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“The fuck you going to do?” Morrison whined.
“Keep you from bleeding to death,” Lyons told him. “That way, we can tell our boss that we didn’t kill anyone this week.”
“Not personally,” Schwarz added. “How was I to know that someone switched the first batch of tear gas for high-explosive fragmentation?”
“Don’t tell me that it’s your fault we have a half-dozen bodies jammed into the back of our van to dump in the river,” Lyons snapped at Schwarz.
Morrison twisted and struggled in the ex-cop’s grasp. “Wait! Wait! What vehicle are you looking for?”
“A brown delivery van,” Blancanales said.
“Don’t tell him before we take his legs off at least!” Lyons bellowed. The hollow echo of the gas mask amplified the yell to a roar against the side of Morrison’s head.
“No, the brown van? Man, they picked that up two days ago! Look in the office!” Morrison said. “You want the password? Ecclesiastic!”
Schwarz tilted his head. “What?”
“From that movie. Where they wanted the safe word…but had to go with snakebite ’cause the snitch was too stupid?” Morrison asked.
“Spell it,” Schwarz said.
Morrison did so. He didn’t even realize that Lyons had let up the pressure on his arm.
“Aw hell, you’re going to shoot me in the head,” Morrison muttered.
Lyons shrugged. “Why would I do that?”
“And, for our edification, Mickey Giardelli coughed you up, and we didn’t even have to pretend to be a SWAT team,” Blancanales said.
Morrison’s eyes widened. “Aw shit…”
“You’ve got a choice, son,” Lyons told him, slapping him on the shoulder to focus his attention. “Stay free, and maybe have the pricks who you delivered the truck to think you gave them up—which you did—or do some prison time for running a chop shop. One ends with you sitting safe in a box for six months. The other has guys willing to murder federal agents wanting to shut you up so you don’t testify.”
“I’ll take the safe option, thank you very much,” Morrison stated.
Lyons smiled. “Beautiful.”
Morrison mopped his brow as Schwarz broke into his computer.
K URTZMAN PICKED UP THE secure, direct connection from the field. Schwarz had activated an encryption protocol that turned the line his computer was on into a shielded transmission conduit. Hackers attempting to penetrate the electronic security locks and creating interference with the direct connection would alert Stony Man Farm to the intrusion and render themselves open to a salvo of countersurveillance programs guaranteed to crash even the most powerful processors set to the task.
“Gadgets,” Kurtzman greeted over the tight-band video chat. “Nice design extrapolation on the robot snake.”
“Thanks,” Schwarz replied. “You should have seen the picture of Carl as Captain Caveman that he destroyed.”
“I bet it would have been a hoot,” Kurtzman admitted.
Schwarz grinned. “Since I drew it on a tablet computer, I’ll upload it to you for a screen saver.”
Kurtzman chuckled. “Lyons would take my head off if he found that.”
“You told him how to understand the magic box?” Schwarz asked.
There was a grunt on the other end, and Lyons appeared on camera as Schwarz winced and rubbed his shoulder.
“There’ll be time for jokes later,” Lyons grunted. “You have access to Morrison’s hard drives?”
“Yeah,” Kurtzman said. “We’ve located the account which paid for the delivery truck, but we’re looking at an offshore bank with some paranoid security.”
“Paranoid is a walk in the park for you guys, isn’t it?” Lyons asked.
“Not these banks,” Kurtzman replied. “They’ve been upgrading their black ice, and I’m not afraid to say that they’re making us work for our paycheck, even if it is just a false front.”
“So, the conspirators dumped cash into an account for their dead buddies to pull out,” Lyons said. “How’ll you be able to track the money trail?”
“By diligent, meticulous observation once Akira breaks a hole for us into the bank’s security,” Kurtzman stated.
“What about the robots?” Lyons asked. “I hear that Cal and Rafe transmitted digital photographs of what was left of their encounter with two of them.”
“Same design. Two sets of parallel bow-coiled legs off of a central, flexible spine. The legs are fat little plates, and the body ends in a large head that fits an interesting firearm design,” Kurtzman told them.
“How so?” Lyons asked.
Kurtzman looked at the picture. “You know how the FN P-90 has that pivoting magazine that turns bullets at 90 degrees to keep the gun flat?”
Lyons nodded. “It’s been used on other designs, as well.”
