Promise To Defend

Filling his hands with a Glock 17 and his flashlight, Hejazi a few steps behind, Salih exited the room and crept down the hallway. A sharp noise from outside the house brought him to a halt. He shot a questioning glance to Hejazi, who nodded in reply. Salih extinguished the flashlight beam, slipped into a room to his left and peered through a dust-laden window. A dark, bulky vehicle stood near the front porch. He couldn’t identify the brand of vehicle, but he immediately recognized the logo on the driver’s-side door: U.S. Border Patrol.

His grip tightening on the pistol, he whirled toward Hejazi, but found him gone. Salih swore under his breath and trailed after his friend. As he stepped into the hallway, he heard the front door come open, squeaking on rusted hinges. Flashlights immediately pierced the darkness, sweeping over the walls. He caught Hejazi’s shadow up ahead, flattened against a wall, his handgun held next to his ear, muzzle pointing skyward.

Hejazi gave him a look and Salih shook his head, held up his hand. Edging along the wall, he tried to bridge the gap between the two men, even as a pair of shadows overtook a nearby wall.

“U.S. Border Patrol,” a female voice said. “We saw the vehicles out front. I want you to step out here and show yourselves. Now.”

Salih felt fear and anger roiling within. Their contact had told them that he’d leave a pair of vans at the house for transportation. The Border Patrol agents had spotted them and decided to investigate. Had they called for backup? And, if so, when would it arrive? The notion that they’d come this far only to fail was intolerable to Salih. That a woman—a woman—had interfered and was shouting orders only increased the sting. They needed to act, to go down fighting, if necessary. But go down as men.

Apparently, Hejazi felt the same way.

The small man rounded the corner, his weapon rising as the flashlight beams illuminated his chest and face. The officers, their voices taut with fear, shouted for him to halt his advance. But he didn’t. The pistol cracked twice and Salih saw one of the shadows fall. A microsecond later bullets hammered into Hejazi’s chest and stomach, launching him into a backward march that ended when he collided with a wall. Unable to take another step, his limbs became rubbery and he crumpled to the floor.

Salih, Glock held high, his heartbeat thundering in his ears, approached his old friend.

“Officer down, damn it,” he heard the Border Patrol agent saying from the other room. The agent’s shadow loomed larger as he approached Hejazi’s corpse. “Where the hell’s my backup?”

Despite the vengeful rage boiling within, Salih forced himself to think clearly. They needed to get out of here before more agents arrived and they ended up making a last stand here in the desert.

The officer came into view, his handgun leveled in front of him. His eyes widened as he saw Salih. The muzzle tracked toward Salih, but he already had the American in his sights. The Glock’s report echoed throughout the corridor as a pair of 9 mm slugs caught the Border Patrol agent’s head, killing him instantly.

By the time the American folded to the ground, Salih’s fellow warriors had flocked to his side or gathered around Hejazi, checking in vain for signs of life. He didn’t wait for them to pronounce what he already knew in his heart.

“Take his body to the van,” Salih ordered. “We have no time to waste. For today, we must go, hide. But tomorrow the Americans will pay for his death and many others a thousand times over.”

CHAPTER TWO

Stony Man Farm, Virginia

With Stony Man Mountain situated to his left, Rosario “The Politician” Blancanales stood outside the farmhouse, black eyes peering over a coffee cup’s rim, drinking in the milky orange-red line of predawn light cresting the Blue Ridge Mountains’ peaks.

Awake since 3:00 a.m., the Able Team warrior finally had surrendered to his insomnia, showering, dressing and adjourning outside to watch the sunrise, beating it by a good fifteen minutes. Sleep rarely eluded Blancanales. A trained soldier, he usually could will himself to doze, if only for a few minutes, despite time zone shifts, adrenaline rushes or anticipated danger. In the field, sleeping, like staying alert, was a survival skill one mastered as part of a larger repertoire of skills, both practical and deadly.

But between missions, burdened with time to think and remember, Blancanales occasionally found himself in his present circumstances: wide awake, mind littered with bits of wreckage from his past. Sometimes the ghosts just wouldn’t go away.

