Stony Man - Triple Strike Part 3

Hammer briefly went through his observations and conclusions about the man he called the Spider and the troops he'd seen.

When he was finished, Bolan locked eyes with McCarter. "We'd better talk to Katz about this."

"Also," Hammer said, "when you're talking to whomever you guys work for, you might want to mention the fact that my airplane was down somewhere around here. Since it's the most cla.s.sified thing in the air right now, they might not want it to fall into unfriendly hands."

Stony Man Farm "WE JUST GOT a change in plan," Barbara Price told Hal Brognola. "The team got Lacy out of the castle, but the chopper extraction had to be called off."

"What happened?"

"Well, Mack did more than spring your man Lacy out of there. He also rescued the pilot of that downed TR-3, and he explained the facts of life to them."

Brognola didn't want to hear what was coming, but he knew that he had to. "Which are?"

"Apparently they're not dealing with just a Bosnian warlord and a ragtag army this time. There's some kind of Islamic commando unit working out of that fortress, as well, and the pilot reported that they're armed with Russian shoulder-fired antiaircraft missiles."

Brognola didn't quite understand what law of na-ture it was that said that no military operation could ever go the way it was planned. But as long as he had been in this business, it never seemed to change. Just when it looked like you were in the clear, something went wrong.

"So, what are they doing now?"

"They managed to get away from the Bosnians," she answered. "For now at least. They're holed up in the mountains to the east to wait until Katz can come up with a Plan B for the extraction."

He sighed. "I need to talk to Katz."

"The video link is hot."

THE NEW VIDEO SATELLITE link equipment Able Team had set up in the command post made Katzenelenbogen's reports back to Stony Man Farm almost as good as if he were there in person. A big-screen monitor in the War Room displayed his face in living color and gave a glimpse of the command post and all of the communications gear behind him.

"The shoulder-fired Strella isn't as good as a Stinger missile, but it's a close second," Katz stated. "Its heat-seeking warhead can reach up to eight thousand feet or so and deliver a knockout punch. And since they're designed to kill armored ground-attack aircraft, they'd have no trouble taking out a helicopter with one shot." "Lovely."

"Can we get NATO aircraft in there to suppress those missiles and radars?" Katz asked.

"Nope," Brognola replied, shaking his head. "NATO involvement isn't on right now. The political situation won't allow it."

"How about a carrier air strike, then?"

"That won't fly, either," Brognola said. "The situation is too explosive. Any official unilateral U.S. or NATO involvement will blow the peace accord and put us back to square one. That's why the Man tapped us for this operation in the first place."

"What does the Man think they're going to do, then?"

'Tll have to talk to him. But I know that he'll be looking at a ground extraction. Anything that involves troops and equipment will be out."

Katz shook his head. "I don't mean to be disre-spectful and all that, but you might want to ask the President if he has a map anywhere in the Oval Of-rice. If he does, I suggest that he take a good long look at it and figure out how many miles those guys are going to have to walk to reach anything that might be called safe ground. And to keep out of sight, they're going to have to move at night. It's going to take them weeks to get to the closest PRO-FOR unit.

"And," Katz added, "I'm talking about what the situation would be if they were completely on their own. Remember, they've got two recent hostages of uncertain physical condition with them. We don't know if those two guys are going to be up to a month-long walk in the woods." "You got a better idea?" Brognola asked. "Striker wants to try a balloon extraction for Lacy at least. But he's afraid that it'll only work one tame, so we'll only be able to get the one man out."

"How about our guys?"

"They'll try to find the wreckage of the downed plane so it can't be salvaged and examined. If it wasn't completely destroyed in the crash, they want to help it along."

"That's not a bad idea."

"That's what Striker thought, and he wants to work something up to take care of it."

"If he thinks that he can get Lacy out of there safely, let's do that first and then we'll see what it looks like after that."

"That's what I told him."

"So," Brognola asked, "what about the balloon extraction?"

"I talked to some of the guys at the Special Forces unit stationed here at Aviano, and they've got one they said we could borrow."

"Go ahead with that," Brognola ordered. "I'll brief the President."

'tll get back to you when we have it en route."

"Do that."

Brognola wasn't so sure about sending a man of Lacy's age into the air on the end of a balloon cable, but his importance to the Bosnian peace process made it imperative that he be returned as soon as possible. He wasn't going to tell the President how risky it was going to be, though. Sometimes the Man didn't need to know all the details of what was being done in his name.

Bosnia WHEN KATZ RADIOED that Brognola had okayed the balloon extraction, McCarter went to break the news to Lacy. "Mr. Lacy," McCarter said, squatting on the rock next to the older man, "we've come up with a way to get you out of here."

