Stony Man - Triple Strike Part 4

"That's not half-bad," Manning said as the canister's parachute collapsed. "It almost hit the reflector dead center."

The team quickly opened the canister and got to work. Packed inside was the folded balloon, the STABO harness, the cable box and the helium tanks needed to inflate the balloon. While McCarter helped Lacy into the jumpsuit and harness, James and En-cizo made sure that the cable reel was ready to feed out the several thousand feet of steel-and-nylon ca-ble. A kink in the cable could cause it to break when the retrieval hook caught it, and that could send Lacy plummeting back to earth. McCarter clipped the loop on the end of the cable into the ring on the back of Lacy's harness and inserted the lock pin.

After sitting Lacy down in the correct position for the pickup, Bolan handed him the helmet and goggles that completed his STABO outfit. "You're go-ing to need this up there. It gets a little windy."

"I still don't know who in the h.e.l.l you guys are," the State Department man said. "And when I get back to D.C., I'm not going to try to find out. But I can't even begin to tell you how much I appreciate everything you've done for me. If it was up to me, I'd see that you all got a Medal of Honor for this."

"Don't worry about that," Bolan said with a chuckle. "We all draw a regular paycheck."

Lacy shook his head. "Whatever they're paying you people, it isn't enough."

"Can I get that in writing?" McCarter asked.

"Any time."

JACK GRIMALDI WAS cruising at eight thousand feet in the AC-130E when he got Bolan's call that they were ready to launch the balloon as soon as he could get in position to retrieve it.

"I'm inbound on a heading of zero-eight-six," the pilot replied. "If you launch now, I should be able to pick it up on the first run and get the h.e.l.l out of here. I'm above Strella range, but there's too much radar operating down there for my taste."

"Roger," Bolan sent back.

When they got the nod, James and Manning held the balloon's restraining ropes while Hawkins turned the valve to the helium canister. As the bomb-shaped balloon filled with the lighter-than-air gas, the two men faced it into the wind. When the balloon's stubby fins inflated, they caught the wind and stabilized it. By the time the canister was empty, the twelve-foot-long balloon was straining against the ropes.

"We're go," James said as he pulled the disconnect on the canister.

"Launch it," Bolan ordered.

When James and Manning released the balloon, it swiftly rose into the air. McCarter and Encizo fed out the cable, making sure that it didn't kink as it came off of the roll. When the last of the cable was played out, Bolan keyed his throat mike.

"Come and get it," he radioed to the waiting Grimaldi.

"On the way."

GRIMALDI SPOTTED the blinking strobe light on the bottom of the balloon as soon as it broke through the clouds. The winds had caught it, however, and it wasn't on-line with his flight path.

"I'm going to have to go around again," he radioed to the ground team. "I've got a nasty cross-wind up here, and I don't want to snag the cable. I have to come in straight at it to make a good s.n.a.t.c.h."

"Get a move on it if you can," Bolan sent back. "The opposition's starting to get nasty about wanting this mountaintop back."

A minute later, Grimaldi's voice sounded in Bo-lan's earphone. "I'm coming up on it now and will give you a long count."

"Get ready," Bolan told Lacy as he listened to Grimaldi's approach count down. "Four...three... two...one," he counted down on his fingers. "Now !"

When Bolan's last finger snapped out, Lacy felt like someone had ignited a rocket strapped to his behind. One instant he was sitting on the ground with his legs out in front of him, and the next he was being jerked upward faster than a s.p.a.ce shuttle launching. Even with the helmet covering his ears, he could hear the air screaming past his head. It was in harmony to his own unvoiced screams. He gulped hard to keep his stomach down where it belonged.

He had no way of knowing how long he had been flying through the air before he felt a jerk on the cable. Suddenly he was being pulled backward even faster than before. An instant later, he saw the tail of the camouflaged Hercules appear above him and he slammed to a halt. The cable was caught in a steel claw that was pulling him into the open rear ramp of the plane. Hands reached out to grab his harness and pull him inside the plane.

"You okay, sir?" one of the two men shouted over the roar of the engines and the rush of air from the open ramp.

"Jesus!" Lacy muttered as he swayed on his shaking legs.

"Are you okay?" the man repeated.

