Stony Man - Triple Strike Part 19

Tim UN ARTnJ.~.Y PARK had been ~tablished at what had been a Yugoslavian police barracks back in the good old days before the breakup of Yugoslavia. When the PROFOR came in, heavy weapons ranging from T-64 tanks to artillery and rocket launchers had been taken from the warring factions and stored for the duration. Neither the extent of that duration nor the final disposition of the weapons had yet been decided. But as long as the UN PROFOR units were patrolling Bosnia, the weapons would be kept under guard.

The guards, however, weren't keen about the job they had been given. For one thing, the troops were Spanish, and they weren't experienced combat sol-diets. And there was only one platoonforty men stationed there at any one time. The rest of their company, another three platoons, was nearby. But if an emergency was to occur, it would take the reinforcements at least half an hour to respond.

As Major Naslin scanned the artillery park with his field gla.s.ses, he considered using another one of his rockets to wipe out the troops guarding it. In one way, that would be the quick solution, but then he would have to wait two hours for the gas to dissipate before he could get the launcher he needed. It was better to save the rocket for the civilians and take this place with his AKs and RPGs.

"The troops guarding this site are Spanish, you say?" he asked the Bosnian leader.

"That is what I have been told." Rezak shrugged. "I do not recognize their national flag, but all foreign flags look the same to me."

"I am going to go down there with a truck full of my men," Naslin said, "and pretend to be a UN officer from Algeria. While I am talking to them, I want you to come in and surround them so no one gets away."

THE YOUNG S?nmSH lieutenant in charge of the garrison at the depot was new to the a.s.signment and wasn't aware that there were no Algerian PROFOR units in his sector. He also was young enough that he didn't want to check with his headquarters before letting the track full of armed men inside the main gate.

These were common mistakes that any inexperienced officer could make, but the Spanish lieutenant wouldn't get a chance to grow any older or wiser.

With a gun to his head, the lieutenant was quick to order his men to surrender. A quick radio call to Rezak brought the Bosnians in, as well, and the depot was secured. While the Spanish troops were put un-der guard, Naslin went with his technical sergeant to find a suitable rocket launcher.

The heavy weapons had all been tagged as to which faction they had been taken from, then separated into types. All of the rocket launchers were in one place, and Naslin immediately spotted one of the Yugoslavian-made, three-barreled Katusha launchers. These lightweight weapons were mounted on wheeled carriages that could be towed behind the Toyota pickups with no difficulty.

"What do you want to do with them?" Naslin asked Rezak as he hooked a thumb in the direction of the disarmed Spaniards. "I do not have men to spare to guard them."

"I do not, either," the Bosnian answered. "And they are infidels anyway."

Naslin called his sergeant to his side and, when the man reported, gave his orders. "Kill the prisoners."

The sergeant paused for a moment. "They are UN troops, Major."

"I know that, you fool!" Naslin exploded. "I want them dead."

"As you command, Major."

None of the Spaniards spoke Arabic, but they didn't have to understand what was being said to know what was in store for them. In any language, a firing squad being formed was easily recognizable. Several of them tried to make a mn for it and were gunned down. Others fell on their knees and begged for mercy, but there was no mercy to be found in the old police barracks that day.

When the last shots echoed away, the air reeked with burned cordite and the smell of slaughter. The Spanish lay in piles, leaking their blood into the ever thirsty soil of Bosnia.

Naslin surveyed the results of his handiwork and smiled. More infidels had been sent to h.e.l.l. It was a good warm-up for what would happen in the morning.

"Get the men mounted up," he told his sergeant. "We have a long ways to go yet."

"As you command, Major."

Stony Man Farm "I TH~qK we've got a problem," Hunt Wethers told Aaron Kurtzman. "I think the Iranians just raided a UN weapons depot."

Kurtzman closed his eyes for a brief moment. When was this ever going to end? "What happened?" Wethers quickly explained that the two target re- hicles had stopped next to the UN compound and drove on after an hour. Since the depot was manned by UN troops, they wouldn't have gone there without a good reason, and they wouldn't have been able to not go in shooting.

"There's a possibility that they were looking for a launcher to fire their rockets," he concluded.

Kurtzman hit the uplink for the satcom. 'Tll tell Katz. You talk to Barbara."

Bosnia KATZENELENBOGEN'S CALL tO McCarter came as the Stony Man warriors were driving down a road a few miles and one ridgeline away from the artillery park. The Phoenix Force commander didn't want to break off the pursuit, but he knew that they had no choice. "We'll check it out," he said.

