Target Acquisition

THE WAR ROOM was crowded.

The five members of Phoenix Force and three of Able Team were arrayed around the conference table. The mood was upbeat and a current of emotional energy hummed in the room, just below everyone’s awareness. Clearly a mission was imminent, and the men of Stony Man were ready to take up the challenge.

“The KLPD is running a safehouse on the outskirts of Islamabad. It consists of six rooms, the entire seventh floor of a residential building, about half a block away from one of the largest mosques in the city and a local police precinct,” Barbara Price began.

From his wheelchair Kurtzman worked his keyboard. On the large screen recessed into the wall a digitized satellite map of the world appeared. Latitude and longitude readings scrolled down as the head of the cyberteam dialed up first Southwest Asia, then Pakistan, then Islamabad. On the screen, high-definition optics revealed buildings and streets.

Gary Manning, shoulders wide as barn doors, leaned over to Hermann Schwarz. “The resolution on that screen kicks ass.”

“That building is your target,” Price said.

On the screen the image split to accommodate a text scroll listing building materials, windowpane thickness, door construction, plumbing and electrical diagrams and a schematic drawing of the industrial blueprint.

Manning and Schwarz, the explosives specialist on each of their respective teams, began taking notes. Manning used a yellow legal pad while Schwarz employed a heavily modified CPDA, or Combat Personal Data Assistant.

Rosario Blancanales, a member of Able Team along with Schwarz, turned toward their unit commander, Carl Lyons, a blond and burly ex-LAPD detective. “We can put a sniper position on that building at the intersection across from the target. We’d have exposure on two sides to the building plus elevation on its roof. Also we can cover the major avenues of approach.”

“Not perfect,” Lyons agreed. “But just about all we can do.”

“We are going to ensure police response is down during the time frame,” Kurtzman said. “I have my team working on it now. We’ll simply crunch through their phone lines and shut everything down. We aren’t going there to leave Islamabad cops dead in the street.”

“What about any response from ISI assets?” Calvin James asked. The ex-SEAL reached up and stroked his close-cropped mustache with a hand the color of burnished onyx.

“The genesis of this operation is our problems with ISI boys getting U.S. boys dead. Most especially the KLPD branch,” Price said. “I’ve seen the information the ISA gave JSOC and it’s smoking-gun, slam-dunk stuff. The jackasses holed up in that apartment building are jihadists. They’re either just coming from some terror mission or they’re going to some terror mission. If KLPD wants to protect them, then they’re exactly the kind of targets within Pakistani intelligence we want to cull.”

“Bang bang,” T. J. Hawkins said.

“Numbers?” David McCarter asked. The ex-SAS commando was the leader of Phoenix Force.

“Anywhere from a squad to a platoon,” Price answered. “Armed with light weapons, grenades, standard stuff.”

“That’s a little ambiguous,” McCarter pointed out.

“As far as it goes all you’re really, really concerned with is this man,” Kurtzman said.

He tapped a key and a picture of a young Middle Eastern man filled the screen. He was handsome and well groomed in traditional dress. Each member of the Stony Man teams scrutinized the picture closely, committing each detail to memory as closely as they had the target building’s industrial specifications.

“Who’s this bastard?” Hawkins asked.

“Prince Ziad Jarrah bin Sultan al-Thani,” Price replied. “And for the next twelve hours he is your raison d’être.”

Lyons leaned over toward Schwarz. “What did she say? The guy is our what?”

“Raisin entrée,” Schwarz replied.

Hawkins snorted out loud. “You guys are like Abbot and Costello.” The ex-Ranger trooper shifted his gaze over to Rosario Blancanales. “Sorry—Three Stooges.”

The Puerto Rican ex-Green Beret gave the Texan a wan smile. “Fuck you very much, T.J.”

“Did you say ‘Prince’?” Rafael Encizo interrupted.

“Yes,” Price answered. “Saudi oil actually—if there’s any other kind. His father is very high up in the defense ministry. He is, in fact, Osama bin Laden’s second cousin. He is a crown prince.”

Encizo leaned his stocky build back into his chair and whistled. He eyed the picture of the Saudi prince up on the screen the way an alcoholic eyed an unopened bottle of liquor.

“Meaning?” Schwarz asked.

“Meaning there are somewhere in the neighborhood of eight hundred princes in the Kingdom Saud, currently,” Price explained. “Of those only a very tight handful are even remotely likely to succeed to the throne. Bin Sultan al-Thani is one of them.”

Silence greeted her proclamation. Price smirked; she loved it when she was able to shut them up.

David McCarter let out a long, slow whistle as James shook his head in disbelief.

“This explains why the Agency punted to JSOC and JSOC handed off to us,” Manning muttered.

Brognola spoke up. “Technically only the paramilitary operations officers of the CIA’s Special Activities Division can legally do this. By handing off to JSOC, the Agency hoped to quash the deal. My contact hoped to pull a bureaucratic riposte by coming to us.”

“Who cares what’s holding up the pinheads. I’ve always wanted to kill royalty,” Lyons said.

“Then I suggest we get cracking,” Price replied. “We only have a narrow window to make this work.”

CHAPTER TWO

Islamabad, Pakistan

Carl Lyons regarded the target building through his night-vision scope.

He ran the Starlite model attached to his baffled SVD sniper rifle along the exposed windows, putting each dark square in his crosshairs before smoothly scanning onward. He looked for fixed points to use as quick landmarks once the shooting started as he played the optic across the building’s roof.

“Able Actual in position. All clear on roof,” he murmured into his throat mike.

Across the street on the second leg of their L-shaped overwatch positions Rosario Blancanales nestled in closer to the Pachmayr recoil pad on the buttstock of his own silenced SVD. “Able Beta in position. All clear on primary and secondary approach routes,” he replied.

Lyons shifted his scope, running it along the length of a fire escape leading down to the dark alley that would serve as Phoenix Force’s primary insertion point. “Able Epsilon, status please?”

“We barely ever get out of the Western Hemisphere,” Schwarz answered into the com link, “and you take me to a shithole like this? What? Was Paris blacked out on your frequent-flyer miles?”

“Are we clear on the ground floor, Able Epsilon?” Lyons repeated.

In the back of the blacked-out 1970s model delivery van Hermann Schwarz eased back the charging handle on his RPK machine gun. The muzzle of the weapon was set just back from the access panel covertly placed in the rear door of the vehicle.

“Six o’clock clear,” Schwarz conceded.

From his rooftop position Lyons touched a finger to his earbud. “You copy that, Stony?”

“Copy, Stony here,” Barbara Price’s cool voice responded on the other end of the satellite bounce. “Phoenix Actual, you are clear on approach.”

“Phoenix Actual copy,” David McCarter responded. “En route.”