Power Grab

“What was it you went looking for?” McCarter asked as Ahmadi brought the little microbus back under control at last. The Iranian did not answer until he took several more turns, then looked back to make sure they were not being pursued.

“That,” he said at last, “was much closer than I might have liked.”

“Well?” McCarter asked again.

“My apologies,” Ahmadi said. He reached into his jacket and removed a device. It was a pair of wires connected to a small metal box. He handed it to McCarter, and the Briton put the box against the metal of the door frame on his side, watching it stick there.

“Magnetized.”

“It is a bug,” Ahmadi said. “We have had good success with that particular model. It is preferred to fit it somewhere there is electrical wiring, such as in light fixtures.”

“A bug?” McCarter asked.

“Yes,” Ahmadi confirmed. “There were far too few men at the safehouse. And we found weapons, but not nearly enough. Ovan’s terrorist network is much more advanced, much better equipped than this.”

“Offhand,” James said, “I think I’m glad there weren’t more of them in that particular room.”

“This I understand,” Ahmadi said. “But I do not think you realize what this means.”

“The room was bugged,” McCarter said. “Understood. But there’s nothing they can use against us. How does this line up with there being too few men present?”

“No.” Ahmadi shook his head, spinning the wheel as he took one hard turn, then another. “Iranian Internal Security, even Ovan’s terrorist network, they do not use this equipment. This is my equipment.”

“The bug is—” McCarter began.

“That is standard-issue CIA surveillance equipment,” Ahmadi said. “I have used its like many times. I have never seen this particular unit, nor am I aware of any success in attempting to bug this structure. It has always been too well-guarded for us to risk it. At least, that was my understanding.”

“So you didn’t put this here and you don’t know of anyone else who did,” McCarter said.

“Correct.” Ahmadi nodded.

“And you think our boys were tipped off to expect trouble and effected at least a partial evacuation of the premises?”

“Unless they have moved up their timetable, it is the only explanation. They may be deployed at the rallies, which means we will meet greater difficulty in attempting to safeguard Magham’s people and supporters from the terrorists. Or it may be another problem entirely. There may be a mole within the CIA.”

“Bloody hell,” McCarter said.

CHAPTER FOUR

Syracuse, New York

The local minor-league baseball team was featuring a promotional night when door prizes were offered to fans. Carl Lyons couldn’t tell what the door prize was as they neared, but he didn’t suppose that it mattered.

Grimaldi and the Chinook waited in the middle of a vacant parking lot for a nearby weekend market. Fortunately they had not yet drawn a crowd, but that was inevitable. Mindful of the huge crowd inside the stadium, however, the men of Able Team had opted to leave their long-arms in the chopper. Lyons was already going through shotgun withdrawal as they took the steps leading to the stadium two at a time. Schwarz was trying to be discreet with his scanner, but Lyons couldn’t see any point in trying to hide too much. There was no way they could pass off as normal what was essentially a raid on a civilian location.

“Lead on,” Lyons urged as Schwarz once more took the lead.

Lyons felt exposed and worried that Schwarz was especially vulnerable. He liked that phone in the hands of the dead terrorist even less. The Warlock network had indicated that signals were coming from this location, and Able Team had opted to investigate the stadium first because it offered huge target potential. If the terrorists had come and gone, leaving their bombs behind, it was just possible that the smart bombs hadn’t yet detonated and could be neutralized without a gun battle. Much as he hated the thought of the terrorists planting their bombs and escaping undetected, Lyons had to admit that it would be preferable not to start spraying bullets in the company of…how many people? The stadium looked like it easily held a few thousand as he ran his eyes over the vacant and occupied seats.

They’d flashed their Justice Department ID coming through the gates, and now security personnel in black polo shirts were wandering around nearby, obviously wondering what was going on. Lyons figured his team could afford to ignore them for now. As long as they didn’t get in the way and as long as nothing went boom, it hardly mattered if a few of the locals gave Able Team the stink eye as they passed.

