“Come on, dear,” she said, smiling. “Let’s get you on board where you can use the rest room.” Her nametag said Gwenneth, and the tall beauty had deep green eyes, a sure sign of not being of pure Chinese descent.
“Thank you,” Harrison whispered in a little voice. “I didn’t want to seem pushy or anything, but, well, you know…”
“My first baby seemed to love kicking my bladder,” the woman said in a friendly manner. “I understand. It’s okay, come with me, please.”
A few of the younger men scowled as the pair moved past the line and onto the plane. But all of the adults merely smiled as they figured out the reasoning behind the courtesy, and remembered similar incidents from their own lives.
A killer a hundred times over, Harrison took hold of the pretty woman’s arm and let his hand press against her uniform jacket, savoring the warmth of her full breasts as they walked along the skyway tunnel. Then he felt a flash of real fear at the totally unexpected appearance of a second weapons scanner in the entrance of the waiting 747 jetliner. This wasn’t on any of his plans or charts! Relinquishing his hold on the flight attendant, Harrison cradled his fake stomach and pressed on the sides to activate the Chameleon at its lowest setting. The tunnel lights flickered for a brief moment as the field engaged, but then they returned to normal and he passed through the EM scanner without incident.
Inside the plane, he gave a male flight attendant his ticket and shuffled quickly toward the little lavatory. Once inside, Harrison locked the door and reached under his dress to turn on a Humbug. The device silently swept the lavatory for any optical pickups or working microphones. When it checked as clear, he pulled out a Tech-9 machine pistol, worked the bolt to chamber a round for immediate use, then slid it back under his dress into the cushioned sack of supplies hanging from his shoulders. The thing weighed a ton, but there was no other way to accomplish his mission. So what couldn’t be changed had to be endured. At least temporarily.
Adjusting the power levels on the Chameleon, he raised the dial from its lowest setting to about halfway, and locked it into position. Soon now, very soon. Using the toilet, Harrison washed his hands and waddled out to his seat, settling down with a contented sigh.
Remembering to read a magazine through his glasses, he waited and watched as the last of the passengers came on board. After the door was latched shut, the pilot made an announcement that the flight was on schedule, and the steward began his mindless song about safety and seat belts, while the female flight attendant checked seat belts and the storage of the carryon baggage. Gwenneth was working his aisle, and Harrison allowed himself to study her in detail. Slim legs rising to a perfect rear, a narrow waist and large breasts. Midnight-black hair, pouting lips, sparkling green eyes—yeah, maybe he’d keep her alive for a while, before he sent everybody else on this plane straight to hell.
As the pretty flight attendant walked by, Harrison stretched out a fingertip to lightly brush the smooth nylons on her thigh.
Angrily, Gwenneth glanced down to scold the flirt. But when she saw it was the pregnant passenger, she dismissed it as an accident and moved on to help other passengers settle in for the long flight to India.
Yes, do your job, little flower, but nothing can save these fools now. Harrison smirked behind an impassive face. All I need are a few more minutes. Then it will be too late to stop me. And afterward, nobody would ever be able to stop the fall of America.
Stony Man Farm, Virginia
MURMURING SOFTLY, the radio receiver tucked into security chief Buck Greene’s ear gave a constant report on the progress of the Black Hawk gunship coming in from the south. The surface-to-air missile bunkers were armed and ready in case it wasn’t the Stony Man teams inside coming home. The Farm’s mission controller, Barbara Price, had told Chief Greene about the secondary effects of the Chameleon device, so he was taking no chances. If the lights flickered just once, or if there were two Black Hawks instead of one, then he would order the covert fortress to cut loose with everything it had, which was plenty. A mistake could be made, and friends might die. “How could we stop a Chameleon attack?” Greene wondered out loud.
“Yeah, I’ve been thinking that myself,” John “Cowboy” Kissinger stated. “Radar-invisible gunships, armed with invisible missiles—how could we stop those?”
“We couldn’t,” Greene replied flatly. “That’s what worries me. Even our proximity trips wouldn’t work.”
“Damn.”
“That’s putting it mildly.”
If they were reduced to visually targeting a flying enemy, they’d be slaughtered. Running stiff fingers through his hair, Kissinger scratched his head as he considered possible countermaneuvers, and came up with nothing.
Tall and lanky, Kissinger was the master gunsmith for the covert warriors of Stony Man, his strong and nimble hands constructing nearly all of their speciality weapons. Guns were his thing, and there were damn few better at his job in the entire world. A 10 mm Megastar pistol rode in his shoulder holster this month, the Magnum automatic being personally tested by the gunsmith for possible use by the field operatives. Unless a weapon carried the Cowboy seal of approval, it never made it into the hands of the Stony Man commandos.
“Our heat-seekers are good, but at short range, they’d never have enough flight time to lock on to the exhaust of an incoming missile or rocket,” Kissinger said at last.
“I know,” Greene rumbled.
“Just trust to the nets,” Kissinger said, glancing at the thick trees surrounding the hidden base, “and keep those land mines armed. Whether it’s helicopters, jet packs or pogo sticks, they got to land sometime.”
“Amen to that,” Greene said, tilting his head to listen to the soft voice coming over the radio. “Heads up, they’re here.”
Almost immediately they heard the powerful throb of rotor blades approaching from the south. The noise rapidly built in volume until suddenly a sleek Black Hawk came into view over the leafy tops of the trees in the park.
Greene and Kissinger watched the helicopter maneuver into a landing.
As the aircraft landed, the two men caught sight of the grinning pilot through the cockpit windows and relaxed. Chief Greene and Kissinger walked from the building bent over against the turbulence of the spinning blades. Before they got halfway there, the side door of the Black Hawk slid open, exposing Able Team and Phoenix Force. Carrying bulging duffel bags, Carl Lyons, Rosario Blancanales and Hermann Schwarz jumped to the ground, and, bent low, hurried to greet their friends.
Smiling with pleasure, Greene and Kissinger shook hands with the team.
“Glad to see you guys in one piece,” Greene shouted. “How did it go?”
“Still in one piece,” Lyons quipped.
Kissinger snorted a laugh. “Damn glad to hear it!”
Just then, the men of Phoenix Force exited the aircraft along with their cargo of destruction. The men were still under the blades when the Black Hawk lifted and circled the Farm once, the smiling pilot giving the men on the ground a thumbs-up gesture before leveling out and departing.
“Nice to see you boys again,” Kissinger stated as the swirling dust settled. “Barb’s waiting in the computer room for a debriefing. Something’s going on in Alaska.”
“Alaska?” Rafael Encizo asked, shifting the strap of the duffel over his shoulder. “Any trouble with the Chameleon test?”
They already knew? Chief Greene shook his head. “Better ask Barb.”
The two teams accepted that and headed for the farmhouse.
Walking onto the porch and up to the front door, McCarter tapped a security code into a keypad and the door clicked open.
The teams headed directly to the basement, taking the stairs rather than the elevator, ceiling-mounted security cameras tracking them along the way.