Sky Hammer

CHAPTER ONE

An unmarked black helicopter moved across the Virginia sky. The single passenger onboard was a well-dressed woman with a top fashion model’s flawless beauty.

Gazing out the small window, Barbara Price, mission controller of Stony Man Farm, could see nothing out of order on the grounds of the nation’s premier ultrasecret antiterrorist installation. Yet something was going on that was serious enough to drag her back here from a three-day conference that she had been looking forward to for six months.

“Here we are, Ms. Price,” the pilot announced over a shoulder as the helicopter landed on a wide patch of grass. “Right on time.”

“Thanks.”

Releasing the latch, Price slid back the side door and noted with satisfaction the assortment of men in work clothes lounging near the buildings. All of them had a hand out of sight, presumably resting on the butt of a loaded gun. She was expected, but they were trained to prepare for the unexpected. As Price stepped to the ground, the men all smiled and relaxed their stances, returning to their cover work of painting and weeding.

When Price was a few yards away from the aircraft, the rush of air from above it increased dramatically and the helicopter lifted off again to head back to D.C. She decided to walk to the farmhouse. It was a beautiful day.

“Sorry to ruin your conference,” Aaron Kurtzman said as she reached the porch.

“So what’s the problem?” Price asked.

“There’s trouble in Paris,” Kurtzman replied.

Knowing he wouldn’t divulge details within open air, Price hurried through the security process and made her way with him to the War Room, rather than heading to her office in the Annex.

“Talk,” she directed him as she slipped into a chair. “What happened in Paris?”

Closing the door, Kurtzman took a seat and passed her a report on the café killings. “More importantly,” he said gruffly, “do you know of any secret project or black ops named Abacus?”

Price took the page and read its contents. Her expression darkened with every passing second.

“Akira intercepted this message while on its way to Langley,” Kurtzman said, referring to superhacker Akira Tokaido. “It wasn’t earmarked for a ‘please copy’ to the NSA.”

“So they’re not sharing data, in spite of a presidential order to that effect,” Price murmured.

“Exactly.”

“Anybody crazy enough to hit both the CIA and the NSA is a major threat,” she said bluntly, placing the paper aside. “But it’s this cryptic reference to Abacus that bothers me the most.”

“That’s why I called you back a day early,” Kurtzman stated. “I really need your input. Do you know of anything with that code name? A satellite maybe, or a computer complex?” He paused. “Of course I know an abacus is an ancient Chinese device for making fast and accurate mathematical additions and subtractions. It’s just a wooden frame with beads that move along taut wires. Sort of like a primitive slapstick. Yet the damn thing is so efficient and easy to use that three thousand years later Chinese shopkeepers around the world are still using it instead of mechanical cash registers.”

“Something to do with money, then. Or perhaps the Chinese.”

“Seems likely, given the name.”

Placing an elbow on the desk, Price rested her jaw in her palm. “Well, there’s nothing that I know about. Hal might have a better idea.”

“I don’t think we need the big boss for this. If there was known and confirmed trouble coming, sure. But not for a fishing expedition.”

Price lifted the paper again. “Hmm, it says here the NSA agent was badly wounded at the time, dying in fact.”

“Yes, he was. And…?” Kurtzman prompted, not sure where the woman was going with this. A dying report from a field agent was nothing new in their line of work. Terrible and tragic, yes, the death of a good man always was, but sadly, nothing new. Although it did make responding to his information a top priority. Officially they weren’t in the revenge business.

“He might have been mumbling his words,” she said, thoughtfully. “Ab-ba-cus.” Price tried it again, slurring the word, testing the syllables. Then she went pale.

Spinning in the chair, she checked a calendar. “Son of a bitch, that’s today. Hell, it’s going on right now!”

“What is? What’s happening?” Kurtzman demanded.

Snatching the phone off the receiver, Price tapped in a string of numbers. It was answered before the third ring.

“Hello, Hal?” The mission controller spoke into the receiver. “You better warn the President. I think all hell is about to break loose in the Middle East!”

Abu Dis, Israel/Palestine Border

THE CLOUDS WERE THICK over the West Bank and everybody was thankful for the brief respite from the endless blazing heat of summer in the Middle East. Major Kushner approved. The rains weren’t due for another month and the cooling shade added a festive touch to the milling throng filling the divided city.

Adjusting the compact, green, TAV assault rifle slung at her side, Major Adina Kushner of the Israeli Defense Forces inspected the decorative brick topping of the concrete barrier separating the city of Abu Dis. A single brick was missing from the array,

Walking along the edge of the scaffolding, the major breathed deeply, the smell of oranges from the nearby orchards almost overwhelming the traditional reek of gasoline fumes and camel dung.

On both sides of the concrete barrier, Abu Dis was filled with people, all of them singing, talking, praying, cursing, milling around and taking endless pictures. In spite of the concertina wire frothy on the ground, the Palestinian side of the wall was covered with graffiti and the Israeli side dotted with posters. The major sighed. Civilians! What could you do?

Situated on top of nearby buildings, television crews from around the world were already in place, their cameras sweeping the crowds on both sides of the concrete wall, doing background shots to be included into the news reports later. It seemed as if the entire world wanted to see the dedication ceremony of the wall. The famous wall. The hated wall. The “failing wall,” as one BBC anchor had cleverly dubbed the barrier, the wordplay based upon the famous Wailing Wall of Jerusalem.