"Yes, I'm in one piece."

As one of the men helped him to a seat, the other hit a lever that closed the rear ramp.

"Welcome to Air Bosnia, Mr. Lacy," Schwarz said with a straight face. "May I see your boarding pa.s.s, please?"

"How about that," Lacy replied, playing the straight man and patting his empty pockets. "I seem to have misplaced it."

Stony Man Farm "THEY PICKED LIP Richard Lacy," Barbara Price reported to Hal Brognola on the Farm's intercom. "And he's safely on his way back to Italy."

"Outstanding! The President will be very glad to hear that. Lacy's needed at the upcoming round of election negotiations scheduled for next week, and we were going to have to postpone them if we couldn't get him back."

"Do you want the report on the team, too?" Price broke in on his reverie. ' 'Of course."

"While they were waiting for Grimaldi to deliver the balloon, they ambushed a patrol looking for them and sent them packing. Now that Lacy's gone, they're going to shift gears and try to see if they can find that crashed plane. When they find it, they'll a.s.sess if it needs to be destroyed. And if it has to be blown up to keep it from being salvaged, since the team doesn't have demo packs with them this time, Katz wants permission to use a stealth fighter to drop a two-thousand-pound smart bomb on it."

"I'11 try to clear that with the White House."

"Please try to clear it fast," she said. "We have to be ready to keep that thing out of enemy hands."

"I'm going, I'm going." She smiled. "The chopper's waiting for you." Brognola knew that Stony Man had been located in the Shenandoah Valley to keep it away from the political insanity of the Beltway. Secrecy aside, he sincerely wished that he didn't have to fly ninety minutes anytime he wanted to talk to his boss. But then, collecting frequent-flier miles was part of his job description.

CHAPTER SEVEN.

Bosnia

Dragan Asdik smiled to himself when Major Naslin's men reported their defeat in the mountains. They claimed that they had been ambushed by a company-sized unit and had inflicted heavy casualties on the Yankees before they had been forced to withdraw. As an experienced mountain fighter, the Bosnian doubted that their story was anywhere close to being accurate. More than likely, they had stumbled into a small force that had a better position and had been able to bring accurate fire down on them.

Although the Yankees were his enemies, too, he wasn't unhappy to see the arrogant Iranian major humbled. Even though they were supposed to be Islamic brothers, Naslin looked down on the Bosnians, including Asdik, as not being pure. It was true that Asdik's Turkish ancestors had conquered the region in the 1600s and had married the local women over the centuries. But the Prophet's warriors had always done that, even when they had swept into Naslin's homeland.

It was only in this century that a Persian-Arab half-breed like Naslin could have ever tried to lord it over a Turk. Though he called himself a Bosnian now, Asdik could trace his ancestry back to a Turkish war-flor, a leader of a thousand, in the Ottoman army of Siileyman the Magnificent, which had brought this part of the world under the domination of Islam. The Ottoman Turks had been the mightiest warriors in all of Islamic history, and they had also conquered the land that was now known as Iran when they had carried the green banners of Islam into the Middle East. For all he knew, Naslin himself carried Turkish blood in his veins.

To make it even worse, the Iranian was a Shiite fanatic, not a Sunni like the Bosnians were. It was true that the Shiites were Muslims, too, but as far as a Sunni Muslim like Asdik was concerned, the difference showed. Asdik had noticed early on that Ma-jor Naslin's leadership style seemed to be based on rage. The louder he screamed, the faster his men hustled. This time, though, it hadn't seemed to have worked.

It was more than apparent now that the Iranians weren't good in the mountains. Asdik's own men had been born and raised in these hills, and they knew how to move through the rugged terrain without be-ing obvious about it. The Iranians, however, tried to fight the rocks rather than treat them as their friends and allies. Now that Asdik knew where the Yankees had gone, he decided that it was time to let his troops handle them. Asdik's mountain men were too valuable for him to waste, but this was a good opportunity to show the arrogant Naslin how to use troops in the mountains.

"I will send my men into the mountains after those raiders," Asdik announced when the major was finished ranting and raving. "They know the area well and are used to hunting in it."

Since his men had been turned back, there was nothing that Naslin could say to the Bosnian's pro-posal.

