Neutron Force

“The place looks clean,” Blancanales said, tucking the NSA identification into a breast pocket. Then he pulled a .380 Colt pistol from a shoulder holster and dropped the clip to check the load. Easing the clip back inside, he clicked off the safety and worked the slide to chamber a round. He wasn’t expecting any trouble here. This was a simple data hunt. But no soldier went into danger without a loaded weapon.

“So let’s get going,” Schwarz said, tucking electronic items and plastique into a black nylon gym bag. There might be a wall safe to blow. But they had to stay lowkey. These people might just be civilians. Unless Himar’s “family” was actually his private army of mercenaries. Schwarz briefly inspected his own 9 mm Beretta and threaded on a sound suppressor. Better safe than sorry.

“Wait a second,” Lyons advised, adjusting the focus on the field glasses. “Something’s wrong here.”

Instantly the other two men were alert and reached for the M-16 assault rifles hidden in the false ceiling of the van.

The Able Team leader surveyed the apartment building and lawn again, the hairs rising on his nape. Something about the area had triggered a warning bell inside his head, and the former L.A. cop was trying to spot what was wrong. A few of the windows were open, admitting the cool morning air. But New Englanders had a love of cold that the rest of the nation found puzzling. Just like getting a tan in California, it bordered on a mania. There was nobody moving in the bushes or in the backyard…. That’s when it hit him. There was nobody moving at all. That dog wasn’t asleep, it was dead. And there were tiny dark shapes floating in the birdbath. Wrens?

Turning, Lyons swept the whole block. Nobody was moving around any of the other homes, either. No leaves being raked, no mail being delivered, no dogs barking, no birds in the trees. Several houses away, a man was smoking while lying in a hammock. Focusing the field glasses, Lyons saw that the fellow had once been smoking, but now his shirt was smoldering. A cigar laying on the blackened ruin of his chest.

“Get hard, people,” Lyons ordered, tucking away the field glasses. Reaching down, he pulled the Atchisson autoshotgun from the bag on the floor. “We’re the only people alive on this street, possibly in the whole damn town.”

“Why would Himar beam his own house?” Schwarz said, frowning, working the arming bolt on the assault rifle. “Unless…”

“Unless Himar really is dead, and somebody else also wants his files on Prometheus before we can get them,” Blancanales conceded, thumbing a fat 40 mm round into the M-203 grenade launcher. “Mighty easy to rob a place if everybody is dead.”

Just then the happy Indian music was cut off and a window on the fifth floor of the apartment house closed, a dark shape moving behind the curtains. In a house of the dead, somebody was still moving.

“Where did Himar live?” Lyons demanded, shrugging out of his suit jacket.

“Fourth floor, but his office was on the fifth,” Schwarz said, passing out the NATO body armor. “I’d say that we’ve got hostiles inside.”

“Could just be a street cop checking the place out,” Blancanales warned, strapping on his light-weight bulletproof vest. “Or maybe a survivor who was taking a bath. You know, safe under the water.”

Lyons clicked the safety off the Atchisson and stepped to the curb. “Let’s go find out.”

Moving across the lawn, the Stony Man operatives headed for the house, each trying not to think about the deadly satellite in space possibly pointing directly downward at their location. If the neutron cannon attacked, they would never know it, and so the soldiers banished the consideration from their minds and concentrated on the task at hand. Get in, get the files and get out.

“Stony Base, this is Einstein,” Schwarz said into his throat mike as they passed the birdbath. “Our twenty may have been neutralized. If you don’t hear from us in an hour, consider this a hot zone. Out.” It took a moment for the message to be condensed, then the radio gave a short beep as the transmission was burst back to the Farm. Unless the enemy was listening to the precise frequency, at exactly the correct moment, Schwarz knew they would never be able to detect the microsecond radio pulse. Much less break the encryption created by Kurtzman and his team.

The world seemed unnaturally still to the Stony Man operatives. Traffic could be heard in the distance, and a jet liner rumbled overhead toward Logan International. But it was almost as if they were moving through a dream. No voices, no laughter, not even birds in the trees.

“We want them alive,” Lyons whispered curtly. “But retrieving those files is more important.”

The other men nodded, their eyes sweeping for danger.

Moving onto the brick porch, the Able Team leader saw a bearded man in slippers lying crumpled behind the laurel bushes, a folded newspaper still clutched in his hand. Lyons stopped and pried it loose. It was an afternoon edition. The attack had only happened a short while ago.