Half an hour later, they drove through the deserted main gate of the compound. One look at the pile of bodies, and it was all too apparent what had happened. The small garrison guarding the depot had been taken by surprise and had surrendered. This wasn't the first time that a UN PROFOR unit had laid their weapons down and stuck their hands in the air rather than get into a firefight with one of the Bosnian factions. Usually these incidents ended with the UN making threatening noises while granting concessions and the hostages were released.

This time, though, the surrender hadn't gone ac- cording to the accepted UN game plan. Rather than being turned loose as further proof of the UN's in-ability to deal effectively with armed opponents, the soldiers had been gunned down to keep them from talking about what had happened.

"There's no way to tell if they took anything," Encizo stated, "but my bet is that they came here to get something to launch those rockets from. There are some Yugoslav Katusha launchers in the park, and they're small enough to tow. They could have hooked one up to their trucks."

"Get everyone loaded up," McCarter said as he reached for the radio. "I don't want us to get caught anywhere around this place."

WHEN THE COMPANY commander of the Spanish unit at the artillery park couldn't get anyone to answer his calls, he got his driver and drove the five miles to their compound. As they rounded the bend in the road and approached the old police barracks, he no-riced a tan Toyota pickup truck heading the other direction. The vehicle wasn't wearing the UN PRO-FOR insignia on the door and he didn't know of any of the UN contingents that painted their vehicles that color.

As he drove up to the main gate, the red-and-gold flag of Spain was flying, but the sentries weren't at their posts. Drawing the Astra pistol from his holster, he stopped his jeep and walked through the gate. Though the day wasn't yet warm, the smell hit him like a hammer blow. Unlike most of his troops, the captain had been in combat and he knew well the smell of blood and cordite. Death had come to this outpost today.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX.

Aviano Air Base, Italy Now that Able Team was back at Aviano, Yakov Katzenelenbogen was having second thoughts about having called the trio in from the field. With Jack Grimaldi and the Air Force major hanging around, as well, the small building was getting crowded. As always, Lyons was the most restless with the forced inactivity. He was pacing the floor and staring out the window, driving Katz nuts.

Katz made a mental note that if the Farm ever sent Able Team with him to another CP, he'd make sure that he brought a cage to keep the Ironman in when he didn't have anything to keep him busy.

At least Kurtzman had sent him a list of the towns that were due to hold elections tomorrow, so he had something useful to do. Looking at the map, he saw that three of the cities were arranged in an arc around the location of the artillery park that had been raided. Considering how close they were to the last known location of the Iranians, they were the most likely targets.

He had no idea how many rocket launchers the Iranians had taken from the artillery park after ma.s.sacring the Spanish garrison. What was worse, there was no way for him to find out what was missing until the UN made its investigation of the incident. Knowing the UN as he did, however, he knew that it would be weeks before they were finished. And that was time the Stony Man team didn't have. If he was right, and he had to think that he was, the attacks would take place tomorrow on election day.

That meant that he had to choose between the three towns and decide which one to send the commandos to, and he didn't have a clue as to which one of them would be the target. Then it hit him; it had to be the Serbian town of Spivak. According to the information the Farm sent, the other two places had a mixed Serb and Croatian population, but Spivak was solely in Serb hands.

Of the Bosnian Muslims' two enemies, the Serbs were the strongest and had caused them the most problems since the breakup of the former Yugoslav republic. In fact the Muslims had even briefly allied themselves with the Croats against their common en-emy. If the Muslims wanted to strike the strongest blow, it would be against the Serbs first.

When he made contact with the Farm, Kurtzman's face came on the video screen. "It's Spivak," Katz stated. "They're going to hit Spivak."

"How do you know?" Kurtzman asked. "The satellite doesn't show that yet."

"I applied a little reason and logic, and that's how it came out. It's going to be Spivak because that's a Serb town and the Muslims hate the Serbs more than they do the Croats. They're going to want to get the most bang for their buck, and that's where they'll get it."

"Okay," Kurtzman stated. "We'll watch for the satellite indicators and get back to you."

Stony Man Farm THE GAS ATTACK on the French laager and the ma.s.sacre of the Spanish troops at the artillery park had ratcheted the already tense Bosnian situation up yet another notch. Now the UN PROFOR was aware that the rockets were present in their area of operation. But rather than this being a help to the Stony Man team's efforts to stop a major tragedy from taking place, it was only making their situation more dangerous. The PROFOR command had put every available troop they had in the field looking for an enemy force moving in tan vehicles, and that put Bolan and Phoenix Force in their sights, as well.

