Drawpoint

“Now—” he deliberately blew smoke into Gopalan’s face as he turned to the man, “—get with it. He nodded to the other members of Phoenix Force. “Gear up.” Encizo threw open the rear door of the Range Rover and began tossing gear bags to James and Encizo.

“I was told to watch for any searching for the uranium,” Gopalan admitted. His words came out in a rush. “I monitored conversations with the deputy commissioner. I listened in when our government gave him his instructions to cooperate with the American advisers who were coming.” He gave the Briton a meaningful look. Obviously he was smart enough to grasp that Phoenix Force was something other than what the Indian government had been told to expect.

“How did you know we would come here?”

“We didn’t,” Gopalan said. “But it was a likely spot. I was given a list of locations the authorities or the military might choose to investigate. I was to give warning as soon as I knew the destination, so that we could prepare.”

“Who is ‘we’?” McCarter asked. When Gopalan did not immediately answer, the Briton nodded to Manning, who pressed the Desert Eagle more tightly under Gopalan’s chin.

“The Proletarian Party of East Bengal,” Gopalan said.

“The bloody Purba Banglars.” McCarter snarled. “What’s their involvement?”

“We have the uranium,” Gopalan said. “More I cannot tell you. I do not know where it is. I do not know what is to be done with it.”

“How’d you know to hit the plant in the first place?” Calvin James said, walking up next to McCarter with his Tavor assault rifle in hand.

“I do not know,” Gopalan shook his head, mindful of the Desert Eagle pressing against his throat.

“And the deputy commissioner?” McCarter demanded. “He in on this?”

“We have his family,” Gopalan said.

“Bloody hell,” McCarter whispered. “All right, then. He—” the Briton nodded to Gopalan “—has talked, and I want to see what shakes loose. We take the cement plant.”

“What about him?” Manning nodded to the Indian.

“Oh, him,” McCarter said. “Calvin, let me see your rifle a moment.” He took the Tavor, unloaded it, and ejected the chambered round, handing both round and magazine to James. “One second, mate.” Then he walked around behind Gopalan. “Let go, Gary.” When Manning did so, McCarter buttstroked Gopalan in the back of the head with the Tavor. The Indian fell, unconscious.

“A bit light,” McCarter said, handing the rifle back to James. “But at least it did the trick.” James winked coolly and reloaded the weapon.

“Now what?” Encizo asked evenly.

“That hill,” McCarter nodded to a facing hill that overlooked the road leading to the cement plant. “A decent vantage. Gary, take the M-24 and get up there. Rafe and Calvin, you take the flanks. Skirt the plant and come at it from the rear quarters. T.J., you’re with me.”

“Y’all aren’t going to do what I think you’re going to do, are you?”

“Bloody well right,” McCarter grinned, smoking his cigarette down to the filter and letting it fall to the dirt road. He ground it under the heel of his combat boot, picked it up and pocketed it. “We’re going in the front.”

The Phoenix Force leader helped Manning drag Gopalan into the Range Rover, where Manning secured his wrists and ankles with plastic riot cuffs. The burly Canadian took the M-24 and sprinted away. Meanwhile, McCarter saw to his own gear bag and prepared his rifle. It felt good to have the political games out of the way, however temporarily. Now it was time to see to business.

At a nod from McCarter, James and Encizo made their way left and right, moving quietly but quickly. Hawkins watched them go and then nodded up the dirt road, where the main cluster of buildings waited in the distance. “We walkin’?” he asked.

“We’re walking,” McCarter nodded. “Can you keep up?”

“I reckon I’ll manage, hoss.” Hawkins exaggerated his Southern drawl.

“Commo check,” McCarter said, testing the earbud link.

“In position,” Manning said. He wasn’t even breathing heavily despite his fast climb.

“Moving,” James reported.

“Also moving,” Encizo called in.

“As are we, gents,” McCarter said. He jerked his chin in the direction of the plant. He and Hawkins readied their rifles and started to march, keeping well apart from each other, using the road to maintain the distance between them.

“We’re going to get shot at,” Hawkins said.

