Atomic Fracture

“I’ll be here,” Kurtzman said, then hung up the phone.

Fifteen minutes later Hal Brognola came through the door to the Farm’s Computer Room and walked up the wheelchair ramp that led to Kurtzman’s long bank of computers. Clamped between Brognola’s teeth was the stub of a well-chewed cigar—one of his trademarks.

The atmosphere at the top-secret counterterrorist facility known as Stony Man Farm was serious but familiar. Each individual who worked out of the Farm was a top expert in his or her field, and everyone else was aware of that fact. So while there was still a sort of paramilitary order to be followed, the warriors—both on the home front and in the field—were on a first-name basis with one another thanks to mutual respect.

So when Kurtzman said, “Hello, Mr. Director,” over his shoulder without looking toward Brognola or stopping his fingers, which were flying across the keyboard, it came out sounding more like a nickname than a title.

“Ah,” said Brognola as he stopped next to the wheelchair at the top of the ramp. “We’re being formal today, are we?”

“Why not?” said Kurtzman. “It might class this joint up a little now and then.” Strands of his wild, prematurely white hair had fallen over his forehead and he swept them back with one hand.

“Okay, then, Mr. Bear,” the director said, referring to Kurtzman’s nickname earned for his massive physique. “What have you got for me?”

“A lot. And not much.”

“Maybe I should address you as Mr. Dickens, then,” Brognola said. “That sounded an awful lot like, ‘It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.’”

Kurtzman whirled the wheelchair almost 180 degrees to face the man. “There’s internet chatter like crazy among the crazies,” he said matter-of-factly. “Almost an eight hundred percent increase in what we’re used to.” He inhaled a deep breath. “So we’ve got to assume something bigger than usual is in the works.”

“But you don’t know what it is?” Brognola chomped down a little harder on the cigar stub.

Kurtzman nodded and more strands of hair bounced on top of his head. “Precisely,” he said. “Which I guess would fall under your Dickens’ quote as being in the ‘worst of times’ category. However I did pick up the word nuke encoded in one email. But for the most part, they—whoever they are—have gone to a whole new software program.”

Brognola’s eyebrows lowered. “We can thank that little weasel Edward Snowden for that,” he said. “I’d like to get my hands around his throat. He’s the reason our enemies have changed software and everything else they can.” He clamped down harder on his cigar, then changed the subject slightly. “Nuke, of course, is our abbreviation for nuclear. Do you mean—”

“Yes,” Kurtzman interrupted the big Fed. “Most everyone in the world, regardless of language, calls nuclear weapons ‘nuclear weapons.’ And they use the same shorthand version of the word—nuke—just like we do. The atom was first split by men who spoke English and so the word has become integrated, without change, into just about every culture on Earth.”

“Was the word used in any sort of context you could make out?” the director asked.

Kurtzman shook his head. “Negative. But keep in mind it’s also a word that gets kicked around all the time in cyberspace slang. It could mean our worst fears—some terrorist group has gotten its hands on a nuclear bomb and is planning to use it somewhere in the world. But that’s not necessarily the case. There’s a lot of bragging, and posturing, and bring-on-the-jihad-high-school-pep-rally-type crap thrown around between the terrorists these days, too.”

“Now I see what you mean by having a lot and having nothing,” Brognola said. “But we’ve got to always assume it could mean something disastrous.”

Kurtzman nodded. “Of course we do,” he said. “The bottom line is that I just don’t know exactly what’s going on at this point.”

The SOG director stared the computer genius straight in the eye. “You aren’t telling me you can’t decipher this new software cyber babble, are you?” he asked, a puzzled look on his face.

Kurtzman almost smiled. He did his best to remain modest about his abilities with what he often referred to as his “magic machines.” And most of the time he was successful in that modesty. But he also knew there was no one in the world quite as skilled in both the science and art of cyberspace as he was. That wasn’t his ego speaking, either. It was just the way it was. Or as Yogi Berra had once said, “It ain’t brag if it’s true.”

