Maelstrom

Her eyes reverted to Blancanales’s who was now seated across the table and studying her with a broad grin. “Let’s start from the top.”

CHAPTER FIVE

Stony Man Farm, Virginia

“So that’s the story,” Carl Lyons finished, his voice resounding through the speaker.

Hal Brognola sat back, folded his arms and chewed thoughtfully at his unlit cigar. For a moment nobody said a word. Price and Kurtzman stared at Brognola, waiting with anxious expressions. They didn’t wait long.

Brognola grunted and said, “All right, let me see if I heard you right. You’re saying that these Jewish terrorists aren’t really Jewish?”

“Right,” Lyons said. “Maybe one or two originally hail from Israel, but the one we got to roll said she’s from Kansas, and the N.Y.P.D.’s computers confirmed it from her prints.”

“Did this Babbit give you any explanation for her being an American?”

“Nothing other than she was hired to do the job by parties unknown. They went to a secret training camp stuck in some part of the Louisiana backwater for two months. Claims she has no idea where because she was blindfolded along with the rest of her comrades and nearly beaten and starved to death during the first week.”

“Sounds like your standard, run-of-the-mill mercenary training,” Price remarked.

“Maybe and maybe not, but in either case it doesn’t matter,” Brognola said. “Even if we could find this camp, I don’t think it could tell us much more than Babbit has. What’s your recommendation, Carl?”

“I say we stick with our current information. I think she’s telling the truth, and she’s already agreed to help us in return for leniency. She got into this for the money and nothing more, which she says was real good by the way.”

“It seems strange that someone would pay them to do this,” Brognola said. “Why hire a group of Americans to dress as Jewish radicals and waste a bunch of innocent people in front of God and country?”

“Well, they obviously want to start a street war,” Price offered. “Maybe stir hatred for Jewish radical groups.”

“I can buy fueling the fire for a street war,” Lyons said. “I just talked to our liaison with the N.Y.P.D., and he said this incident has already started riots in three separate areas of the city. The cops are calling in everyone they can find to help out.”

Kurtzman sighed. “Great.”

“But that second part about stirring hatred up for Jewish groups just doesn’t wash, Barb,” Lyons continued. “In fact, Babbit told us how this one guy kept telling them they were fighting for the Jewish cause and to think how nice it would be to secure their country from the Pakistanis, the Arabs and so forth. She was adamant about what he said, and we all agree here that she’s telling the truth. She said this guy preached pure hatred of them.”

“Like it was personal,” Price said, looking at Brognola.

Brognola nodded. “Carl, you said something earlier about this group that I found interesting. Something about arm bands they were wearing?”

“Yeah, the witnesses canvassed by the uniforms where the massacre took place consistently referenced arm bands with the Star of David.”

“Wait a minute!” Kurtzman snapped his fingers. “We just received the first transmissions of the tapes from David McCarter. Those terrorists they went up against were wearing arm bands just like that.”

Price inhaled sharply. “These two incidents are connected, then?”

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves yet,” Brognola said. “Although I think we’d better consider that as a possibility.”

“What happened to Phoenix Force?”

Price gave him a quick overview of the situation, skipping most of the minutiae. When she was finished explaining, they all agreed that the similarities and the timing were more than coincidences. There had to be a connection, and it had now become Stony Man’s number-one priority to find out what that was and to predict the group’s next action.

“Like I said before, this Babbit’s willing to help us,” Lyons concluded. “She says she has some sketchy details of other plans this group might have. If we grant her immunity, she’ll deal.”

“You know our policy, Carl,” Brognola replied. “We don’t ‘deal’ with terrorists.”

“I understand that, but we may not have any other choice. If David and the rest can’t make a connection there, then we’ll have to work it from our end. She’s the one lead we have, Hal, and I want to exploit that to our advantage.”

Lyons was right, of course, and Brognola knew it. Sometimes the rules had to be bent. That was the name of the game, and it was fortunate that Stony Man had the freedom to conduct operations as they saw fit, as long as they kept the President apprised.

“All right,” Brognola conceded. “I’ll arrange for her to be cut loose and remanded to your custody. See where she leads you. But whatever you do, keep her alive. You’re right. She’s our only link to whoever’s behind this.”

“Understood,” Lyons said, and he disconnected the call.

ONCE THEY HAD concluded their call with Lyons, Price and Kurtzman began working on their intelligence, performing keyword searches and investigations into the backgrounds of Babbit’s deceased associates. It didn’t take long to figure out that most of them had ended up at the remote training camp in Louisiana after responding to an ad in a mercenary magazine. An anonymous caller took out the ad by contacting one of the magazine’s copy editors, faxing the three ambiguous lines advertising paid mercenary training, and paying for the job by money order mailed without a return address. The caller had given a fake name and the address and telephone number turned out to be that of an elderly woman who had two weeks before been admitted to a long-term nursing facility.

“They call themselves the Resurrected Defense League,” Barbara Price told Phoenix Force.

McCarter’s face filled the computer screen in the Communications Center of the Annex. John Kissinger—on a charter flight back to the States—was also on the conference line via his cellular phone, but he had no video feed.

“Sound like a nice bunch,” Kissinger interjected.

Price talked about their conversation with Lyons, then said, “We’re convinced these two incidents are connected, and we’re also sure these won’t be the last.”

“You have any luck with those tapes we sent?” Encizo’s voice cut in, although Price couldn’t actually see his face.

“Bear and Carmen are now working with facial recognition software to see if they can identify any of the dead and tie them to any of the members Able Team neutralized in New York. We’re also analyzing the prototypes data you sent to see what connections we can pull from that.”

“What else do we know about this group?” McCarter asked.

Price frowned. “Not much. They’re relatively new to this game.”

“Couldn’t prove it by us,” T. J. Hawkins said. “This attack was well planned and coordinated. They were obviously practiced and ready for any eventuality.”

“They managed to take us by surprise,” Gary Manning said.

“Only the fact we were separated saved our hides,” Calvin James added. “If we’d been together when it went down, we probably wouldn’t be having this conversation right now.”

“It’s good to hear you’re back to your old self, Calvin,” Price said, smiling into the camera.

James’s grinning countenance suddenly filled the screen, pushing McCarter slightly out of view. “Thanks, Barb, because it damn sure feels good to be alive.”

McCarter took back center stage and with a cock-sure grin and sideways glance, said, “You can play nice-nice later, mate.”

The line erupted with laughter.

“Okay, enough with the court jester routine,” Price said, although she knew they weren’t taking her that seriously. She was happy to know everyone was still breathing. The morning’s news had really worn on her.

“What about the prototypes, Barb?” Kissinger asked. “Is there anything you think can help us there?”

“Possibly, but I’m not sure how far we can go. As you know, although Phoenix Force may not have been told, we were first alerted to this from a Pentagon connection of Hal’s. There’s a Navy man who spent considerable time consulting with the design and development engineers at Stormalite’s headquarters near Lake Victoria. His name is Kendall Remar, a rear admiral with the Naval Air Warfare Detachment at NAF Key West. What I need you to do, Cowboy, is to divert there. He’s expecting you. He has a wealth of additional information he can provide, which we then need you to forward to us and the field crews.”