Half an hour later, several groups of experienced mountaineers were driven up to the base of the cliffs. After checking their gear, including mountain-climbing ropes, they staxted for the area where the Iranians had been ambushed. They would pick the trail up there and find these elusive Yankees.

Italy WHILE THE I~'naN government didn't have official representation in the UN contingent that oversaw the operations of the Bosnian protection force, they weren't ignorant about what went on at the Aviano air base. The stakes were high in the struggle for the future of Muslim Bosnia. The imams of Tehran had more than a pa.s.sing interest in the outcome of what they saw as a religious battle against the West. If Bosnia could be turned into a revolutionary Islamic state, it would be a dagger in the soft underbelly of their decadent enemies-a dagger that could be used to bring about the triumph of the Islamic revolution that much faster.

But without an official presence, Tehran kept itself informed through a network of agents as was the case in the rest of Europe. Few of Tehran's agents in this part of Italy were Iranian. The imams had long ago learned that the power of money could be as useful to their struggle as religious fervor. It was particularly useful in the decadent West, where men had no real loyalties except to money. Their money had bought a dozen agents who had infiltrated the air base at Aviano to report on Tehran's enemies.

As a result, Tehran had learned about the arrival of the commando team almost before the wheels of their plane had stopped rolling. The agents hadn't been able to learn any more about them than the fact that they were working out of a small building surrounded by a chain-link fence. But it was apparent that some kind of cla.s.sified operation aimed at Bos-nia was being run out of the small building. And any clandestine American interest in Bosnia was of interest to Tehran.

When Richard Lacy was flown in and immediately hustled away to this new group's headquarters, the Iranian agent controller could wait no longer. He had to learn more about what was happening in that small building, and there was only one way to find out.

Making a phone call, he ordered one of his teams into action.

GADGETS SCHWARZ WALKED Out of the base exchange in the U.S. section of the air base with his bagged purchases under his arm. Since it looked like they were going to be there for a while, they might as well try to live like humans. He had bought some fixings for their coffee, paper plates, plastic eating utensils and napkins, as well as a good stock of snacks. A man had to do something while standing radio watch, and dry roasted peanuts were a favorite of his.

He was walking up to his jeep in the parking lot when three men stepped out from behind the van parked beside his vehicle. Two of them were dressed in the baggy OD uniforms he had seen worn by the Italian troops on the base, but the third wore civilian clothing. The particular combination of clothes he had on and his dark features tripped an alarm bell in Schwarz's mind.

The third man was no more a native Italian than Schwarz was. And when the man's hand dived inside his unzippered jacket, all doubt ended.

Dropping his shopping bag, Schwarz went for the Beretta holstered under his own jacket. The 9 mm pistol cleared leather, and he was diving for cover before the paper bag could hit the pavement.

His first shot was a little off target as he was mov-ing when he fired. Nonetheless, he saw the dark- complected man jerk, so he knew he had scored. The two Italians in uniform were a little slow getting to their concealed weapons, so Schwarz had more than enough time to make sure of his kills before he pro-ceeded to take them out.

The first 9 mm round drilled into the head of the nearer Italian, and he dropped his pistol abruptly be-fore following it to the ground.

The surviving gunner had gotten his pistol into target acquisition by the time Schwarz could get to him. But his first shot missed, and the Able Team commando didn't give him a chance to take another. A double tap over the heart sent his second shot wild, and he joined his buddy on the pavement.

Schwarz was swinging back to put an insurance round in the guy in civvies when he saw the jeep full of Italian air police racing toward him with their M-16s at the ready. Carefully laying his pistol on the ground, he raised both of his hands and stood stock-still.

It was one thing to have taken out the three thugs. But he didn't want to exchange rounds with their NATO allies; it wasn't good form. As he was cuffed and led away, he saw one of them bend down and pick up his bag of PX goodies. At least he wouldn't have to go back and buy new supplies.

"WE'VE GOT A PROBLEM HERE." Katz's face on the video screen in the Farm's computer room was grim.

"What now?" Aaron Kurtzman asked.

"We had hostiles make a move on us here."

"How bad was it?"

"We're okay, but they have two dead and another one wounded. The base is in an uproar, and Schwarz isn't in good odor around here. In fact the NATO security people are grilling him right now."

