Doomsday Conquest

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“Any ideas on who’s looking to help pile up the body count with SPLAT?”

Kurtzman sipped from his mug, frowning. “There was some talk, the French were mentioned, but we think it’s a smoke screen to deflect blame. Since France was dumped in the crapper on oil contracts in Iraq, however, they have been schmoozing the Iranians. I’m not one to jump on the PC bandwagon, so I don’t mind saying they’re a sneaky, backstabbing lot, with a whole lot to hide in some shady dealings with Saddam, but I don’t think they have the balls to start dumping off ordnance that could be used against Coalition Forces in Iraq, though they most likely have this technology. That aside, there are no markings, serial numbers and such that we know of on the ordnance, which leaves suspicion enough to go around it could be Germans, North Koreans or Russians…”

“Or someone on our team.”

“It’s happened before, as we all sadly know. Now, as for SPLAT, it’s the next step in laser-guided artillery and its sister version for short and intermediate range missiles. Laser guidance has been tried in the past where field artillery is concerned, but there’s a few refinements on SPLAT. Thermal, or heat-seeking guidance systems have been upgraded, for one, the use of sophisticated super microchips installed in computer systems, developed, in part, from the U.S. Navy’s SidewinderAIM-9D. You can see the tracked vehicle with eight launch rails, I’m told twelve to twenty more shells, or short-range missiles, can be stored in ready-access pallets. As for the shells, they range anywhere from 85 mm to 155 mm. On the short-range or intermediate missile range…”

“I bet you’re going to tell me they can be fitted with chemical or biological warheads. Or tactical nukes.”

“Not only that, but they can, ostensibly, hit their target down to within a few meters. Gunner in turret mount, he aims the projectile using GPS. The tracking signal processor feeds into the computer optic link using Global Positioning Satellite. Point and fire.”

“And the package can be guided in by an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle.”

“Yes. All things considered, Hal,” Kurtzman said, “it’s a quantum leap in laser-guided field artillery, vastly improved for bad weather and night operations.”

“Range?”

“Unknown. But, say for the sake of argument, you go with intermediate-range missiles, using this delivery system and rocket fuel…”

“You could hit Tel Aviv.”

“With your eyes closed.”

Brognola grunted around his cigar. “And we’re thinking Namak is beefing up his Army of Armageddon with SPLAT?”

“And/or arming foreign fighters across the border in Iraq,” Kurtzman said. “And if he has UAVs at his disposal to guide the projectiles to target.”

“Which bring us to Phoenix Force,” Brognola said. “What’s its status?”

“They’re ready to move when you give the green light,” Kurtzman said.

“To link up with our Tiger Ops allies,” Brognola muttered. “And I use that word ‘ally’ with great reservation.”

“I know you tried to get the Man,” Kurtzman said, referring to the President of the United States, “to cut Phoenix loose on its own, but with the instability of the area in question near and along the Iranian border, and with no telling how many enemy combatants they may be facing, a few extra guns may not hurt.”

“The jury’s still out on that, Bear. For one thing, you can’t dig up any background on who these Tiger Ops are, which agency cuts them blank checks from whoever’s slush fund. I hate having our people working with and inside lurking shadows who may have dubious agendas. Especially since we don’t know who is funneling SPLAT and whatever other high-tech ordnance to Namak and thugs.”

“I concur, which is another reason I thought we’d run with the satellite relay station. In the event Phoenix needs backup on the ground, Barb worked it out with the CIA station chief in India to have them a Gulfstream fueled and ready to fly to the battlefront on a moment’s notice. Not only that, but with the weather predicted to be nothing but tropical paradise, clear skies for the next two weeks, any satellite imagery relayed to us from them will be in crystal clarity. With the fiber-optic camera mounts Phoenix will have on their person, our guys can monitor the battlefront for them, live and in color, cyberspace directors, if you will, on the bloody stage. Likewise we will get relayed images, but they will be time-delayed by about three seconds.”

Brognola watched as Kurtzman snapped on the vast Indian Ocean, enlarging an area southwest of the subcontinent’s tip in the Maldive Islands in red.

“Emerald Base Zero,” Kurtzman said, “confirmed they are set up and ready to begin sweeping the Iran-Iraq border with the first available satellite they can park over the AIQ. What I did was provide Commander X and his team with a software program—Ghost Dreams—which will create a ghost satellite of the one they park in space. That way, whoever’s on the ground monitoring that eye in the sky will think it’s still orbiting, will even have ‘artificial imagery’ relayed to the station.”