Started by another president of Israel right after the 9/11 al Qaeda attack on New York City in America, the wall was a desperate attempt to keep out the terrorist bombers that had plagued the West Bank, physically separating the nation of Israel from the Palestine territory. Although more and more people were simply calling it Palestine. These days, the hardcore Zion fundamentalists were grudgingly admitting that everybody deserved their own homeland.

Eight yards high, ten yards deep in places and 720 miles long, the imposing barrier had been built along the exact 1967 borders agreed upon by Israel and Palestine at the time. Of course, once Israel started building the wall, the Palestinians decried the construction in spite of the earlier accord. They took the matter to the World Court, which decided the construction should stop until the delicate political matter of whether the Palestinians should be forced to keep the treaties they signed was decided. Israel ignored the court order and continued building, although, they did change the borders ever so slightly so that the wall was a bit more on their property. The concession brought fury from the horde of Jewish settlers now trapped on the other side of the wall and from the few Palestinians still inside the barrier.

As a flight of Israel F-16-I jet fighters streaked by overhead, Major Kushner checked her wrist for the time, then looked at the position of the sun for confirmation. Only a few minutes to go. The wall had been finished for weeks, but this day was the ceremony of its completion. The last brick was to be officially laid today amid great fanfare, international press coverage and massive security. Why Abu Dis had been chosen for the ceremony, the major had no idea. Maybe because it was almost in the exact middle. Maybe not. Politics wasn’t her forte.

Dressed in short pants and bulletproof vests, heavily armed Israeli soldiers moved through the crowd, smiling and polite, their sharp eyes checking everybody and everything.

A small child was delayed as the soldiers checked his shopping bag, but it proved to contain only foodstuffs and assorted sundries. A stumbling drunk was quietly escorted to a private room where the soldiers ascertained that the man really was intoxicated and that his bottle held whiskey, not nitroglycerin or some other form of dangerous liquid. A known terrorist was found photographing the scaffolding near the wall, and hit with a tranquilizer dart from a disguised camera held by a Mossad agent dressed as a taxicab driver. The unconscious man was caught by two pretty Mossad agents, who scolded their friend for being drunk in public, and the criminal was hauled away to a private interrogation room.

An elderly pickpocket tried working the crowd and, despite the massive security, actually got a couple of wallets from tourists before being apprehended. He willingly turned over the wallets, which were then surreptitiously returned to the owners, and the thief was thrown into a concrete cell for later trial.

Always in pairs, F-16-I jet fighters moved across the sky, while Yas’ur-class helicopter gunships hovered above the crowds, staying carefully out of range of the news cameras. Several of the huge helicopters were equipped for surveillance, while a few were armed to the teeth, their wings bristling with armament.

At strategic locations were brand-new Merkava-4 battle tanks; old Sho’t army tanks stood guard at street corners. A dozen Zelda-class APCs full of troops patrolled both sides of the border. Radar swept the sky and chemical sniffers checked every bag for contraband. Video cameras swept through the crowd, relaying the scene to a massive bank of police computers in Tel Aviv where sophisticated software cross-referenced every face to a list of known terrorists. When one was spotted, he or she was deftly removed from the crowd for questioning. One man tried to escape and make a break for the hole in the wall, but was tackled by the soldiers guarding the entrance. Another pulled a grenade and was torn to pieces by concentrated gunfire from the silenced pistols of security forces.

Walking along the wall, Major Kushner reviewed everything. Flag poles adorned with the blue-and-white Israel flag flanked the platform on the north side of the wall, a precisely equal amount carrying the Palestinian flag on the south. There was a podium with a speech prompter in place, and near the gap on top of the wall was a single brick lying on a white pillow like some ancient virgin sacrifice. Nearby was a battered bucket full of wet cement and a shiny golden trowel. All of which had been checked for bombs, poisons and anything else that could mar the ceremony or kill the PM.

At the base of the scaffolding was a full company of soldiers; six more in formal dress uniforms stood guard on the top of the platform. Only Kushner had no assigned post. She was the roving soldier ordered to walk everywhere, looking for trouble. But so far, so good. The military officer nodded in satisfaction. The area seemed secure. The Israeli Defense Force had done this sort of thing before, and there was nobody better. Everything that could be accomplished to secure the area had been already done in triplicate. This was an important occasion, and nobody was taking a chance of it turning into an international incident for some terrorist group out to grab some fast headlines.

Suddenly the radio receiver in her ear crackled with an announcement and a few seconds later, a civilian band, all in matching uniforms, swelled into the national anthem of the State of Israel. Just then, a motorcade of six armored limousines stopped in front of the scaffolding and the prime minister got out waving to the crowd, which roared in approval. Only a few people jeered the man’s arrival, but their cries were lost in the overwhelming positive response. Cameras flashed continuously. Proceeding to the carpeted steps to the top of the platform, the PM moved to the podium and made the grand gesture of turning off the speech prompters. The people cheered in approval.

“On this historic day,” the prime minister said softly into the microphone, the speakers amplifying his words until they boomed with biblical force across the entire city, “we lay the final brick in this modern day wall of Jericho. But unlike that ancient structure, this wall will be a symbol of peace and…”

The politician stopped as Major Kushner touched her earphone and frowned. On the ground, dozens of soldiers were charging around, the Zelda APCs began to disgorge armed soldiers as police vans started rolling toward the scaffolding, armed troops guiding civilians out of its way.

Removing a handkerchief from his pocket, the prime minister mopped his face and whispered to the officer, “Is there trouble?”