Shadow War

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Her voice was a smooth, husky alto, the kind, Hawkins thought, that would cause a man’s heart to race when it whispered into his ear.

The concierge gave her a sealed envelope and a key card. Turning, she strode across the lobby toward the gilded doors of the elevator with more grace than an Italian runway model.

The concierge, an effete, overly trim man, stood there looking slightly stunned, then his face regained its normal polite impassivity and he turned to help another guest.

Hawkins snorted to himself as he clicked the parabolic mike. His finger touched his throat mike. “We’ve got the room number,” he said, standing.

I N THE ROOM , B ELLUCCI went through her ritual. Her overcoat came off, revealing the strapless black rubber dress beneath. The garment fit like a latex glove over a body that could easily pull it off, and there was no doubt that she wore nothing underneath. A black ribbon was tied in a choker around her throat, usually a sign of submissiveness in the bondage and domination world, but just part of her costume in this case. She set down her designer bag and reached inside, removing a coil of soft cord, a riding crop and a prescription pill bottle. Leaving the implements behind her on the entrance table where her customer would notice them immediately upon entering, she took the pill bottle over to the suite’s bar.

Her eyes already glassy, she washed down three OxyContin tablets with two ounces of Bombay gin.

Though she spoke French flawlessly, the stunning blonde was German by way of Switzerland. She had always been drawn to older men, established men with influence and financial means. She had learned in her first year at the exclusive Paris university that married men of the jet set treated their mistresses very well.

She had accepted her first assignation—Bellucci did not turn tricks—at twenty. Her current lover, an assets manager with the World Bank, had come to her frantic. Somehow a South African intelligence agent had gathered evidence of his insider trading involving relief funds going into Liberia.

Desperate enough to offend his beautiful mistress, he’d pleaded with her to get into the man’s suite and steal the documents, knowing full well what it would require of her. The thrill that had shivered through her body when she felt the weight of the envelope containing the equivalent of ten thousand U.S. dollars—and what that money was buying—had been unforgettable.

She wore out the overweight, middle-aged South African government agent then rummaged his embassy-provided suite at her leisure and obtained the documents. Making copies for her own, soon-to-be-growing personal files, she’d promptly demanded another ten thousand before turning them over to her lover.

Realizing the potential of the situation, Bellucci had turned professional for the diplomatic community. Soon after, she quickly learned she liked her sex rough and her little black book, actually a PDA database, was filled with men, occasionally their wives and often their full-time mistresses, as well as a handful of female clients, who craved the release of a mistress with a capital M.

Almost immediately she had come to the attention of Henri Galli upon the recommendation of a powerful Venezuelan businessman named Marcos Sincanaros. She knew little about the man except that he was tied to the government in some shadowy fashion and that he paid very well. Under his patronage her career had truly blossomed.

She brought the cut-glass tumbler to her full, surgically enhanced lips and sipped. The gin gave off a scent that reminded her of pine trees as it sparkled tart on her tongue. Setting her drink down, she opened her purse on the bar and pulled out a blunt.

She licked the end of the marijuana cigar until it was wet, then took a vial out of her handbag and sprinkled a liberal amount of cocaine across the moistened end. Bringing the blunt to her mouth, she used an oversize lighter to fire it up.

The pungent smoke and aromatized cocaine filled her lungs as she dragged and held it in. The blood from her pounding heart rushed to her head, making her dizzy, followed immediately by a wave of pleasant euphoria. She felt simultaneously mellow and keyed up. The feeling would continue as her body absorbed the primary agents of her OxyContin painkillers.

She left the smoldering blunt in a fine crystal ashtray and wandered deeper into the suite, looking for the stereo system.

H AWKINS ENTERED THE ROOM on the fifth floor of the resort, some seven floors down from al-Shalaan’s penthouse suite. Inside, the rest of Phoenix Force was going over its last-minute preparations for the operation.

Calvin James sat on a chair in front of the wrought-iron-and-glass coffee table situated in the center of the room. With quick, efficient motions he was securing the glass vials of Versed and succhyil chlorate into the loading chambers of the pneumatic injectors each of the team would carry in addition to a personal backup pistol.