“And, once again, our blacksuits are running the relay station in a joint effort with Tiger Ops, who will be watching the backs of their own guys,” Brognola said, then paused, watching Price. “You know what I’m thinking? It looks like these Tiger Ops have been running around in Iraq and maybe Iran for some time now, that they have in all likelihood established contacts on both sides of the fence.”

“And you suspect some or all of them may be sleeping with the enemy?”

“If they are—and like you said, Bear, it’s happened before—Phoenix will get the thumbs-down from me to take them out, and I don’t care how highly touted they came to me from the President. I may be liaison between the Farm and the Oval Office, but I won’t play anybody’s fool when it comes to putting our people in harm’s way. Barb? I gather you’ve found something I received from my Shadow Man that’s grabbed your eye?”

“Perhaps, but I’ll need to make a phone call or two to some old contacts of mine at the NSA. Before you arrived, Bear, Akira and I were kicking around some ideas about this ‘incident’ in North Dakota. It smacks of a military test gone wrong. In this instance, terribly wrong. Our sat pics show civilian casualties, full military quarantine, denials being issued to whatever press can get close enough before they’re driven back. From the facts given to you by your source, I’m thinking there’s a strong possibility…well, your source states this Eagle Nebula is creating superweapons of the future, including, as unbelievable as it may sound, flying war vans that can be fitted with state-of-the-art hardware. Moreover, he hints that maybe a few loose cannons are selling whatever the supertechnology to our enemies.” She tapped her keyboard, framing a fighter jet on the wall monitor. “That is Lightning Bat, allegedly the prototype super fighter jet of tomorrow. With its swept-back Delta wings and arrowhead configuration, it appears just like an F-117 Stealth, only with quantum leap variants. According to your source, it has a top speed of Mach 10. To go ten times the speed of sound, your intel alludes to some type of super combustion ramjet, using air for fuel.”

“Only, Lightning Bat is powered by a nuclear reactor,” Kurtzman added.

“Which I find damn hard to believe. You have the problem of the tremendous weight of a reactor alone, for one thing, all that steel and concrete housing,” Brognola said. “You’re releasing huge sustained amounts of energy, which is basically heat, I believe, producing what is steam to keep a turbogenerator going strong. You’ve got to keep the reactor cooled by water…”

“We believe it’s done at high altitudes,” Kurtzman said, “by air pumped through vents to cool the reactor. Somehow, we don’t know how, but they’ve purportedly done it at Eagle Nebula, weight problem and all. Problem is, the single greatest fear and why no aircraft before now has been propelled by nuclear energy should be the obvious crash landing in a heavily populated area. Depending on how much uranium or plutonium is used, you would most definitely have a Chernobyl to deal with.”

“And we’re thinking Lightning Bat’s test run,” Brognola said, “was a belly flop, and that they’ve got radioactive clouds spreading over half of North Dakota?”

“No,” Price said. “We’re thinking its payload was launched by some sort of computer malfunction. Or by direct sabotage.”

“And these payloads are suspected to be?”

“Conventional cluster bombs,” Kurtzman said.

“And your man in the know,” Price added, “claims the bomb bay can hold nukes, and that a nuke test run is on the drawing board for Nevada. Cluster nukes, he calls them, one designed to go off after the other in varying outreaching circles of obliteration around the compass. The payloads are lowered on something like a crossbar, which allows for a simultaneous launch of four warheads, north, south, east and west. Whatever happened out there I think warrants investigation. And if weapons or technology is being hijacked to be sold on the international black market…”

Brognola nodded. There were a lot of blanks that needed filling in, and if there was one type of savage he detested it was a traitor wrapped in the Stars and Stripes, selling out for money or twisted ideology, it didn’t matter. Treason, he believed, deserved the ultimate rough justice.

“Okay, what’s the status on Able Team?” Brognola inquired.

Price cleared her throat. “Carl and Gadgets,” she said, referring to Carl Lyons and Hermann Schwarz, two of the three commandos of Able, “are in Chicago.”

“Let me guess. R and R,” he offered, “tearing up the town. Gentlemen’s clubs, all-night drinking binges and the possibility I may get a phone call they need bail money.”