"Just a second," Kurtzman said. "Let me get Hal in on this."

Brognola had just returned from Washington, but he hurried to the computer room after Kurtzman buzzed him in his office, followed by Price.

"What's this about Gadgets being held by NATO?" Brognola snapped. "What happened?"

Katz filled Brognola and Price in quickly. "The gun battle attracted base security and they're holding him for questioning right now," he concluded.

"Dammit," Brognola exploded. "That wasn't supposed to have happened. You guys were supposed to be keeping a low profile."

The success of Stony Man's operations depended upon the tight ring of security that surrounded the teams and their operations. The Farm's security made breaking into Fort Knox look easy, but any time they moved away from home, they had to be extracareful. Even so, the initiative was always with the attacker and incidents happened.

"He didn't initiate the contact," Katz reminded him. "And Schwarz had little choice but to take ac-tion. The last thing we need is to have one of the team kidnapped."

"You're right," Brognola conceded. "But we can't have him in NATO hands."

"That's why I called. I need you to have the Man spring him."

"I'11 get on the horn to him right away."

"The U.S. commander here is an Air Force Colonel Ralph Waters."

"I'll get right on it."

"What about the wounded attacker?" Price asked as soon as Brognola left to make his call to the President. "Have you been able to get anything out of him?"

"Surprisingly enough," Katz said, "they have gotten a little information. It appears that he's an Iranian."

"You're joking."

"I wish," Katz said. "He claims that he's a mem-ber of some kind of revolutionary Islamic commando group. If this is the case, it gives the operation a new wrinkle."

"Striker did say that Major Hammer mentioned running into a Middle Eastern contingent at the cas-tle."

"I know," Katz said with his characteristic un-derstatement. "And if they're Iranian commandos, too, we have a big problem. If they have connected the two operations, we may have to tell the team to bunker down and wait until we can make the extraction later." Price hadn't liked this mission from the beginning.

It had been put together far too quickly and contin-gencies like this hadn't been planned for. But it was typical of a politically driven a.s.signment. The Stony Man team was on the ground in hostile terntory without a ready means of extraction, and now they could be facing a large group of Islamic fanatics.

"Start working on a way to get them out of there," she told Katz. "And plan to use anything you have at your disposal. I'll start hammering on Hal to get the Man on board so we can do whatever we have to do to make it work."

"Short of sending in a Marine landing force," Katz said, "they're stuck there."

"You take care of the plan; and I'll work on the political clearance. If we have to use Marines, I'll do what I can to get them cleared for it."

Knowing how slim a chance she had of accomplishing that, he wished her luck.

"Thanks, I'll need it."

WHEN KATZENELENBOGEN killed the video connection to the Farm, his eyes drifted to the map on the wall. He knew that Barbara Price was sincere when she said that she'd tweak the Oval Office, but he also knew the realities of Bosnia. The UN and NATO weren't likely to go along with any unilateral American plans to move forces into the region even for a rescue. And even if they did, it would only be after months of bickering and biting about who would get the credit if the plan worked and who would take the blame if it failed. Plus, if there were Islamic agents working inside Aviano, there was no chance that the plan wouldn't be leaked by the time it had been hashed out.

The only chance the Stony Man team had was for him to come up with something that could be done quickly and with the resources he had at hand. He might have to borrow an airplane or two, but with Grimaldi available to take care of the flying ch.o.r.es, he wouldn't have to get the Air Force involved be-yond supplying the hardware. That way they could always plead ignorance about what happened after it took off.

First, though, he had to get Schwarz back from base security. Even though Brognola said that he would get the President working on that ASAP, again Katz knew the realities and he wanted him back fight now.

Reaching into his kit bag, he took out the ident.i.ty papers the Farm had prepared for this mission. According to his ID, he was Bob Brown, a GS-14 in the CIA. The name was so fake that it might as well have been John Doe, but it would work. Schwarz was Joe Green this time, Lyons was Bill White and Blanca.n.a.les was Jim Black.

He was going to have to talk to Price about these names when he got back. Until then, he would have to use what he had been given. Grabbing his leather jacket from the back of his chair, he headed out the door.