Target Acquisition

Carl Lyons pulled his face away from his scope and quickly did a security check of his area. It was very early in the morning and the residential block was like a ghost town. Despite this, the leader of Able Team felt naked and exposed.

Unable to field adequate overwatch because of insufficient personnel assets, the Farm’s JSOC liaison had requested additional manpower. Price had no choice but to deploy Able Team as security element for Phoenix Force’s raid.

Because the Farm’s teams were operating black inside Pakistan, local coordination and cover had been impossible. Able Team had taken their positions only minutes prior to the strike. Dressed as Islamabad riot police to disguise their Western features and delay any alert to the authorities, they would be exposed to a confused, frightened and potentially hostile indigenous population should their positions be discovered.

Speed and decisive of action on the part of Phoenix Force was their best hope at this point.

Across the street from Carl Lyons, Rosario Blancanales shifted his scope and took in the alley running next to the target building. A blacked-out delivery van with a sliding side door identical to the one occupied by Schwarz suddenly swerved into the alley.

Instantly, Blancanales shifted his aim and began scanning his overwatch sectors to provide Phoenix Force with security.

In the alley Phoenix exited the vehicle, leaving the engine running. The dome and cargo lights had been disabled so that the five-man team looked like black shadows leaking from a dark box as they approached the building’s side entrance.

T. J. Hawkins produced a claw-toothed crowbar and the countdown began.

ON THE SIXTH FLOOR of the target building Ziad Jarrah bin Sultan al-Thani put his cup of strong coffee down and drew heavily on his cigarette. His eyes squinted against the harsh smoke as he surveyed the room.

Three hollow-eyed men in Western business suits with Skorpion machine pistols were spread across the room while a fourth man, their boss, spoke with quiet tones into a satellite phone. A Wahhabite cleric had a Koran open in his lap and was reading a passage to a sweating teenage boy sitting in a straight-backed kitchen chair.

Two men, explosives experts from the Pakistani terror group Lashkar-e-Taiba, carefully rigged the boy with a suicide bomber vest packed with powerful Semtex plastic explosive.

It was a warm night in Islamabad but all the doors and windows to the apartment were tightly closed for security reasons. Ziad Jarrah had stripped off his expensive robes and was wearing only a ribbed cotton white muscle shirt, his olive skin damp with sweat.

The Saudi carefully lined up packets of riyals on the table. The currency totaled the equivalent of five thousand U.S. dollars. The sum would be paid to the suicide bomber’s family upon his detonation. The bomber’s rewards would come later, in heaven.

Ziad Jarrah thought how nice and cool the vice dens of Dubai would be, or his palace in Riyadh. But he grew so bored there. He loved being out on the edge of the jihad—not too close, but close enough to feel the vicarious thrill of murder plotted and murder committed.

He placed the last stack of money on the table, made eye contact with the bomber, nodded, then began putting the money into a manila envelope. Once he was done he stubbed out his cigarette and immediately lit another. He smoothed down each side of his thin mustache where it ran into the sparse hair of his goatee.

He drew in deeply, filling his lungs with smoke. Across the room the leader of the KLPD unit abruptly clicked off his phone. He turned toward the kitchen table and his suit coat swung open, revealing his own machine pistol in a shoulder holster.

“Abdul.” The security service officer smiled. “My brother, we are ready. You go to glory!”

The bomber looked down as one of the terrorist explosives engineers placed the detonator in his hand. Another Lashkar-e-Taiba operative stepped forward and began to use black electrician’s tape to secure the ignition device to the bomber’s hand. Neither Ziad Jarrah nor the KLPD officer bothered to tell the martyr in the chair that there was a ignition failsafe built around a Nokia cell phone constructed directly into the bomb.

One push of the Pakistani intelligence agent’s speed dial and any hesitation the teenager might feel would disappear instantly.

Ziad Jarrah could feel a sense of euphoria, a giddiness at what was about to happen, surge through him. The illicit thrills of Dubai paled in comparison.

HAWKINS LEVERED the crowbar into place beside the dead bolt and wrenched it open. The metal-and-mesh outer security door popped open and swung wide. Sidestepping it like a dancing partner, Hawkins moved forward and reinserted the crowbar into the doorjamb.

The Texan’s shoulders flexed hard against the resistance, and in an instant the dead bolt was ripped out of its mooring. He stepped to the side and threw the crowbar down. Rafael Encizo, AKS-74U Kalashnikov carbine held at port arms, ran forward and kicked the door out of the way.