“How well you know our prodigal sons,” Kurtzman quipped.

“Yeah, well, there may come a day they’ll rue when Daddy hangs up the phone. So, what’s the story on Rosario?” Brognola asked, meaning the third leg of the team, Rosario Blancanales, sometimes referred to as the Politician.

“I arranged to have him sent to Vegas,” Price said.

“I didn’t know he was a gambler.”

“He’s not,” Price said, and tapped her keyboard. “He is.”

Brognola looked at the wizened face on the wall monitor. The eyes were hidden by dark sunglasses, a mane of snow-white hair flowing to the shoulders of his aloha shirt.

“That,” Price said, “is Ezekiel Jacobs, the creator of Lightning Bat and its purported nuclear-powered capabilities, among other superweapons systems, as confirmed by your source’s intelligence. An Israeli national, he was educated in the States, then disappeared for a number of years after a brief stint with NASA. The NSA says he worked for the Russians during that missing time on a space program to someday see man travel deep space. Apparently a number of his theories, travel at light speed using controlled bursts of fission reactions, was a little too radical for the NASA crowd. He begged for funding to create what he called the Dynamo Matrix Program—again deep space travel at light speed—raised a stink, was fired by NASA and, it appears, sold his services to the Russians. He’s considered a genius, however, in the field of aerospace engineering and physics.”

“And he spends his free time at the slot machines?” Brognola said.

“Blackjack. He can count cards so well he’s been banned from several casinos. Now, apparently, he’s switched to dice just so he can get through the front door, or not end up in an unmarked grave in the desert.”

“So what’s Pol doing out there?”

“Helping an old friend from his Vietnam tour,” Price answered.

“Come again?”

“He was reluctant at first to go into much detail, then I pushed him when he asked about me arranging a classified flight out of your office, so he could take whatever hardware he needed, thus, as you know, bypassing the usual boarding inspections. If I overstepped my authority, Hal…”

“No need to apologize, it isn’t like I have to go to Congress for a blank check or have to explain myself to a bunch of senators. And I’m sure you had good reason, and that you’re about to drop a bomb on me about Mr. Jacobs here.”

“Pol’s buddy is a private investigator,” Price said. “For whatever reason, and I gather the reason is that there is some degree of danger involved, the friend enlisted Pol’s help.”

“Called out of the blue?”

Price shrugged. “I gather they’ve stayed in touch over the years, as a lot of vets of that war probably have. Anyway, the PI, he lives in South Dakota, near the ranch where Jacobs lived with his wife, and one day recently up and vanished. Being as he’s been known to hole up in Vegas before, she contacted this investigator who, in turn, called Pol.”

“And the danger is?”

“Russian intelligence operatives,” Price said. “Pol confirmed his PI buddy believes Jacobs is being courted by the Russians. Not only that, but Pol told me Jacobs had a classified job at a remote North Dakota installation that required he work there, four days on, four off.”

“The Eagle Nebula,” Brognola said, watching Price nod. “So, we think we’ve fallen into some snake’s nest and by accident or by way of the accident or sabotage by our own military? And we have more riddles than answers, and we’re thinking there could be homegrown traitors clear from North Dakota to Iraq?”

“Pretty much the usual,” Kurtzman said.

Brognola worked on his cigar. “Okay. Barb call Carl and get those two to North Dakota, but have Pol stay put in Vegas for the time being, see what he digs up or what may fall into his lap.”

“You’ll want Carl and Gadgets looking into Eagle Nebula? As what, part of some special task force from the Justice Department?”

“Complete, if I can get it, with a presidential directive that gives them free and ready access to the base and to question whoever’s in charge there,” Brognola said. The grim note in Price’s voice and the wry glint in her eyes not escaping him. “Oh, yeah, I know. Lyons isn’t big when it comes to smearing on the gentle diplomacy. But, if they’re hiding something out there, covering up a disaster that involves civilian casualties, I’m counting on his crocodile style to flush out and chomp down on some raw meat. The perfect pit bull for the job,” Brognola added with a grim smile.

EZEKIEL JACOBS HELD his Russian benefactors in contempt. Assuming they were either current or former Spetsnaz commandos or ex-KGB, perhaps even tied to some criminal organization, this ignorant rabble who lived by the sword and were enslaved by all the animal inclinations of such didn’t have a clue how to handle themselves when in the presence of genius—or women—much less understand the fine point that living well was the best revenge.

