hotel looked like a stripper in a nunnery.

The first couple of lots were full of cars, excited people pouring into the casino and weary ones stumbling into the hotel. Smiling politely, large men, probably guards, flanked the glass front doors, receivers in their ears to keep them in constant communications with Security. Video cameras were nowhere in sight, but Schwarz swept the front of the garish building with an EM scanner and found them all over the place.

“Smile, we’re on Candid Camera. ” He tucked the scanner away. “Better try the back, Carl.”

“That was the plan,” Lyons replied, maneuvering past a group of drunks stumbling past a bedraggled fellow staring forlornly at a single dollar clenched in his fist. Obviously he was not a big winner today.

Bypassing the front parking lot, Lyons drove around the hotel and parked behind an enclosed area, the pungent smell in the air telling them this was where the restaurant dumped its garbage.