James, a former medic with the U.S. Navy SEALs, had explained the drug in detail to the team prior to deployment from Stony Man. Erring on the side of safety, for his team, James had calculated doses for a 210-pound male. The pistol-shaped injectors made sharp clicking sounds as he set them down on the glass tabletop.

He looked up as Hawkins entered the room. “What’s up, T.J.?”

“Everything’s still good. I waited around until al-Shalaan showed up to confirm the numbers on his entourage. We’re still five-by-five for our sitrep.”

James nodded, then spoke into his throat mike. “T.J. confirms sitrep,” he said to the team leader, David McCarter. The ex-SAS commando was the team member with by far the most driving expertise on the team. He was waiting in a H3 Hummer converted into a stretch limousine downstairs across the street from the loading dock at the back of the five-star hotel. The vehicle was perfect camouflage in the upscale setting.

James listened to the reply for a second, a grin growing larger on his face. “Copy. Out,” he said.

“Let me guess,” Gary Manning said from across the room. The big Canadian was attaching a sound suppressor to the specially threaded barrel of a Glock 17 pistol. “David’s still pissed he’s not cracking skulls on this one.”

“Oh, you know how you alpha males like your skull cracking.” James laughed.

Manning snorted. “If that anesthesia works half as well as you say, there shouldn’t be any skull cracking going on.”

“It’ll take a minute,” James admitted, and set the last injector down. “But with the adrenaline going, their hearts’ll push the drug through their system just fine. They’ll be out of commission even before they go under.”

Rafael Encizo spoke up. “I’ve told Barb we’re about to go live.”

The stocky little Cuban walked into the central living area from the master bedroom. Like Manning, he wore a shoulder holster holding a silenced Glock 17. He shrugged on a leather jacket to hide his shoulder rig and tucked the tail of his short-sleeved shirt into the back of his faded jeans.

Manning stepped forward. “Okay, Rafe,” he said. “You lost rock-paper-scissors, so you’re the drunk.”

“It’s bullshit, you know,” Encizo answered, crossing to the bar. “If anyone should be the drunk, it should be T.J.”

“This is subterfuge,” James said. “Not real life.”

“I’m right here,” Hawkins complained. “I’m standing right here.”

“You want to be the drunk?” James asked, his voice dry.

“No. I’m good, thanks,” Hawkins said.

“Not the vodka,” Manning said as Encizo picked up a bottle of clear liquor from the suite bar. “It doesn’t stink enough. Use the Beefeater gin.”

The Phoenix Force pro upended half a bottle over himself. Instantly the room stank of pine needles over the abrasive smell of grain alcohol. Hawkins and Manning quickly backed up to keep from being splashed. Encizo kept a grip on the bottle and grinned at them.

“Don’t be shy, boys. I’m not heavy, I’m your brother.”

Manning and Hawkins quickly took their auto-injectors from James and tucked them into the small of their backs. Encizo put his arms around the shoulders of the two men, prepping for his role as incoherent drunk.

“This is all very Nancy Drew,” Hawkins muttered.

“Nancy Drew used to pretend to get drunk?” Manning demanded, incredulous.

“She wore disguises and stuff,” Hawkins said. “Besides, Rafe’s really more of a Bess.”

“Bess?” James asked from behind them. The team began to move toward the door to their room. “Who the hell is Bess?”

“She was Nancy’s fat friend.”

“Hey!” the stocky Encizo protested.

“They always said she was pretty, though,” Hawkins said quickly.

“I am pretty,” Encizo agreed as Manning pulled the door to the room open.

“Why do you know so much about Nancy Drew? Is there something you aren’t telling us?”

“Don’t ask, don’t tell.” Hawkins fired the standard U.S. military quip right back.

James fingered his com link. “We’re rolling,” he said.

“Copy,” McCarter answered from the vehicle.

“Copy,” Price echoed from Stony Man.

Phoenix Force moved down the hall toward the elevator.

CHAPTER THREE

Gonzales felt his heart sink. He watched Marta, Lagos’s woman, stroll into the warehouse through the door and walk into the light of the halogen lamps. At twenty, the former call girl and Mexico City porn star was a sight to behold. Her nails were painted in blood-red and her left hand held a lollipop she worked like a pro.

Her big, brown eyes widened in mock surprise as she regarded the hanging men. Her pink tongue lathed the head of the lollipop.

She giggled.