“This one was hooked up to a Glock 26 barrel. The end result is that the head of the snake is about six inches long, and only four inches in diameter, but holds 17 shots,” Kurtzman said. “It has no means to reload itself, but stuck in there, parallel to the Glock barrel are two small cameras, and two Taser modules, whose capacitor batteries are further down the spine, tucked between the legs.”
Lyons blinked. “I saw the picture that Gadgets made. The batteries look like oversize watch batteries, right?”
“Yes. More than capable of producing enough voltage to paralyze a grown man,” Kurtzman said. “You’re lucky that you’re as strong and prepared for Taser shocks as you are.”
“I’m also lucky I was too stupid to keep my finger off the trigger. If my muscles hadn’t seized up and applied enough pressure to drop the striker, I’d have been carved up by that weed-whacker in its tail,” Lyons snarled.
“The cutting monofilament,” Kurtzman noted.
Akira Tokaido waved at Kurtzman to get his attention. “Hunt’s inside running the finances on the account,” Tokaido said.
“Good news,” Kurtzman answered. “You heard?” he said to Lyons.
“Yeah,” Lyons replied. “Is anyone watching Hunt and Akira’s six inside the bank?”
“Carmen’s way ahead of you on that,” Kurtzman told him. “After the DoE was penetrated, we’re on extra-high alert about any impropriety.”
“Good,” Lyons said. “You done with Morrison’s records?”
“Yes. You can shut down the computer,” Kurtzman answered. “He tries anything in the future, we’ve got a tap on his records.”
“I think he could be used as a local resource,” Lyons said. “I’ll stop by and rap my knuckles on his dome for a few answers every so often.”
Kurtzman nodded. “I was thinking the same thing, except I’m talking about aiding anyone on the terrorist watch lists.”
“Those things work?” Lyons asked.
“Not for Homeland Security, but those of us here with brains can determine the corn from the shit,” Kurtzman replied.
Lyons smiled. “Spoken like a true cop.”
Kurtzman winked. “Farm out.”
O NE OF THE ADVANTAGES that Phoenix Force had over the Directorate of Security and their investigation was that they didn’t have to worry about coordinating multiple raids after assembling a half-dozen teams in and around Paris. The Directorate needed to pull off each raid at the same time, in case the conspirators were in communication with each other, and more than one enemy site was actually part of the guilty party. The agency also needed to assemble warrants, scope out approaches and gather much more intelligence before they could make the first move. That all also depended on putting aside the bureaucratic differences that put the brakes on their moves.
McCarter looked at the latest data gathered from the French by the computer hackers at Stony Man Farm, and applied his years of counterterrorism investigation and operation to narrowing down Phoenix Force’s target as Manning drove them through the streets of Paris.
“I think that we’re looking at the neo-Nazi cell just off of the Seine,” McCarter said.
“What makes you think that?” Manning asked.
“The warrants are moving especially slow on them,” McCarter said. “Considering that we’re dealing with expert computer hackers, as well as the robots, I’m betting that the conspirators are looking to keep their asses covered until their patsies can get out of the way.”
“Or be gotten out of the way,” Hawkins mentioned. “The bad guys in Inshas and Washington were both sacrificial lambs, and they didn’t seem to care about the robots, either.”
“So even if we hit the little Hitler lovers, they might already be corpses,” Manning grumbled.
McCarter’s brow furrowed. “I like our chances.”
“What?” Manning asked.
“The conspiracy seems to be cleaning up its backtrail with almost paranoid efficiency,” McCarter replied. “But they left the lead to the neo-Nazis hanging out there.”
Manning nodded. “I see.”
“I don’t,” Hawkins replied.
“The conspirators want to take the piss out of us. In two places, they’ve had Stony Man teams on their asses,” McCarter said. “They noticed Able shadowing their deliverymen in Washington, D.C. They caught Rafe and Cal in Egypt. They’re dangling bait for us here in Paris to see if they can catch a nibble.”
Hawkins grimaced. “So they’re aware of Stony Man.”
“They’re aware of a particularly efficient agency on their tails. They don’t know the details, but the specifics of who we are doesn’t matter to them,” McCarter told him. “What matters is that someone has managed to cut through the red tape and bureaucratic bullshit to know that there is a conspiracy out there messing with nuclear power plants across three continents.”
“And we’re looking at a trap for us,” Hawkins sighed.
“The neo-Nazis are in all likelihood dead,” McCarter said. “But there will be an elimination team on hand, waiting for us to make our move. Once we do, they drop the hammer.”