After getting the latest update from Katz, Barbara Price went out to the helipad to greet Hal Brognola as he returned from his latest flight north to update the President.

"Hal, the mission has been compromised and I want to bring the guys home before something else goes wrong. With the gas attack and the ma.s.sacre of the Spanish troops, this situation isn't any kind of secret anymore. PROFOR has every troop under its command looking for terrorists. And with all those trigger-happy UN grunts racing around looking for nerve-gas rockets, they're going to get shot up as soon as someone spots them in that tan Toyota."

"That was what I was thinking, too," he admitted as he keyed the lock on the door, "and I discussed mission closure with the President." "And?"

"And he said it's a no go. He thinks that since the guys have been in on it since the beginning and are still closing in on the Iranians, they're still the best bet for stopping them in time."

Like it or not, Price knew that Brognola was right. "Okay, then," she said, "since the cat is out of the bag, as it were, I want to go all out. We're blown and it's just a matter of time now before someone scopes our people out and shoots them up. So, since we're compromised, there's no need to maintain our secrecy, and I want to pull out all the stops."

"What else can we do that we aren't already do-ing?"

"We can send Grimaldi in with a gunship to give them some aerial mobility and fire support. The elections are tomorrow, and they don't have much time left. Going aerial may be our last chance to catch up with them in time."

"Do it," he said.

"I've got an armed Black Hawk on standby at Aviano. With it, Grimaldi can carry them to the contact and then provide a little air support, as well."

Brognola sighed. Once more Barbara was second-guessing him, but he also knew that there was nothing he could do to get her to stop doing it. After all, that's why she had been chosen to be the Stony Man mission controller.

"Just do it and I'll worry about the political fallout later."

Price clicked in her comm link. "Aaron, tell Jack to launch."

Aviano Air Base, Italy "I WISH I WAS GOING with you this time," Hammer said as he walked out of the ready room beside Grimaldi.

"I know. But like Katz said, this has gone well beyond what we normally do on our missions. We'll be facing the PROFOR guys now, as well as those Iranians. It's going to get nasty, and he doesn't want you to have to answer the same questions we're go-ing to have to answer when this is all over. It won't be a good career move if you know what I mean. Plus you're still our ace in the hole, son. If I get a Strella up the a.s.s, you'll get to fly in and pick up what's left."

"Nonetheless," Hammer replied, "I feel like I'm not holding up my end of the stick."

"You've done a lot for us already," Grimaldi said. "And it's all been things you didn't sign on to do when you took up wearing the blue suit. If you hadn't made that bombing mn for us, the guys would be facing several times the number of bad guys that they are now."

"I still wish I was going with you."

The UH-60 Black Hawk Grimaldi strapped himself into this time was another loan from Aviano special operations squadron. It was painted matte black and looked like it had had a nose job. In this case, though, it had been a nose extension and not a reduction.

In fact the nose-gun package from a AH-64 Apache gunship had been grafted onto the Black Hawk to give it more firepower. And the 25 mm chain gun packed a lot of firepower in a small package. With the chain gun and the 7.62 nun Minigun on the door mount, he could work his way through almost anything short of heavy armor. Since the Iranians were driving Toyota pickups, he shouldn't have any problem putting them out of action as soon as he could get them in his sights.

Hammer watched until the Black Hawk was out of sight before getting back into the jeep and driving back to the CP. Like Grimaldi had said, there was still a chance that he'd get into the game.

GmMALDI'S MODIFIED Black Hawk chopper also had uprated turbines to go along with the extra arma-ment and equipment. And since he was flying without a strike team in the back, he made record time across the Adriatic. As he approached the coast of Bosnia, he flipped the switch to the IR-emission units mounted on both the belly and the back of his machine. They emitted strobe-light-like bursts of high-energy infrared radiation and were designed to b.u.m out heat-seeking-missile guidance systems. It was a pa.s.sive defense, but every little bit helped.

Then, to try to keep off of anyone's radar screens, he activated the chopper's ECM suite. The chopper's Electronic Counter-Measures weren't as good as the ones on bigger aircraft, but he felt more comfortable with the unit turned on.

Lastly he armed the chain gun in the nose turret and selected the armor-piercing ammunition feed. The 25 mm bullets would chew through most anything he might encounter.

With everything set to rock and roll, the pilot tightened the fingers of his flying gloves before flipping on the TFR navigation system. The Terrain-Following Radar would let him get right down in the dirt for a nap-of-the-earth flight, which was another way of saying that he'd be flying closer to the ground than most of the local b.u.mblebees. No big deal, though. If he had to, he'd roll in on the chopper's landing-gear wheels. Anything to keep him out of the sight of the Strellas.