Lagos moved up behind her and whispered something into her ear. She reached up and traced her hand down the angular line of his face. If the violent drug kingpin had a weakness, it was this young female prostitute.

Despite himself, Gonzales’s eyes were drawn to the smooth line of her flat stomach where a tiny gold hoop had been inserted in her navel. She wore no bra, and her nipples poked hard against the sheer fabric of her blouse. The skin on her body was flawless.

Gonzales felt his stomach turn queasy.

Her perfume, something heavy and expensive, rolled into his nose, momentarily overpowering the stink of body fluids and terror that surrounded him. His mind recoiled from his terror, his thoughts rebounding like a rubber ball in an empty room. He thought about his little girl and his wife. He flashed on images of the bodies of people he’d seen who’d suffered at the hands of the Zetas.

He felt tears welling up in his eyes and he used the last vestiges of his pride to blink them back as Marta, at once sadistic and seductive, glided forward. She leaned in close, her beauty a blunt instrument, her breath hot and sweet against his neck, the crush of her heavy breast hard against his stomach. When she spoke, she purred, but her voice was the singsong soprano of a little girl.

“You were naughty,” she chided. “So naughty, and now you must be punished. I remember you from that restaurant in Cancún. Do you remember, Gabriel?”

Gonzales nodded. He’d worn a wire designed to passively boost the conversation for the CIA surveillance team’s parabolic boom mike. Lagos had met with a Venezuelan moneyman named Sincanaros and a representative of FARC, the Colombian Communist insurgent army and largest narco-military in the world. Marta had been there, dressed in a stunning little black dress that cost about as much as a U.S. union plumber made in a year. She’d cooed and rubbed her thighs together throughout the meeting, flustering even the experienced Colombian guerrilla commander.

“I remember,” Gonzales said, his voice hoarse.

“Lagos wanted me to act naughty that night,” she said. Her expression was coy, childlike. “Do you remember me being naughty? How I touched myself while everyone watched?”

Gonzales closed his eyes. He felt his gorge rising and from his churning, fear-cramped stomach, acid bubbled up and burned the lining of his esophagus. He winced in pain.

Marta’s tiny little hand found Gonzales’s crotch. He flinched. “I think you were excited that night,” she said. “I was so naughty.” She let go and stepped back. “Tonight is going to be a little different.”

From the small of her back the young woman produced a pearl-handled switchblade. She held it out and Gonzales closed his eyes again. He heard the greasy click as the tightly wound spring released the knife. He opened his eyes and saw the 5-inch blade wildly reflecting the light of the halogen lamps.

“Let’s see what’s going on with Gabriel.” Marta giggled.

She dug the point of her blade into the denim fabric of his jeans at his fly. He winced as she poked the soft skin of his inner thigh, and he felt blood trickle down his leg. Marta worked, grunting softly with the effort, to cut away the fabric around his crotch.

In seconds his penis hung exposed. The crushing weight of his helpless vulnerability slammed into him all over again. Only the thought of his wife and daughter kept his tongue still.

Marta stepped back and slid the still-open switchblade behind the buckle of her wide, black belt. The pearl handle rested against the smooth, brown stretch of her flat abdomen.

She turned her head and barked a command. A short, squat gunman stepped forward.

Gonzales’s eyes bulged from his head, and he moaned out loud despite his efforts to stifle the sound. Marta giggled again.

“No, don’t start it,” she snapped. “I want to start it.”

“Sí,” the man said. He stepped back, handing the orange-and-black power grass trimmer to the slight young woman. The muscles of her arms stood out in vivid relief as she mastered the weight. The long orange extension cord trailed out behind her, disappearing into the dark beyond the halogen lights.

The grass trimmer sprang to life in her hands, the 18-volt power tool screaming as the hard plastic cord spun at 7000 revolutions per minute. Gonzales realized the device would tear his clothes from his body, then flay his flesh open in a techno-modern version of the ancient Chinese “death of a thousand cuts.” His throat closed in his fear.

Marta grinned. “This is my favorite weapon. Its trademarked system uses centrifugal force to advance the line automatically as I need it.”

The twisted Lolita rattled off the grass trimmer’s specs in English with obvious enthusiasm, the way the proud owner of an American muscle car or an Italian Ferrari might talk about their automobile engine. Goddamn you, Yankees, he cursed his involvement with the CIA who had left him to die after his service.