“An ambush won’t work too well if we’re aware of it,” Manning said.
“The enemy might be anticipating that, as well,” McCarter said. “Depending on who they hired to hit us, it could be a feint, or it could be a hard-kill force.”
“A test for us,” Manning said. “Or a distraction.”
Hawkins took a deep breath. “Either way, we’re going to have our work cut out for us, or is this mental chess game hinging on making us look less capable than we are?”
“Screw that,” McCarter snapped. “If we’re going to encounter some drama, we’re going to bring our A game every time. Whoever they send after us, we treat them as professionals and we don’t let up on them. Taking it easy on any asshole we meet is a fast ticket to an unmarked grave.”
Hawkins nodded. “For a moment, I was wondering if you were a Cockney brawler or Sherlock Holmes.”
“There’s times for being smart, and there’s times for being the deadliest bastard on the sidewalk,” McCarter said. “The time for being smart is done now. Let’s be bloody and deadly.”
C ALVIN J AMES POKED A pencil at the burned shell segment remaining from the snake-shaped robot that had been such a menace to him and his allies earlier. He glanced at his Phoenix Force partner and friend Rafael Encizo, who merely shrugged as he sat at the table. James was a scientist, but his fields of expertise were anatomy and pharmacology, not electronics or robotics. Encizo had more experience with robots, but only through his work with them during oceanic salvage expeditions. The fields of underwater archaeology and marine biology were rife with the use of subaquatic remote devices that could transmit images of the ocean floor or sea life, or had manipulator claws that enabled the recovery of living specimens or lost artifacts.
Still, there was a difference between the camera bots and recovery drones that Encizo worked with and manipulated on his salvage expeditions, and the compact, nearly organic device that lay before him.
Colonel Assid gave James a clap on the shoulder. “Nothing?”
“Just a pile of shot-up and charred metal that doesn’t leave much in the way of forensics,” James said. “The only things we know for sure is that they have enough redundant systems to survive a hundred rounds of rifle fire and still continue shooting and moving for the bulk of that barrage.”
“Farrow had better luck going over the dead men,” Encizo admitted. “Thanks for letting him stand in on their autopsy.”
Assid nodded. “It’s always good to have an extra set of eyes present. What about the digital images you transmitted back to your agency?”
“They’re still running checks on the few markings we discovered on the wreckage,” James said sullenly. “But the components are common devices with preformed metallic shells. Trying to pinpoint their source of manufacture is like trying to find a particular grain of sand in the desert.”
Assid nodded. “We’re assembling a squad to pay a visit to the rest of the corpses’ cell members. I thought you two might want to stretch your legs and give your eyes a rest.”
Encizo smirked. “I’m all for that. Anything’s better than being kept out of my element.”
“Where did the cell originate?” James asked.
“They’re operating off of a fishing trawler,” Assid said. “Part of the reason why I’m hoping the two of you would help out. Normally, the unit would look for assistance from the Egyptian marines or navy, but right now, we’re trying to keep everything in-house.”
“Because of the drone we spotted?” Encizo asked.
“I remember the troubles we had with Egyptian military tanks and Predator UAVs falling into the hands of radical Palestinian and Syrian forces a while back,” Assid mentioned. “I don’t want to risk a leak of our raid getting back to whoever is running this show.”
James nodded. “According to what the home team told us, the conspirators seem to be on the ball. Any investigation pointing in their direction gets flagged and bogged down with paperwork.”
“So they do have monitors internationally, as well as moles?” Assid asked. “How big is this conspiracy?”
“Probably small,” Encizo said. “Whoever the leaks are, they’re probably just garden-variety bureaucrats with open palms and the willingness to look the other way or misplace paperwork.”
“A couple of smart people with a good bank account can do as much as a worldwide organization,” James said. “We work on brains and connections ourselves, so we can see where holes can be exploited in any security system.”
“A bribe or two in the Egyptian government, and they have the drop on us if we go outside the family,” Assid mused. “That explains why they’re working with the Muslim Brotherhood.”
“The local muscle they’ve hired don’t know what’s really going on, likely,” Encizo offered. “But the conspirators have given them the promise of their goals of confusion and government disarray.”
“That’s worked well enough,” Assid said. “Despite the fact that the Brotherhood didn’t get the robots anywhere near Inshas, the press caught word of an attempted attack. People are nervous, and they’re calling for an end to Egypt’s development of nuclear energy.”