As he nudged forward on the cyclic to drop the Black Hawk's nose, he keyed his throat mike to let the boys know that he was on the way. "Stony Man, this is Flyboy. I'm inbound to your location, over."

"Flyboy," McCarter's voice came over his earphones, "this is Phoenix One, copy inbound. Welcome to the party. What's your ETA? Over."

Grimaldi glanced at his nay screen and his airspeed indicator. "I'd say a little under an hour, over."

"Roger. We'll keep on trucking until we can find a good Lima Zulu. Over."

"Roger, I'll be looking for you."

ALl NADAL NEVER THOUGHT that it would come down to this. Since that day of death in Beirut, he had seen himself as a holy warrior, killing the ene-niles of Islam wherever he found them. He had al-ways a.s.sumed that he would die somewhere along the way as did all the best holy warriors. He only feared death because it would take him away from his quest for vengeance. A dozen or more Westerners had died in the attack at Aviano, but that wasn't enough blood to even begin to pay for the deaths of his family. The blood of a hundred Americans wouldn't be enough to pay.

But he had never thought that he would ever have to offer himself to G.o.d this way, as a human bomb.

He knew the stories of other freedom fighters who had strapped explosives to their bodies and then walked up to Israeli patrols before detonating them. It was a tactic that had worked particularly well with young female suicide bombers before the Israelis learned to fear Muslim women, as well as the men.

The call he had been expecting from Tripoli had finally come in, and he had been ordered to eliminate that secret American team at Aviano at all costs. And he hadn't been given the option of failure this time. When he explained that he had come to the same conclusion and was already moving against the Yankees, his superiors wanted to know how he intended to attack them. But when he explained his plan to smuggle in small arms, it had been turned down cold.

Tripoli wanted a bigger attack, something that wouldn't only take care of the American special unit, but that would do more damage to the base itself. A suicide-bomb attack had been ordered, and he had been told to lead it himself. Tripoli couldn't afford to take any more chances.

The explosive strapped to his body was RDX, Rapid-Detonating Explosive, and was several times more powerful than an equal amount of C-4 plas-tique. To increase the fragmentation effect, the RDX had been studded with small pieces of hardened steel rod. When the RDX detonated, the steel rods would fly out in all directions like a thousand machine-gun bullets. But, being square-tipped rods instead of pointed bullets, they would do more damage when they hit, tearing through flesh and bone instead of punching a hole.

The system had been extensively field-tested against the Israelis and it worked well. Anyone within twenty yards of the blast would die, shredded by the projectiles. He would die in the blast, as well, but it would be a death well spent if he could take the Yankees with him.

When he stepped out of his black BMW, he left the keys in the ignition. It had been a great car, but the b.o.o.by trap under the seat now made it yet another weapon against the West. Whoever tried to drive it from the parking lot would become another victory for the revolution.

Walking across the parking lot, he got into the waiting ambulance.

Stony Man Farm WHEN HUNT WETHERS checked his satellite-orbit monitor, he saw that he had another satellite coming up on a pa.s.s over Italy. Thinking that he would get a jump on what he knew Lyons would be asking him to do before too much longer, he programmed it to activate the position trackers Gadgets Schwarz had planted on the terrorist's car.

No sooner had he told the satellite to send the activating signal than he got a return. Flashing the map up on the monitor, he saw that the icon marking the bugs was motionless in what looked like a park- ing lot on the western side of the Aviano air-base perimeter.

He uplinked the satcom video connection, and Katzenelenbogen's face immediately appeared.

"Katz," Wethers said, "you may have a problem. I don't know what to make of something I just came up with here."

"What's that?"

"I punched in the code for those trackers Schwarz put on the Lebanese's car and it came back that it's parked right outside the air base."

Katz didn't need to hear any more; neither did Lyons.

"Gadgets," Lyons snapped, "Get your locator and see if you can pick up your trackers. The Farm says that we have company coming."

"What is it this time?" Hammer asked. Since Grimaldi's departure, the Air Force pilot had been monitoring his progress to pick up the Stony Man team.

"I think we have a hit team coming after us."

"But that's impossible," Hammer said. "This base is closed tighter than a nun's knickers. There's no way that any Iranians or Libyans are going to get in here."

"Electrons don't lie," Schwarz said as he watched the directional needle of his bug locator swing. "They're here or they're going to be real soon."

He looked over at Katz. "You want me to notify base security?"

The Israeli smiled. "Let's not do that this time.

Since they've decided to come all this way just to visit us, I think we should get ready to give them a nice warm welcome."