Scowling, he watched a smoky-gray blanket of fog rise above the acres of hardwoods and conifers that surrounded Stony Man Farm, the nation’s ultrasecret intelligence and counterterrorism operation. Pressing the coffee cup to his lips, he slurped it, trying at once to cool and consume it.

A voice sounded from behind. “Didn’t realize you were into sunrises.”

Blancanales turned to see Hermann “Gadgets” Schwarz, Able Team’s electronics genius. Schwarz, a man of medium height and build, leaned against the farmhouse, arms crossed over his chest. Blancanales flashed his most disarming grin. “If you’d gotten here a minute later, I might have started writing poetry,” he said.

“Or yodeling.”

“God forbid. I leave the loud, unearthly sounds to Ironman,” Blancanales said, referencing Carl Lyons, Able Team’s third and final member.

“Good choice.”

“How’d you find me?”

Schwarz held up the coffee, made a face. “I figured either you or a hog farmer cooked up this swill. I didn’t see you in the house, so I figured you might be outside.”

“You need something?”

Schwarz shook his head. “Nah, just nosing around. I was already up. Up all night, in fact. I got caught up in hotrodding my laptop. I added more memory, upgraded the wireless fidelity capabilities, added some dandy new encryption software.”

“Have my eyes glazed over yet?” Blancanales asked, grinning.

Schwarz arched his upper lip in mock disdain. “Savage. My great genius cannot be appreciated by one such as you.”

“Right.” Blancanales swallowed more coffee.

“So you dodged me long enough. What the hell are you doing out here?”

“Not sleeping.”

“And not answering my questions.”

Blancanales opened his mouth to reply, but a vibration on his left hip cut him off. In almost synchronized movements, he and Gadgets unhooked their pagers from their belts, brought them closer to their faces and studied the liquid-crystal displays.

“War Room,” Blancanales said.

“Not good,” Schwarz replied. “Not at this hour.”

Blancanales nodded his agreement. A tickle of excitement passed through his stomach, followed by a sense of relief. Just what he needed—a little action to distract him. He gestured toward the house. With a nod, Schwarz pivoted on his heel and started for the front door. Blancanales fell into step behind him.

ENTERING THE WAR ROOM, Blancanales swept his gaze over its occupants, smiled at them. Barbara Price, Stony Man Farm’s mission controller, Aaron “The Bear” Kurtzman, chief of Stony Man’s cybernetics team and Lyons were seated at the oval-shaped table. Price, her honey-blond hair pulled back in a ponytail, skin bare of makeup, and Kurtzman, thick body settled in his wheelchair, big hands wrapped around a steaming mug of coffee, returned Blancanales’s smile. Lyons looked up from his coffee long enough to nod at his teammates before returning his attention to the mug’s swirling contents.

Hal Brognola stood at the head of the table, arms crossed over his chest. His white cotton dress shirt was open at the collar, the sleeves rolled up to the middle of his forearms. An unlit cigar jutted from between the big Fed’s lips.

“Nice breakfast, Chief,” Blancanales said as he dropped into a chair.

“Beats your coffee,” Brognola shot back.

“Oh, Lord,” Blancanales said. “Hal’s tossing out jokes. Isn’t that a sign of the apacolypse?”

“Could be in this case,” Brognola said.

“Okay, you’ve got our attention,” Lyons said. “Elaborate.”

Plucking the cigar from his mouth, Brognola studied it for a moment as he collected his thoughts. When he spoke, his voice sounded weary. “Within the past few hours, the country took a double-barreled gut shot. Both home and abroad. I have Phoenix Force working things overseas. I need you folks to defuse the homeland threat.”

“Which is?” Schwarz asked.

“Nothing short of mass murder,” Brognola said. He turned and looked at Price. “Barb?” She pressed a button on her laptop and an image of middle-aged man with black hair and a dark complexion came into view on the wall screen.

“Name’s Abdul Rashid,” Brognola said. “He heads a lovefest called Arm of God. As far as terror groups go, it’s fairly new, surfacing a year ago. But it seems well connected and well funded. And, as of this morning, it moved to the top of our must-hit list.”

“How so?” Blancanales said.