“This is what we are throwing away good and very large sums, may I add, Comrade Jacobs, of money on? A computer graphic of an American Stealth fighter? Charts of chemical equations and numbers and physics babble?”

And there it was, he thought, pulling back his flowing mane of snow with one hand, staring at Boris Rustov on the other side of the coffee table as the Russian glowered at the specs on Lightning Bat, his black ferret eyes nearly bugged out with profound confusion and anger over mathematical equations that only a few in his elite stratosphere could even begin to comprehend. Clearly this barbarian was blind to the creativity of pure genius that was as close, he thought, to the Divine as Earthbound Man could get.

Ah, but why must he suffer fools gladly? Then again, why not? A few more days and playtime was over. For the moment he figured he was as close to heaven on earth as he could possibly ascend. One look out the massive window, and the constellation of neon out there on the Strip beckoned him the world could be his, but for one more roll of the dice, another few hours at the blackjack table. From his six-hundred-dollar-a-day suite on the north corner of the Bellagio hotel-casino—all the trimmings of two giant screen TVs, whirlpool, fully stocked wet bar and room service with all the frills, complete with ladies of the evening—he could drink in the glittering diadems of Caesar’s Palace, the Barbary Coast, the Flamingo Las Vegas, Imperial Palace.

The 3000-room ultraresort was a marvel of flamboyance, he thought, grabbing up a fat chunk of real estate where the old Dunes was perched on the southwest corner of Flamingo and the Strip. Considered one of the most expensive hotel-casinos on the planet, it featured Italian gardens, a twelve-acre lake, showroom, water shows, with a few hundred million in art displayed and spread around all the heavenly opulence. The best news of all was that families with children were strongly urged to seek accommodations farther up the Strip, high rollers only to walk through these pearly gates. Granted, he was still mid-Strip, in the thick of the hustle and bustle, traffic and noise a near 24/7 nuisance, but there was no reason to venture farther north where the common folk—low-rollers—wasted their paltry sums in grind joints.

From behind his dark Blues Brothers sunglasses, Jacobs watched the Russian scowl, looking him up and down as if he were some sideshow freak. Jacobs crossed one pajama-wrapped leg in white silk over the other, smoothed out the robe in matching color and fabric, brushing a fleck of tobacco off the Playboy bunny monogram on his left breast. Believing he could feel the steam building in the Russian’s primitive brain, sure Rustov’s blood pressure was ready to shoot off the monitor, he turned to Cleopatra, his companion. He watched her with an approving eye, as the striking Asian beauty slinked up to the couch to deliver him another brandy.

“Thank you, my dear,” Jacobs said, twirling the drink in his snifter, then patting the seat beside him. And he thought Rustov would erupt as she dropped her luscious flesh, barely concealed in the leopard-skin one-piece, bottom thrust his way, snuggling close to genius, all purrs and caresses. Breathing in her exquisite fragrance, he felt the stirring of heat in his loins, then the guttural bark of his Russian visitor soured the rising mood.

“There is a limit to our generosity and a bottom to our money pit. Explain yourself now, Comrade Jacobs.”

Jacobs took his smoking pipe, tamped down a fresh snootful of tobacco. “Six million million miles,” he said, smiling. “Three hundred thousand kilometers or 186,000 miles per second. Mass, force, space and time.”

“You find this amusing, comrade?”

“The first was the measure of a light-year. The second was the speed of light. The third is part of an equation whereby I explain how to shrink mass, while heating a hydrogen core for controlled bursts of a thermonuclear explosion that would allow for travel at and beyond light speed.”

“You are trying my patience to its limits.”

“So I see.” Jacobs puffed, sipped his drink. He took the remote box, snapped on a James Bond movie behind the Russian thug, wondering if he could replicate or refine one of Q’s high-tech toys, but saw the scene and already knew that he had. If he hadn’t, he knew the Russians wouldn’t be here now, waiting on him, hand and foot, frothing at the mouth, impatient to get on with business, surely entertaining violent fantasies of what they’d like to do to him if he weren’t regarded as the Holy Grail to their superiors.

