Mind Bomb

Korkaz stroked his beard. “There might be a few Indian manufacture Mills bombs lying about.”

“I’ll take all you have.”

CHAPTER SEVEN (#ulink_61be9f73-0020-5c43-8eac-57444bd9c53e)

The Minerva Hotel, Lebanon

McCarter grimly surveyed the hotel. She was old, built in the turn of the last century European style. People had once called Lebanon the Switzerland of the Middle East. Now the hotel, much like the nation, was a bullet-and-bomb-scarred pile. He scanned the shattered balconies and the gaping, blown-out main entrance and lowered the Israeli artillery binoculars he had gotten from Korkaz. “I got nothing.”

“Copy that.” Gary Manning, the team’s sharpshooter and demolitions expert, scanned through the scope of an old but serviceable Belgian Special Police Rifle. “No movement.”

Thomas Jackson Hawkins, the team’s newest member, squatted behind a bit of broken wall. “Daylight meet, everything around is blown down. No way to sneak in without being seen. The approach is kill-zone.”

McCarter nodded. If whoever called the meet had bad intentions, they were going to start off with big advantages. However, the Briton was fairly certain whoever it was wanted them to come inside first. “By twos, Cal, Rafe, take point. T.J., with me. Gary, on our six. Watch the windows.”

The team froze as a pair of F-16s roared by overhead. Phoenix Force moved out as the fighter jets screamed toward Israel to re-arm. Calvin James and Rafael Encizo moved forward scanning with their weapons. They crouched by the yawning main entrance. James hand-signaled the rest of the team forward. McCarter moved swiftly across the deadly open ground waiting for fire to suddenly erupt out of the upstairs windows. None came. He snuck a look at the lobby. Everything that wasn’t part of the building’s structure had been stripped. An RPG had obliterated the reception desk. Bullet strikes pocked the walls. Old discolored brass shell casings littered the floor.

“Maybe they’re waiting for us in the bar?” Encizo suggested hopefully.

“Good place to start as any.” McCarter waved Manning in. “Sweep and clear, by twos.” He nodded at Manning as he ran up. “On our six.”

Phoenix Force fanned out into the lobby silent as shadows. McCarter took point. He moved for the bar per Encizo’s recommendation and took a peek around the corner into the Minerva’s bar. The furniture was gone. The carpeting had been torn up. The bar had been shot to pieces and there wasn’t a drop to drink in sight. Encizo had been right. Their mystery date was waiting for them in the bar. Four men and one woman lay dead on the floor in pools of blood. “Cal, T.J., check the bodies. Rafe, get pictures of everything. Gary, watch the door.”

James shook his head as he did a quick med check. “All of them are dead. I’d say within the hour. All of them took what looks to be a 2-to 3-round burst through the head.” James gingerly turned the dead woman’s head. Her face was a blown-out ruin. He checked the other bodies; they were the same. “I say by the wounds the bullets entered through the back and came out the front.”

McCarter didn’t like it. “They were all shot in the back of the head?”

“Looks that way,” James confirmed.

“Look at this!” Hawkins had snapped on a rubber glove and gingerly picked up a pistol with his thumb and forefinger. The weapon was big and black. The grips were deeply grooved. The slide was deeply grooved. Two inches of barrel stuck out of the slide and it was fluted like an automatic cannon barrel. “Anyone ever seen something like this?”

McCarter hadn’t. He took out his phone and dialed the Farm. A few moments passed as his call went through a series of defensive filters before McCarter tapped in his current password.

Kurtzman’s voice came across. “What’s up?”

“Is Cowboy around?”

“I think he’s in the shop as we speak.”

“Patch me through, with video. Got something I want to show him.” McCarter waited a moment and John “Cowboy” Kissinger popped onto his screen.

The armorer stood at his workbench with a sea of parts around him. “You got something interesting?”

“Something I’ve never seen before. T.J.?” Hawkins held up the gun and slowly turned it in front of McCarter’s phone.

“Well, well, well...” Kissinger mused.

“Something you don’t see every day?” McCarter asked.

“Something you don’t see ever.” The armorer sounded genuinely impressed. “You got the Holy Grail of machine pistols right there.”

“Machine pistol?”

Kissinger sounded uncharacteristically giddy. “Tuma MTE 224 VA.”

McCarter rolled his eyes. “Come back from the edge, mate. Give me the relevant.”

“It’s Swiss.”

Phoenix Force collectively blinked. McCarter looked at the weapon Hawkins was holding. He had to admit it looked exquisitely manufactured. He had used Swiss equipment on a few occasions. It was top-of-the-line. They spared no expense and cut no corners. The only problem Swiss arms manufacturers had was that Switzerland’s strict neutrality laws meant they could not export weapons. They got around that by letting others manufacture their designs for a hefty fee. The machine pistol looked like something right out of Star Wars, and McCarter had never seen the like. “The Swiss don’t export much.”

“No, they don’t,” Kissinger agreed. “The only people outside of Switzerland using those might be the Swiss Papal Guard at the Vatican. And if they are? The Pope ain’t telling.”

“Thanks, Cowboy.”

“Anytime. Bring me back a sample if you can.” Kissinger clicked off the line.

“Bear?” McCarter asked. “You thinking Swiss intelligence sent a team to Beirut?”

Manning snorted. “Didn’t know Switzerland had an intelligence network.”

“Oh, they do,” Kurtzman said. “From what I gather it’s mostly military intelligence and nearly impossible to find out anything about. From what little can be gleaned they mostly stay up in their alpine fastness. Rumor is a lot of their banks are tied in. ‘Swiss bank account’ is a metaphor for something to hide. Their intelligence assets usually come to them.”