"Please," Lacy said, "call me Rich."

"Okay, Rich. I'm David. Anyway, you don't hap-pen to have an overwhelming fear of heights, do you?"

Lacy shrugged. "Not any more than the next man, why?"

"Well, as I said earlier, we had planned to call in a chopper to take us out, but we had to call it off because of the missiles Major Hammer reported that the opposition is carrying."

Being an old hand at the diplomatic game, Lacy knew when a compromise was being suggested. "What's the altemative to the helicopter?"

"It's called a STABO balloon extraction system. We fit you with a harness, tie it to a balloon that carries a cable up into the air where a plane catches onto it and reels you up."

Lacy blinked hard. He wasn't afraid of heights, but this was ridiculous. He was a diplomat, not a dare-devil. "Like the proverbial skyhook, right?"

McCarter nodded.

"Are you sure it works?"

McCarter nodded. "I've used it several times to get out of a fight spot, and I know that it works. Have you ever seen the James Bond movies? They used it in a couple of them if I remember."

"Did you bring one of these things with you?"

"No. We'll have to hide out here until we can get a STABO rig flown in."

"But if a plane is coming in to deliver this equipment, why can't we fly out on it?"

"Good question, sir. But the plane will be dropping it from above missile range so it won't get shot down."

"Dropping it?"

"Like a laser-guided smart bomb, it will zero in on this location using a laser. But a parachute will slow it for a soft landing."

"If you can get that thing delivered," Lacy said, "I guess I'll try to ride it out of here."

"Good man." McCarter grinned and clapped him on the shoulder. "It will be something to tell your grandchildren about."

"That's going to be a bit of a shock for my wife." Lacy kept a straight face. "We don't have any children."

"You'll be okay, Rich."

CHAPTER SIX.

Aviano Air Base, Italy Yakov Katzenelenbogen soon leamed that not only did the Special Forces unit at Aviano have a STABO rig available, but the Air Force also had one of the specially equipped AC-130E Hercules turboprops on hand. Equipped with the gear to hook on to the STABO balloon cable and reel it onboard, the plane also had a Pave Low laser-target-designator system mounted in the nose so the STABO rig could be accurately delivered to the Stony Man team's location.

Armed with faxed permission to use the plane, Jack Grimaldi went to the flight line to oversee the loading of the STABO canister. The STABO's aeri-al-delivery canister resembled a fat bomb. The laser-guidance unit that had been scavenged from a GBU-27 two-thousand-pound smart bomb bolted to the nose only added to the lethal look. Only the bulky parachute pack nestled in the canister's tail fins de-tracted from its deadly appearance.

Since the AC-130E did not have bomb racks fitted to it, Jack Grimaldi had the STABO canister hooked up to one of the plane's two external-fuel-tank py-lons. Since the flight would be relatively short, he wouldn't need the extra fuel, and the fuel-tank pylons were fitted with quick-release hangers that could drop the canister as well as a conventional bomb rack could.

For this mission, both Gadgets Schwarz and Carl Lyons were going along with him. Schwarz would ride the right-hand seat in the c.o.c.kpit and act as the bombardier to drop the canister. And when the balloon was launched, both of the Able Team commandos would operate the equipment in the cargo hold to capture the balloon cable and reel in the man on the other end of the line.

Within an hour of receiving the okay from the Farm, the camouflaged AC-130E was winging its way across the Adriatic for the coast of Bosnia.

Bosnia "THOSE GUYS MIGHT BE okay in the desert," T. J. Hawkins said as he watched the Iranian officer lead his patrol up the rocky draw on the side of the mountain, "but they don't look worth diddly squat in this kind of terrain. They might as well be carrying signs saying Here We Are! Shoot At Us!"

Hawkins and Gary Manning were guarding the approach to the mountaintop clearing where the rest of the team waited for Grimaldi to deliver the STABO container. For the plan to extract Richard Lacy to be successful, they had to keep the opposition at bay long enough for the pickup to be made. Then they would find a place to hide out in the hills until the Farm could work up an extraction plan for them, as well.

All that, however, was contingent upon their keeping the enemy at bay, and that had now become a problem.

"The b.a.s.t.a.r.ds don't have to be good if they get lucky," Manning reminded him. "Which they just did. If they keep going up that draw, they'll end up behind us."

"Well, then, I guess we'd better just up and see if we can change their luck a tad."

Like everyone else at Stony Man, Manning had gotten used to Hawkins's particular version of the English language and knew that he wasn't suggesting that they jump up and run down there. The problem could be taken care of where they were. The Stony Man warriors had found a perfect sniper's nest in the rocks four hundred yards from the draw, and they could hold off an army from that position.

