Doom Prophecy

The Briton slipped into his sling for the FN P-90 submachine gun, then pulled a loose windbreaker over it. The flat gun, only twenty inches long, was hidden by the drape of the jacket with only a few minor bulges. Spare 50-round magazines balanced out the gun in an underarm clip holder, while his modified Browning Hi-Power rested just behind his hip in an inside-the-waistband holster.

On the barrel-chested Manning, the FN P-90 completely disappeared under the hang of his broad, powerful shoulders. Hawkins, as lean and rangy as McCarter but a bit shorter, had a little more trouble concealing his weapon, but only a few bumps showed under his clothes.

The three Phoenix Force vets slipped out of their quarters and stealthily made their way to a darkened corner of the joint task force compound. Ironically, it was the same one that the marauders had broken through the fence earlier that day. Staying out of the spotlights, and moving slowly enough not to attract attention, it was a simple matter for the three pros to scurry under the fence and be gone before the glare of the spotlights from the watch towers swept across them.

McCarter made a mental note to inform Stewart about the carelessness of the guards who patrolled that area when, or if, he returned the next day.

He hoped that if something did turn up, he’d be able to come back and pick up their spare gear. If not, they’d simply have to scrounge and make do. It wouldn’t be the first time Phoenix Force had been stuck in the wilderness without the ample resources of Stony Man Farm to call upon, but the five superpros of the team hadn’t been selected because of their ability to do the job when intelligence and artillery were handed to them on a silver platter. Resourcefulness, determination and skill were the selection factors when it came to the Stony Man action teams.

As soon as Manning was through the fence, the trio serpentined around the spotlights, disappearing into the shadows.

“T.J.,” McCarter whispered, unlimbering his FN from the folds of his jacket, “earpiece in and take point for a comm check.”

Hawkins unfurled his weapon, as well, and took the lead in the darkened forest, cutting through the trees. Manning, however, clicked on his LED light to check the map case strapped to his forearm.

“Hawk to Mac, reporting,” Hawkins’s voice came back.

“Reading you,” McCarter answered. “Keep your ears on and—” he glanced at the map, then at the stars above, getting his bearings “—continue on heading 268.”

Squinting, McCarter could see the silhouette of Hawkins consult his compass-wristwatch. McCarter had a similar design himself, and knew the luminous, tritium hands on the dial would provide an easy reference, even in complete darkness. Hawkins’s shadowy form raised a hand and motioned for the others to follow his course.

Manning took up a rear security position, and McCarter fell into step in the middle, keeping his eye on the youngest Phoenix Force member as he continued to take point. Now, all speech was kept to an absolute minimum and subvocalized so that only someone else wearing a communicator with an earpiece and a throat mike could hear the others. There was still the chance that Shining Warrior Path members could be stalking the trees, waiting for a patrol to fall on them. The possibility of running across a team of task force hunters, taken to the shadows, seeking more marauders, was also likely. Caught off the compound, Phoenix Force could expect a “shoot first, as questions later” response if they stumbled across even a friendly patrol.

Fortunately, Hawkins, like the rest of the team, was an expert night stalker. Even in the thickest of forests, in the blackest night, he’d be able to use the cloak of darkness as an ally. Without night-vision goggles and operating by starlight, the trio continued through the jungle, following Manning’s infrequent consultations of the map and his own compass.

It was a long, tiring hump through the uneven jungle floor.

And McCarter’s instincts had been right. The Phoenix Force trio had to stop and take cover as a squad of Rangers moved with almost complete silence past their hiding places. While the Americans moved with stealth and alertness, McCarter was glad for his team’s superior skills. They’d picked up the shadowy forms and, nestled behind deep cover, sat breathlessly as the patrol passed by.

“We forgot our night-vision gear,” Manning said into his throat mike.

“They didn’t,” McCarter quipped. “And look, they missed the three of us.”

“Guys,” Hawkins continued over his communicator.

The elder Phoenix Force commandos dropped back into silence, and they spotted more lean, stealthy shadows creeping through the night. These weren’t servicemen attached to the international joint task force, and from the looks of the machetes in their hands, handguns around their waists and their stripped chests, coated with reddish, ruddy tints, it could only mean that they’d stumbled on a squad of Algul’s men.

“Jackpot,” McCarter whispered. “Silencers.”

Manning and Hawkins were already affixing suppressors to their space-aged submachine guns. The big Canadian glanced at McCarter and raised a finger.

The unvoiced question was simple to understand. One prisoner?

McCarter answered with a thumbs-up, then clicked his transmit button. The single click would convey to Hawkins that they needed a prisoner to interrogate, if possible. Keeping their weapons suppressed would make it hard for the enemy to locate them, but also keep the sounds of a conflict from reaching the recently passed Ranger squad.

While the American Special Forces soldiers would appreciate the assist, the sound of a gun battle would only draw their own firepower into the mix. And without a score card, McCarter knew that his team would end up on the losing end of a friendly fire incident.

Manning shouldered his weapon and peered through the sights at the first of the crimson-caked stalkers in the shadows. As the best marksman of the three, it would be the brawny Canadian’s role to begin the festivities with a sniper shot. McCarter wished he’d brought his Barnett Commando crossbow along. For silent, deadly work, it was an amazing tool, but even if he had, he wouldn’t have been able to conceal the crossbow under his jacket, with or without the FN submachine gun.

Instead, McCarter leveled the muzzle of his weapon at a second target, flicking the selector to full-auto. One pull of the trigger and the cadaverous stalker in the forest would receive a salvo of 5.7 mm tumblers at the rate of 800 rounds per minute.

Manning pulled his trigger and the forehead of one of Algul’s zombie-like followers disappeared in a volcano of blood. The man gurgled and collapsed, the others freezing as they realized they had come under attack.

McCarter cut loose, ripping a burst into the red-clay decorated chest of a second hunter. The machete-wielding killer spread his arms wide, the wind knocked from his lungs before he could cry out, raising further alarm.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Hawkins leap out behind a third of the dark night predators, clubbing him with the buttstock of his P-90. The marauder collapsed without a sound and Hawkins crawled atop the stunned man, grabbing a cable tie-style riot cuff from his pocket.

The crack of a handgun split the night and McCarter and Manning separated, drawing the Phoenix Force leader’s attention back to the action in front of him. Manning’s FN spoke, coughing out suppressed rounds that chopped into the hand gunner, ending his assault.

McCarter stumbled over a tree root and looked up to see a machete-wielding murderer let out an enraged scream as he came down on the Briton, gleaming blade glinting in the starlight, thirsty for the Phoenix Force commander’s blood.

CARMEN DELAHUNT NEEDED to get out of her room, out of the confining, claustrophobic walls. She needed to network, get some ideas about the mysterious Ka55andra.

It wasn’t going to be an easy time, each thought invariably reminding her of her dead friend Amanda, but then, she felt a spark of flame burning inside her. Motivation. She’d become restless and needed to act, not sit around and keep fingering her psyche until she went slowly mad.