“No, Hal,” the man in the wheelchair said, “I’m not telling you I can’t decipher it. I’m just telling you that because of all of the intelligence information Snowden leaked about how we follow terrorists, they’ve gone to whole new programs and it’ll take a little while for me to figure them out.” He paused and took another deep breath. “The terrorist groups—all of them—are getting much better at covering their tracks than they used to be. There are so many of them, and they’ve linked up with dozens of Third World countries in the Middle East and Africa. Which means they’ve gained access to more sophisticated electronics than they used to have.

“They’re also getting more and more help from former Soviet computer experts who hire themselves out as sort of cyber mercenaries.” The Farm’s cyber genius shook his head slowly as he scratched the side of his face. “It’s a lot like the difference between what we were when Stony Man first started and where we are today. In the beginning, we were lucky to have computers that could even access the internet, send email, whatever. And now...” He turned slightly and swept a hand across the front of the dozen or so computers to which he had access. “We’ve progressed,” he said. “But so has the enemy.”

A thin smile curled the corners of Brognola’s mouth and the cigar stump rose at a steeper angle between his teeth. “In the old days we were lucky to have two-way radios with face transmitters and headphones,” he agreed. “So yeah, we’ve come a long way.” The cigar stub had almost disappeared inside his mouth now and he took it out and dropped it into a trash can just to the side of Kurtzman’s desk.Then, reaching inside his jacket, he pulled out a leather cigar carrier, slid the top off and produced a fresh stogie—which wouldn’t be smoked any more than the last one had been. Sticking the cigar in his mouth, he returned the case to his pocket and said, “But the world was a safer place in those days, overall. I never thought I’d miss the old Soviet Union. But at least they were more practical when it came to things like nuclear warfare.” He chomped down on the cigar. To Kurtzman, it looked as if he was only a few tobacco leaves away from biting the cigar in two. “Moscow knew that a nuclear strike would mean nuclear retaliation, and be disastrous for both countries and the whole world. These terrorist organizations either don’t realize that or don’t care. They think they’re on a mission from God.”

“They’re about as much on a mission from God as the Blues Brothers were on Saturday Night Live,” Kurtzman said.

Brognola chuckled. Then his eyebrows lowered and his voice turned serious. “Okay,” he said. “I’d better get going. I’ve got to track down Able Team. They’re test-firing some new weapons with Kissinger off-site, and I think we’d better get that done right away. Because when you decipher this chatter flying back and forth across computer land I suspect they’ll be on an immediate flight out of here to...wherever.” Kurtzman turned back to his keyboard. “Will do, Mr. Director,” he said as his hands once again flew across the letters, numbers and symbols with lightning speed.

“Thank you, Mr. Bear,” Brognola said as he started walking away. He had gone only a few steps when a computer in the bank in front of Kurtzman suddenly rang out with a siren not as loud, but not unlike an emergency tornado warning in the suburb of some Southwestern U.S. city. Kurtzman wheeled to it, then tapped a few keys and stared at the screen.

Brognola stopped and turned back.

A moment later Kurtzman’s head swiveled and he stared at the big Fed. “You know that ‘wherever’ you said Able Team would be flying off to, Hal?” he said.

Brognola nodded.

“I know where it is,” said Kurtzman.

CHAPTER THREE

Carl “Ironman” Lyons raised his hands to cover his ears as soon as the first shot was fired. In his peripheral vision, he could see that John “Cowboy” Kissinger—Stony Man’s chief armorer—had done the same. Kissinger wanted to test some new weapons not just on the Stony Man firing range but under more realistic battlefield conditions, so had arranged for a visit to a “kill house” used by SWAT teams both local and federal.Covering their ears had been an instinctive reaction to the thunderous noise. Even coming from inside the enclosed walls of the kill house the outside effects of the explosions were painful. Not unlike synchronized swimmers, each man outside the house ensured their earplugs and coverings were secure before the next round was fired.