He darted into the building, sweeping his muzzle down. Calvin James followed in close behind him, his own AKS carbine covering a complementary zone vector. Directly behind them Manning and McCarter folded into the assault line, weapons up in mirror positions.

Freeing up a Russian AK-47 RAK .12-gauge automatic shotgun, Hawkins stepped into position and began covering the team’s rear security as they penetrated the building.

Across the street from his elevated vantage Lyons spoke into his sat-com, “Phoenix is hot inside. Phoenix is hot inside.”

A second later Barbara Price acknowledged him. “Copy.”

Both Blancanales and Schwarz made additional sweeps of their zones. The streets remained deserted, buildings dark and silent. Inside the target building Phoenix Force rushed down starkly illuminated hallways and up dim staircases.

From the outside Lyons played the scope of his 7.62 mm SVD along the windows of the target floor. As he swept the crosshairs past a window it suddenly exploded with light as heavy drapes were thrust aside by a swarthy man in a muscle shirt.

Instantly, Lyons reorientated his weapon. His focus narrowed down, and the man’s face leaped into sight with superb clarity. Lyons felt the corners of his mouth tug upward in a grin. Ziad Jarrah-el-asshole, Lyons thought to himself. Merry Christmas to me.

He initiated radio contact. “Be advised,” he warned. “Be advised. I have eyes on Primary. Primary confirmation.”

“Phoenix copy,” McCarter responded. “We are at the door now.”

“Understood,” Lyons replied.

He tightened the focus on his sniper scope. Lighting a cigarette, Ziad Jarrah moved out of the way, revealing an angle into the room. Lyons’s optic reticule filled with the image of a second man seated on a kitchen chair. The ex-LAPD detective felt his eyes widen in the sudden shock of recognition. Suddenly a balaclava-clad man in a business suit appeared in the window and snapped the curtains shut.

Lyons held back on his shot, trying desperately to work his com link in time. “Phoenix!”

On the other end of the com link McCarter was giving Hawkins a nod. The ex-Ranger stepped forward and swung up the RAK 12 and placed the big vented muzzle of the shotgun next to the doorknob and lock housing. The .12-gauge roared as the breeching round tore through the mechanism like a fastball burning past a stupefied batter.

Hawkins folded back as the massive shape of Gary Manning stepped forward, sweeping up a solid leg into a tight curl. He exploded outward in a heel-driven front snap kick that burst the already damaged door inward.

Rafael Encizo shot through the opening and peeled left, AKS-74U up and tracking as Calvin James peeled off to the right. As McCarter, followed by Hawkins and Manning, sprinted into the room Encizo killed a man armed with a Skorpion submachine gun. Men started cursing.

“Phoenix! Phoenix suicide bomber—” Lyons’s voice was loud and frantic in Phoenix Force’s earbud.

The warning came too late to stop the assault force’s forward momentum. McCarter swung around, searching for the threat. He saw Ziad Jarrah throw himself through the air, leaping away from a terrified teenager strapped down with a tan vest festooned with blocks of Semtex and bundles of wires.

“Bomb!” McCarter screamed.

Bullets burned across the room as the situation descended into a slow-motion montage. Manning struck Calvin James with a brutal shoulder block, knocking the ex-SEAL back into McCarter and toward the door.

Skorpion-wielding men in business suits spun and began trying to track targets. McCarter was driven backward as his eyes found the bomber’s. The kid’s gaze had glazed over, his mouth hanging slack. From out of his peripheral vision the Phoenix Force leader saw the other members of his team crowding in as he fell through the door.

Over their shoulders he saw the teenager squeeze his hand into a desperate fist, thumb hunting for the ignition. We’re not going to make it, he thought.

Outside the building a wave of fire suddenly erupted into the night, filling the optic of both Lyons and Blancanales.

“Phoenix! Phoenix!” Lyons shouted into his throat mike.

There was no answer.

Black smoke roiled up into the air as orange flames licked at the inside of the building. Lyons popped up, breaking down the SVD sniper rifle with quick motions. He quickly slung the carryall over his shoulder and stepped to the edge of the building, where he snapped his rappel rope into the D-ring carabiners of his slide harness.

He went over the edge and dropped six stories to the street. Lights were coming on in buildings up and down the street. Lyons came out and saw Blancanales already on the ground and sprinting for the van where Hermann Schwarz was at the wheel.

Suddenly, David McCarter’s voice was audible. “Be advised,” McCarter growled. “We are up and we are bloody leaving.”

The relief in Barbara Price’s voice was obvious even over the sat link. “Good copy, Phoenix.”