The Chameleon Factor

Turning to face the prison, the guards tested their equipment once more to make sure everything was in proper working condition, then marched back into the sterilized confines of Cassatt Federal Penitentiary. High on the walls overhead, the unseen guards watched their every move purely out of habit. The rifle marksmen watched everything and trusted nobody. That was the job, and they were damn good at it.

OVER TWO MILES away, far outside the circle of light around the supermax facility, three men with Starlite scopes stood alongside a battered gray SUV, the license plates obscured with mud permanently glued into place.

In unison, Able Team tracked the progress of the USP transport along Highway 37 as it headed due south away from the supermax facility. The man in front was blond, with a crew cut and ice-blue eyes. The next was stocky with wavy salt-and-pepper hair, and the third had dark brown hair and a full mustache. Swaying slightly in the evening breeze so that they wouldn’t stand out from the rustling forest, all three of the men were wearing camouflage-colored jumpsuits designed for urban warfare.

“Stony One to Stone Two,” Carl “Ironman” Lyons said into his throat mike, Starlite still pressed to his face. “We are in position. Copy?”

“Roger that, Stony One,” a gruff voice replied in the earphone. “We rendezvous at Point Charlie in one hour. Over.”

“Ten-four,” Lyons replied. “See you there. Over and out.”

“Don’t be late,” Rosario “The Politician” Blancanales said in the background.

Climbing into the SUV, Hermann “Gadgets” Schwarz grimly added, “If they are, then we’re dead, chum.”

AFTER AN HOUR of driving, the countryside of South Carolina began to change from gray grassland into a plush forest of tall trees and countless small brooks. Shackled to their metal seats, the four members of the Black Vipers sneered at the beauty of nature as if they preferred the concrete corridors of the federal jail.

Glancing about to see if anybody was watching, the largest and most heavily muscled of the Vipers jerked hard on the chain holding his wrists to the bolt in the floor, and instantly a gas vent hidden in the ceiling sprayed him with Mace. The terrorist flopped in his seat fighting for breath, his eyes and tongue almost popping from his flushed face.

“That’s warning number one,” the colonel said from the front of the bus, a wall of thick bars separating the two sections of the vehicle. “Warning number two is a lot worse. So behave, convict, or else.”

“I am a political prisoner of the American government,” the tallest member of the four said. “Once more I beg for asylum from the overlords of Washington.”

“Oh, shut up,” a younger guard said, jacking the slide of the sleek black Neostead shotgun.

Designed by the new democratic government of South Africa, the high-tech alleysweeper had two tubular magazines and could be switched from one to the other by the flick of a selector switch. For this journey, the guard had the first magazine filled with stun bags, the other mag filled with fléchette rounds that could reduce a man into hamburger in under a heartbeat.

The terrorist opened his mouth to speak again, then decided against it and leaned back in his hard chair, his thoughts seething with revenge.

“What the hell?” the guard riding alongside the driver said with a puzzled expression. Frantically, he began to work the controls of the built-in radio switching frequencies.

“Something’s wrong,” he said swiftly over a shoulder. “We’ve lost contact with USP HQ, and every channel is filled with hash.”

“Jamming?” the colonel demanded, releasing the flap over his side arm. The ivory handle of a Colt .45 pistol was revealed, a line of deep gouges in the grip appearing to be hand-carved notches.

The guard in the front passenger seat looked up with a pale face. “Confirmed, I can’t get a bounce signal off a repeater tower. The airwaves are being jammed,” he replied succinctly. “But whether or not it’s for us, or some natural phenomenon, I have no idea.”

The guards were silent as the armored bus jounced slightly onto a picturesque stone bridge.

“Sir, if this is an escape attempt…” the younger guard started to say, flicking the switch to the second magazine of fléchette rounds.

“Don’t kill them yet, Corporal,” the colonel said, pulling the Colt and jacking the slide.

Going to the front windshield, he looked out into the starry night. “Maybe this is just another weird solar storm like last year that knocked out all of the satellites for a day. Could be anything, or nothing. I’m not going to ace these men just because we’re not sure.”

In tense silence, the armored bus rolled off the bridge and onto the paved roadway once more. A split second later the night was split apart by a violent thunderclap. Fiery light blossomed from behind the transport, and rocks began pounding the bus in a deafening rain of debris.

“Son of a bitch!” the driver cried as the flaming shrapnel washed over the armored transport, breaking out the rear windows. “The bridge is gone! Completely gone!”

“That bomb missed us by a heartbeat,” the colonel growled. “Get us the hell out of here, man!”

The driver slammed onto the gas, and the big Detroit engine roared with power for only a single moment. Then the vehicle crashed hard, to a halt the front windows exploding out of the frame. Every loose item went flying, the prisoners were thrown forward in their seats, setting off more Mace, and the guards tumbled to the floor in a loose pile of bodies.