More shots exploded inside the walls and the Able Team leader pictured Rosario Blancanales—better known to his fellow Able Team members as “Politician” or simply “Pol”—making his way through the rooms of the practice range. The kill house had three levels and each room, hallway and staircase was equipped with “pop up” targets that featured good guys, bad guys, hostages and innocent bystanders—all of whom had to be shot or passed by with less than a second’s consideration by the brain.

More shots rang out. Now that his ears were covered, Lyons dropped his hands to his sides and moved quickly to where Kissinger stood, leaning against one of the pickups in which they had arrived. The Stony Man armorer held a laptop computer in front of him, and on the screen the Able Team leader could see the interior of the house. Blancanales was making his way cautiously up the steps to the second floor. In his hands was a Yankee Hill Machine Company’s Model 15.

A head and shoulders—then two arms holding an AK-47—suddenly appeared at the top of the steps and Blancanales fired one shot directly through the forehead. A ragged hole appeared in the paper face of a terrorist wearing a turban. Then the target disappeared as quickly as it had appeared.

Lyons continued to watch as Blancanales made his way through the rooms on the second and then third floor, carefully picking out the good guys from the bad and putting holes through the paper images of the enemy targets. The Able Team leader noted, however, that each time his fellow warrior pulled the trigger, he winced slightly.

The Yankee Hill Model 15’s short ten-inch barrel combined with powerful 6.8-caliber rounds, was loud even outside the facility. It had to be deafening for the man inside.

Almost as if he’d read Lyons’s thoughts, Blancanales suddenly stopped and turned around. On the screen, Lyons saw him flip the short-barreled carbine’s selector to the safe position. Then, the YHM held barrel down, the Able Team member retraced his steps and exited the building without completing the course.

As soon as Blancanales emerged, he shook his head in what looked like an attempt to clear the ringing in his ears, then walked swiftly toward the pickup where Lyons and Kissinger stood. Handing the YHM-15 to Kissinger, he said, “It shoots great. But if I’d finished the course I’d have been as deaf as my ninety-year-old grandfather.” He shook his head again. “Give me the standard M-16 A2 anytime.”

Kissinger smiled, and Lyons sensed that the armorer had anticipated just such a reaction. Turning, he set the YMH in the bed of the pickup. When his hands came back in sight, he held a similar-looking rifle. But this weapon bore a long tubular device on the end of the barrel and there was a small scope mounted in the top of the receiver.

“Try this one, Pol,” Kissinger said, extending the rifle in front of him. “I think you’ll find it a little gentler on the eardrums.”

Blancanales took the weapon and looked down at it. “Sound suppression,” he noted.

“Right,” Kissinger agreed. “And while you won’t be able to appreciate it fully here in the daylight, it cuts down considerably on the muzzle flash from the short barrel.”

Blancanales nodded. “I’ll go back and give it one shot,” he said. “But if it isn’t quiet enough...” His voice trailed off for a moment. “I’m not sacrificing my hearing for it.”

“I think you’ll be happy with it,” said Kissinger. “Yankee Hill’s making some with permanent suppressors. But I’ve altered several so you can take them off if you want to create noise and confusion.”

Blancanales lifted the rifle slightly in his hands. “Not much heavier than the unsuppressed model,” he said. “The suppressor titanium?”

Kissinger nodded. He cradled the laptop in his left arm long enough to hold his other fist to his mouth and cough. “Adds about eight inches to the barrel length. You put that on the end of the standard M-16 and you’ve got 22 to 24 inches beyond the receiver. That’s bumped the weapon up to sniper length—without sniper rifle accuracy.”

Hermann “Gadgets” Schwarz, Able Team’s electronics expert, joined the group and studied the look on Blancanales’s face.

Blancanales wasn’t convinced. “It doesn’t look like a problem on this 10-inch barrel,” he said. “It’ll still be relatively easy to maneuver inside tight spaces. But a 10-inch tube means a sacrifice in sight radius.”

“That’s what the optics are for,” Kissinger said, pointing to the scope.