“I’m counting on it,” McCarter grinned. “Gary, be ready.”

“On it,” Manning called back.

The two Phoenix Force commandos, slightly crouched, moved from one piece of equipment to the next, closing in on the large main building that was the central point in the cement plant. McCarter was playing a dangerous game, he knew, but tripping a deadfall was never easy. They would have to strike a delicate balance, staying out of the enemy’s direct lines of fire while nonetheless making themselves tempting targets. He paused near some kind of grinder, the mammoth machine showing spots of rust under peeling paint as it hulked in the humid climate.

The Briton caught movement in the corner of his eye and knew that the moment had come. The muzzle-flash, when it appeared in a window on the second story of the main building, was brief but plainly visible. Dirt churned near Hawkins’s feet as a trio of bullets dug into the ground. The answering thunder from Manning’s M-24 came half a beat later. One down.

McCarter and Hawkins ran for it, opening up with their Tavors. The chatter of the lightweight Israeli guns was met by the characteristic hollow racket of Kalashnikovs. The Phoenix Force leader, even as he moved, noted the positions of the enemy fire—and smiled with grim satisfaction. Almost lost in the chaotic din was the slow, deadly drumbeat of Manning and his sniper-tuned Remington 700, but wherever his answering call went, the muzzle-flashes marking the enemy suddenly ceased. By the time McCarter and Hawkins made the entrance of the big building, the Briton was confident most of the shooters were down.

Hawkins took the left and McCarter the right as they cleared the doorway. A pair of dark-skinned men wearing mismatched jungle camouflage and black bandanna face masks opened fire on them. The Tavors barked and the first man, then the next fell. Two more Kalashnikovs fell silent.

“Take the ground floor, T.J.,” McCarter directed, confident his earbud would carry the words to Hawkins. “I’ll take the high road.” The structure was basically a corrugated metal warehouse boasting a single large, open factory floor. Heavy equipment, for grinding and mixing, was clustered in the middle at ground level. A metal catwalk ran the perimeter of the building’s interior, and it was from there that the gunmen had been firing. McCarter scaled the nearest ladder and hoisted himself up onto the rickety, rusting framework, scanning for targets among the fallen bodies of the shooters.

“Anything, T.J.?” McCarter asked.

“No one left on this level at the front,” Hawkins reported.

“No one at the rear,” James said, unseen somewhere on the other side of the building. “We took out one gunner. All’s quiet.”

“All right,” McCarter said. “Search the bodies. See if you can find anything useful. I’ll make the rounds up here and then join you on the ground. Gary?”

“On my way back to the truck to check Gopalan,” the big Canadian’s voice came back.

“Good,” McCarter said. “Not such a bad plan, now, was it?”

Manning grumbled something over the link. McCarter resisted the urge to laugh.

He checked each man in turn. The shooters carried guns and some ammunition, but nothing else—no identification, no clues, and no other personal effects. McCarter took a picture of each corpse with the camera built into his secure wireless phone. The other Phoenix Force members would be doing the same, he knew. The pictures would be sent to the Farm to see if an identification, and hence any records, could be pulled from across the vast computer networks to which Stony Man had access.

He was toeing over the last of the bodies when the man lying on the rusty catwalk opened his eyes.

The man screamed something and surged to his feet, a Kalashnikov bayonet flashing in his hand. McCarter leaned back in time to avoid the small bowie-shaped blade slashing at his gut, but the man lunged after him, and McCarter stumbled. The Tavor fell from his hands as the man tackled him. They rolled, coming up again, and the man charged with the blade before McCarter could take the initiative. The Briton had just enough to time to slap his hands down, knocking the knife aside, as he stepped in to slam the palm of his off hand up and under the man’s chin.

The blow rocked the knifer onto his back. He rolled and came up again, shaking his head, his whole body trembling. McCarter saw the look of a true believer in his eyes, an expression he’d seen on many a fanatic and terrorist. The man came in again, close behind his knife, seeking McCarter’s flesh with the needle-sharp clip point.

The Browning Hi-Power filled the Briton’s hand.

“Drop the blade,” McCarter ordered.