The front door was closed, but unlocked, and the three men eased inside, their weapons at the ready.

The foyer was empty. There was a grandfather clock softly ticking, and a coatrack with an attached bench that Schwarz recognized as an antique from before the Revolutionary War. A brass umbrella stand was in the corner and a ceramic bowl on a small table contained car keys.

Blancanales made a noise and gestured to the left.

In the living room, the shapely legs of a teenage girl stuck out from behind the couch in the living room. A cat lay lifeless next to a ball of yarn, a goldfish floated upside down in a glass bowl. But more importantly, there was a ten-gallon can of fuel sitting in the middle of the living room with a radio detonator attached to the side.

Tightening his grip on the autoshotgun, Lyons tried not to curse. The Prometheans, as Price had dubbed them, weren’t here to steal the files, but to burn the place down to make sure nobody else got them! And they weren’t going to take any chances on missing some papers hidden in the wall or under a floorboard. That firebomb would reduce the whole house to rubble. The neutron cannon could kill from space, but the deadly beams would have no effect whatsoever on computer disks and simple paper. Those had to be destroyed by hand.

Shouldering his M-16, Schwarz went to the colossal firebomb and pulled the wires free. As he turned, the electronics expert grimaced at the sight of a second firebomb in the kitchen. There was another firebomb at the foot of the stairs.

Fast and silent, the team moved through the first floor, deactivating the explosive charges. Reaching the cellar door, they paused for a wordless conference, but then heard footsteps upstairs on the wooden floor.

Separating into a one-on-one defense formation, the Stony Man commandos walked up the old stairs, carefully keeping to the outer edges where the wood would be the strongest and least likely to creak and betray their presence.

The second and third floors proved to be the same as the first, and the team quickly neutralized the bombs.

Reaching the fourth floor, Lyons paused alongside the railing. He could hear murmuring voices, and somebody was happily whistling. A fierce rage swelled within the man. The bastards were enjoying themselves!

“Hey!” a man shouted. “What the fuck are you doing, asshole?”

Able Team froze, swinging up their weapons for the expected attack. Heavy footsteps stomped closer.

“I wasn’t doing anything, George,” another man replied. But the man was cut off by the sharp smack of a slap, and a rustling sound was made by some small items scattering across the floor.

A glassine envelope went over the edge of the landing, and Blancanales made the catch. Opening his fist, he scowled at a tiny packet full of blue crystals. Interesting.

“You’re a fucking liar, Troy!” the first voice snarled angrily. “I saw you stuffing packs in your pockets!”

“Hey, I only figured—”

Another hard slap sounded, then two more. “If Ravid sent us two pounds of crystal meth to sprinkle around the place, then we use every ounce!” George ordered brusquely. “That son of a bitch knew enough about our strongarm operations to send us to Wadpoole prison for the rest of our freaking lives!”

That caught the team by surprise. These were street toughs blackmailed to plant evidence of a drug lab in the house before burning it down. If the local police found traces of the deadly narcotic in the ashes, their investigation of the blaze would stop right there, assuming it was just case of the drug makers falling out over the business. Ravid. They would remember that name.

“Yeah, yeah, sure,” Troy mumbled. “I was only just—”

“Shut the fuck up,” George snarled. “Hey, Mike, you wanna remind me why we brought the feeb along?”

“Had to. He’s my cousin,” Mike mumbled. “And don’t call him that word again, get me?”

“Go screw a rolling doughnut,” George replied. “Okay, Troy, get the rest of this crap and meet us on the fifth floor. He said they were all to be strewed around the office.”

“Sure, no problem, eh?”

“Did you put the tanks of ammonia in the basement?” a fourth man demanded. “Nobody’s gonna believe this was a crystal meth lab unless there’s lot of ammonia.”

“Sure thing, Jeff, did that first off,” Troy replied quickly. “Ah…do they really make meth from ammonia?”

“Oh, for the love of…Just pick up the envelopes!”

“Right away! Sure, no problem. Hey, you know me…”

The other men tromped away, and there came the sounds of somebody crawling across the floorboards, sweeping up the packets in their hands. Soon, a bald head appeared over the edge of the fourth-floor landing, and Troy gasped at the sight of the Able Team looking back up, their arms full of military ordnance. The man went pale and froze motionless.

Shaking his head, Lyons pressed a finger to his lips for silence, while Blancanales and Schwarz aimed their assault rifles.

“I surrender!” Troy cried, raising both hands, casting a deluge of packets upon the Stony Man commandos. “Don’t shoot me!”