It took a few minutes for the pinned driver to regain his composure and pull a knife from his belt to stab the airbag pinning him tightly into place. As the metallic cushion deflated, the USP guard gasped at the sight of a smashed pile of fallen trees blocking the forest road, the trunks painted black to render the barricade invisible. Damn! The bridge had to have been blown just to make them go faster and slam hard enough into the barrier and cripple the bus. That was a trap!

There was nothing moving in the darkness outside the broken windows, but the driver knew trouble was coming, and soon. Frantically, he tried to get the engine to turn over and only got a clicking sound. The battery wires had to have ripped loose in the crash. Shit! Pulling an M-16 assault rifle from a boot alongside his seat, the driver pulled the arming bolt and started over the jumbled forms of the groaning guards sprawled on the floor to shoot the prisoners when he suddenly felt very warm and relaxed.

As his thoughts became muddy, it became difficult to stand and he slumped to the floor, losing his weapon. Fighting to stay conscious, the driver vaguely understood this was a gas attack. Summoning his last vestige of strength, the USP guard tried to slap the emergency alarm button on the dashboard that would send off a flare and radio signal, plus detonate a series of explosive bolts to lock down the entire transport, rendering it impossible for anybody to enter without using a cutting torch. The Black Vipers couldn’t be set free! The feeling had left most of his body and the man could only mentally order his arm to hit the switch. But the warm embrace of the gas filled his universe and everything went pleasantly dark.

SLUGGISHLY, THE FOUR members of the Black Vipers came awake in a field of damp grass, the moonlight overhead bathing them in silvery light.

“By God!” one of the terrorists exclaimed, lifting both hands to stare in wonder at his bare wrists. The handcuffs were gone.

“We are free,” the giant rumbled, holding his head. “How is this possible?”

The skinny leader rose and raised his arms high, savoring the sensation of unfettered movement.

“I do not care, my brothers,” he said in Arabic, just in case there were listeners in the woods. Years of confinement with guards always monitoring had made the men paranoid, even worse than when they first went into prison. “Let us take this gift and leave.”

“But which way?” the third man said in a nasal whine, his strength returning with every breath.

He turned about in every direction, and there was nothing in sight but trees. Maybe they had been thrown from the crash into the Cassatt Forest Preserve? But if so, what had happened to their shackles and cuffs? The terrorist sensed danger of some kind but couldn’t readily identify what it was. His first impulse was to stay exactly where he stood and let the police capture him again. Then his anger flared at the very idea that the Americans had beaten fear into his soul and sapped the strength from his will.

Just then, a fiery explosion rose in the distance, illuminating the nighttime.

“This way.” The leader pointed and took off in the opposite direction at a stumbling run.

The grassy field was empty and smooth, but it took the men a few moments to get past the wall of their cell. Eight feet was as far as any of them had walked without chains for years since their incarceration. That ninth step felt like bursting out of a bubble of glue. Suddenly, the killers were laughing as they ran, putting on speed and tearing off the hated prison jumpsuits. Naked, they raced through the night. Somewhere they would find new clothing to wear. A laundry line, a closed store or from the bodies of murdered strangers.

“The Americans must not capture us again, my brothers,” the leader panted, leaping over a shallow ravine. “They will slay us on sight and claim we fought back.”

In silent agreement, the others dashed into the forest dodging trees and running for their very lives. None of them spoke or stopped for miles before reaching a small creek. The smell of the fresh, clean water was overpowering, and the parched men dropped to their bellies to lap at the creek like thirsty animals.

“The Yankees shall pay for our years of imprisonment,” the thin man growled, rising to his knees after a while. “No, their families shall pay. I have been designing new bombs in my mind. Ones perfect for children. There shall be a slaughter like America has never seen.”

“Revenge shall be ours!” the third cried, wiping the water from his mouth with a hairy forearm. “By the blood of the prophet, this I do swear. America will pay for its crimes against us in the red blood of its children!”

“Not this time, freak,” a voice of stone said from the darkness.

The Black Vipers leaped to their feet as three armed men stepped out of the nearby shadows. Incredibly, the newcomers weren’t prison guards or police officers, but soldiers, their camouflaged jumpsuits covered with weapons.

“What is this, some sort of trick?” the leader demanded, lifting a rock from the mud of the creek. “By the blood of God!”

“God. You do everything for God, right? You ever actually read the Koran, asshole?” Lyons demanded, leveling an Atchisson assault shotgun. “It’s a book of peace, not war.”

The big prisoner snarled, lifting a piece of fallen fence post from the creek. The wood was old, a poor weapon, but better than nothing.

“Want a weapon? Try these instead,” Schwarz said, tossing a canvas sack onto the ground. The bag landed with a heavy metallic rattle.