"That's what we're here for," Manning said as he snuggled the b.u.t.t of his Remington Model 700 sniper's rifle into his shoulder. "Spot for me."

"Start with their pointman," Hawkins suggested. "Four fingers to the right of that biggest boulder."

"Got him."

The field of vision of Manning's twenty-power ranging scope brought the Iranians into sharp focus as he took aim at the lead man. From the pistol in his hand, he identified him as their officer. And while it was great for morale when an officer actually led his troops from the front, it was also a good way to die.

Centering the crosshairs of his scope on the man, the Canadian focused it in to get the range. When he had the target and the range, he took a deep breath. Letting the air out slowly, he stroked the rifle's trigger. Since the 7.62 mm NATO round was supersonic, it made a small crack as the bullet left the muzzle, but the sound suppressor on the end of the barrel m.u.f.fled most of the report.

Four hundred yards away, the round took the Iranian officer square in the middle of the chest. He was spun by the force of the blow and toppled from the rock he had just stepped up onto.

The troops below him scattered for cover, looking around to see where the silenced shot had come from.

"How about another one?" Hawkins asked. "I suggest you work on that guy in the middle who's carrying that RPG launcher."

"Good idea," Manning said as he shifted his sights. Again he ranged in and fired.

Watching through his field gla.s.ses, Hawkins saw the Iranian rocket gunner take the hit and go down. The RPG launcher fell from his lifeless hands and skidded downhill on the rocks.

Another man wearing a pistol belt stood up from the middle of the patrol and urged the troops forward with a wave of his ann. He took only two more steps before Manning's next round put him down.

With their last leader dead, the remaining Iranians started to slip back down the hill. Manning let them get away. The name of the game right now wasn't to kill them all, but to keep them from interfering until Lacy could be picked up. Once he was clear, then they would see about finishing up this mysterious bunch of Iranians.

Hawkins kept his field gla.s.ses trained on the retreating troops. "I remember reading somewhere that three out of ten is about all the casualties a unit can take without breaking. That certainly seems to be the case this time."

"I think it's because I took out their officers," Manning replied. "Most troops will fold when you pop their leaders." "Whatever it was, it seemed to have worked." "This time," Manning said as he glanced at his watch. "But Jack had better get his b.u.t.t in here be-fore too much longer. Now that they know where we are, they'll be back in force."

"Well-" Hawkins patted the stock of his H & K SMG "-if there's too many of them, we can always take tums. My dance card isn't full yet."

WHEN THEY COT THE CALL that Jack Grimaldi was on his way in, the two snipers pulled back to the a.s.sembly area where the STABO equipment would be delivered. The trick to making the delivery, though, was to make sure that the mailbox was properly lit up.

Hawkins warmed up the laser target designator while Manning unfolded the portable reflector that would bounce the beam up into the sky so the STABO canister's guidance system could lock on to it. After planting the reflector in the middle of the small clearing, Hawkins took aim at it from several yards away and activated the laser.

"We're hot," he radioed up to the orbiting plane.

"Roger," Grimaldi radioed back.

In the Hercules, Schwarz was on the plane's laser target designator. After getting a GPS reading from the ground, he plugged in the numbers, and the detector picked up the laser almost instantly.

"I've got the laser," he told Grimaldi. "Go into an orbit while I wake up the canister's guidance unit."

As Grimaldi banked the aircraft, Schwarz locked the ground designator's signal into the canister's guidance head. "Locked and loaded," he said.

"Launch it."

Schwarz hit the pylon release, and the canister fell away. "Bomb's away."

"It's coming at you," Grimaldi informed the Stony Man team. With the canister gone, he put the Hercules into a high orbit to wait until they were ready for the pickup.

CALVIN JAMES WAS the first to spot the falling STABO canister. Since it was shaped like a bomb, it was falling bomb fast. "There it is," he called out, pointing at the black spot in the sky. "I've got it," McCarter replied.

"Come on, come on," James muttered as the spot grew larger. "Pop the d.a.m.ned chute."

If the parachute pack failed to open, the canister would drill a hole in the rocky ground like a dud bomb, and they'd have to fall back on Plan C. The problem was that there wasn't a Plan C. They'd have to run for it while Katz tried to put something else together.

As if it had heard James's plea, the parachute pack's altimeter tripped and the parachute blossomed open. The falling canister suddenly slowed and started oscillating under the canopy. In seconds it hit the ground, smashing the guidance unit, but it had done its job perfectly.