Gunning the motor, Marta stepped forward. Her expression was twisted now, her grin so wide it threatened to split her face in two. Behind her, Lagos and his men had shuffled forward, their laughter almost muted by the high-pitched whine of the grass trimmer’s 7.1-liter engine.

Still Gonzales didn’t talk. He thought about it. If he did so, he might spare the other two men hours of torture. They were all dead, but maybe the other two men would be granted a quick coup de grâce if only Gonzales spoke up now.

Then he thought about his daughter and his wife. If he didn’t remain silent, they’d be raped, then they’d be tortured.

No.

Gonzales offered up silent apologies to the other men and then bit down so hard on his tongue to keep silent that it bled.

Marta stepped forward and the spinning plastic cord whipped into his leg just above the knee. The denim split like paper and his flesh was lacerated so deep into the flesh of the vastus medialis that blood splattered at 7000 revolutions per minute, spraying across the walls like a Jackson Pollock painting.

Gonzales screamed, then screamed again. White-hot lances of agony surged up through his body in bullet trains of anguish.

Engulfed in the shrieks and the screams produced by the little grass trimmer, only two of Lagos’s men, the ones nearest the door, heard the window breaking.

Marta stepped in again and thrust the grass trimmer forward. The spinning plastic cord bit Gonzales’s inner thigh. Blood splashed her face in streaks like tiger stripes, and unconsciously her slick pink tongue darted out to taste the hot fluid smearing her lips.

There was a scramble of bodies behind her shoulder as one Zetas gunman tried to shout a warning, then a flash like a sun going nova and a bang so loud it split eardrums. In the snap of a magician’s fingers Gonzales felt the concussion roll into him like the wind, punching him into motion on the end of his chains. He was blind. He was deaf. He was dizzy and bruised, confused and battered, as a second and then third flash-bang grenade went off.

The halogen light setup was knocked clear of its moorings and crashed to the floor, plunging the room into heavy shadow as a single brilliant lamp, now facedown, continued to burn. Men shouted in pain and confusion and anger as the front door of the building was smashed open.

Gadgets Schwarz thrust the barrel of his Steyr AUG through the smashed window glass and saw a dark shape pulling itself up off the floor, a long weapon in its hands. Schwarz squeezed the trigger and put a 5.56 mm round into the figure, then fired three more.

The figure went down and Schwarz pivoted smoothly, spotting a cluster of shapes directly behind the tangled mess of the halogen lights. He held back on his trigger and snapped the shortened barrel in a tight Z-pattern, burning a short burst into the crowd. Bodies hit the floor.

Carl Lyons entered through the warehouse door, his Atchisson autoshotgun testing the strength of his thick arms. The selective fire assault shotgun was fed with a 20-round drum magazine attachment and Lyons kept it tucked in close against his body, firing from the hip in such tight quarters.

He saw a balaclava hardman jump to his feet directly in front of the door, an old-fashioned Ingram MAC-10 in the grip of a fist covered by black, fingerless gloves. A sound suppressor as long as the weapon itself preceded the weapon like a black wand.

The Atchisson boomed in Lyons’s grip. The weapon recoiled smoothly into the ex-LAPD officer’s hip. The 12-gauge fléchette round discharged into the Zetas’s upturned face from a distance of less than three feet.

The tiny steel darts ripped through the flesh on the right side of the ex-commando’s face and drove mercilessly into the man’s skull. The back of the Mexican drug soldier’s head erupted, and the man’s body followed the momentum of his pulverized skull.

As blood spilled out of the ruined body, Lyons moved into the room. Behind him, Blancanales peeled off to the right, the H&K submachine gun up and ready in his hands.

Able Team moved in a tight configuration, a well-rehearsed ballet of trajectories and overlapping fields of fire. No motion was wasted as Schwarz anchored one section of the fire triangle and Blancanales another, letting Lyons and his autoshotgun move up the middle.

Blancanales tucked the folding stock of his submachine gun tight into his shoulder, the sound of Lyons’s booming shotgun ringing in his ears. He saw the silhouette of a man holding a Kalashnikov and cut loose, a burst of rounds striking the gunner high between the shoulder blades and punching through his neck.