“What you see, Comrade Rustov,” he said, speaking now in fluent Russian, “as a typical Stealth fighter jet is, in fact, the war bird of the future, created by my own hand, and for which your country came to me and agreed to my demands in order to—one—not only engineer a version of Lightning Bat, but—two—deliver to you my considerable expertise in likewise building weapons and weapons systems that far surpass your incomprehension of me and my creation. What you failed to understand and thus give me a chance to become immortalized beyond the likes of Albert Einstein is that Lightning Bat was one, perhaps two, steps away from being able to send man into deep space at the speed of light through my sweat and labor. Which requires nuclear propulsion, of which I installed in Lightning Bat and was in the process of designing for a prototype spacecraft.”

“You are talking much but telling me nothing of what I wish to know.”

“Ah, I see. You think I throw you a crumb with those computer printouts on the table. You want to know where the good stuff is kept.” Jacobs tapped the side of his head. “Nearly all of the treasures of the mysteries of the universe, comrade, are locked safely away in here. Regarding my continued health and happiness, I will lead you to all pertinent documents and data in due course. After, of course, I have enjoyed what was agreed upon as one week of R and R in Las Vegas. That leaves me at present with three days to suffer your scowling and barbs and demands.”

Rustov leaned forward, an edge to his voice. “You may feel genius should be granted all the perks and privileges it demands, while we, the common peasants should bow and scrape before you, but I would be very careful how you speak to me, Comrade Jacobs. Your continued happiness is really of no great concern to me.”

Jacobs blew smoke across the table. “It damn well better be, Comrade Rustov. Your life depends on just how happy I am.” Jacobs watched the gunsel, thinking he could almost read his mind as his thug’s brain churned over at the rate of drying concrete, searching for some response that would save face.

“Three more days, then it is I who will dictate the agenda.”

“Until then…if you would be so kind as to order up some breakfast for myself and Cleopatra. Eggs over easy, I like my bacon juicy with fat, not irradiated to shoe leather as it was yesterday. Make sure they understand that. If I discover you are cutting budget costs by stiffing room service on the tip, I will be most unhappy.”

Rustov chuckled as he stood. “Perhaps you are unaware, believing myself and my men only your ignorant lackeys. While you sleep with your whores, we cracked the mainframe on your laptop.”

Jacobs felt his heart flutter. “That was most unwise, since you should treat my privacy like you would my happiness.”

“We know about the Web sites, your e-mails to your former colleagues in my country. Should you not deliver as promised, we believe they have sufficient expertise to assist us.”

“Sufficient, in this case, will not cut it, Comrade Rustov. Further, you seem to forget I worked at Compound Zero-159-A, and that these former colleagues of mine could not complete work I left unfinished when the money dried up. Now. Are you going to respect my privacy and see to my continued happiness, likewise see to it that my pockets are deep when I leave for the casinos or do I contact your superiors and tell them the deal is off? And inform them it is because you are uncooperative cheapskate with a considerable chip on his shoulder?”

Rustov smiled, bobbed his head. “We will continue the arrangement, Comrade Jacobs, as you wish. Only bear this in mind as a gambler. When your marker is called in, you had best pony up.”

“The threat implying it’s a big desert out there?”

Jacobs watched Rustov, the baboon wearing his stupid grin, as he turned and walked for the foyer, barking at his four gunslingers to fall in. Grateful when he was alone, he draped an arm over Cleopatra, pulled her closer, and said, “I certainly hope that little bit of unpleasantness didn’t ruin your mood, my dear.”

“YOU THINK YOU CAN TAKE IT easy on the liquor, Slim, while we’re sailing along at a hundred miles an hour and five hundred feet off the ground?”

“The name’s Rupert, son. And I don’t care what that tin badge you flashed me sayin’ you’re with the Justice Department, this is my plane, and I been flying since you were but a mere itch in your daddy’s sac. And unless you wanna arrest me for FWI and land this bird yourself, you might want to lose that nasty attitude of yours—Mr. G-Man—sir.”

Carl “Ironman” Lyons was in a foul mood as it was. It was never a happy day when he was snatched off R and R, duty calling or not. No, it wasn’t so much he was being bosom-nuzzled by a beautiful dancer way more than half his age when he got the call from the Farm to put his pants on, as it was the hangover now pulsing wardrums through a swollen brain that was sorely tempting his sand-papered tongue to mollify the old prairie buzzard for a shot of whiskey if only to help pull shot nerves together. At the moment, fear of flying took on a whole new meaning for the leader of Able Team.