As they moved from the upper decks to the lower, and then to some access areas that were on the basement level of the stadium, Lyons fought an uneasy feeling of being watched. He hoped it was just his imagination. But if he was that dying terrorist and he’d had a chance to make one last phone call before he died, wouldn’t he have tried to warn the others in his network? It only made sense. And if they had been warned, and they were on-site, there was no telling what they might have planned.

Screw it. Lyons was disgusted with himself even for spending so much time dwelling on it. No matter how dangerous the job, of course, he and Blancanales and Schwarz would do it. The idea of worrying about their own hides when American lives were at stake never even entered into the equation. It was just that he, as team leader, had to worry from time to time. He had to worry about what would happen if they failed in their mission. That was the one thing Stony Man Farm could never do: fail. They had lost battles before and the ugly reality was that they would lose them again. But they could not afford to lose the war. The war was why Lyons had given up any hope of a normal life to dedicate himself to Able Team and to the Farm. He knew his teammates shared his drive and had made the same sacrifices.

They had lost many good men and women getting to this point. And it was all worth it. They fought because they had to. They fought because their country needed them. They fought because predators, monsters, killers like Ovan’s terrorists, sought to murder innocent men, women and children, and there had to be warriors like the men and women of Stony Man Farm to stand between those killers and the rest of the world.

“This door is locked,” Schwarz said. He was facing a fire door. The corridor of the access level was getting smaller. Lyons couldn’t tell where it went, but it was probably used for maintenance purposes. “This padlock looks brand-new.” The chain on the doors was indeed bright and polished, while the rest of the metal on that level looked scuffed and slightly rusted.

“I have a key,” Lyons said. He planted his combat-booted foot against the door, hard. Then he kicked it again. Then he did it again.

“You’re not going to break the padlock like that, Carl,” Schwarz said dryly.

“Don’t care about the padlock,” Lyons grunted. He heard the shriek of metal on metal as something started go give. “Care about the hinges.”

The hinges gave. The door, which had never been designed to sustain such an onslaught, fell aside at an angle, hanging on twisted flanges. Lyons shoved it aside and then waved down the corridor.

“Why, thank you, sir,” Schwarz said with an exaggerated flourish.

“Shut up and find me a bomb,” Lyons growled.

At the end of the corridor, they found a cluster of machinery whose purpose Lyons couldn’t guess.

“Sprinkler system,” Schwarz said.

“Thought they used AstroTurf in all these stadiums,” Lyons argued.

“Don’t you ever use the web browser on your phone?” Schwarz teased, referring to the secure satellite phones they all carried. “Read up on your local history, Carl. This stadium has had real turf for a few years now.”

“And I’m very happy for them.” Lyons’s growl turned deeper. “Find me a frigging bomb.”

The bomb casings looked like the ones they had found in Ithaca, New York, and they were chained together through the suitcaselike handles in a cluster at the rear of the machinery.

“Pol, the door,” Lyons directed. “Cover our backs. I’ll keep an eye on Gadgets.”

“And I get bomb duty,” Schwarz said. He pressed the scanner he had used to track the bombs to each of the devices, running the scanner across each bomb in a constantly moving pattern.

“Can’t you do one after the other?” Lyons asked.

“I’d rather get them all moving toward neutralization at once,” Schwarz said. “It helps disrupt the processors so that if the bombs are, well, thinking of going off, they won’t.”

“Great,” Lyons said.

“These are fully activated,” Schwarz explained, “and they’ve almost completed their calibration cycles. We were lucky. These could have gone off down here and spread a toxic cloud through most of the stadium.” Not far above them, they could hear the roar of the crowd as the home team did something worth cheering. The music playing over the PA reverberated through the ceiling. Lyons could feel it in his chest.

“We’ve got company!” Blancanales shouted from the doorway.

“What?” Lyons asked.