Mind Bomb. Don Pendleton

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ and a ham radio antenna on top, but it sure smelled to McCarter like a currently unoccupied machine gun tower. McCarter drove beneath a weathered sign covered with strings of Christmas lights that read Corkie’s Autohaus in Hebrew, Arabic and English.

      Maan Korkaz stepped out of a trailer.

      McCarter and James shot each other a look. The Druze auto mechanic and reputed arms dealer bore an extremely disturbing resemblance to the bearded, evil, mirror-universe Spock from the original Star Trek series, save that he didn’t have pointed ears and he wore a blue mechanic’s boiler suit. Unlike Spock, he also smoked unfiltered Turkish cigarettes. McCarter and James climbed out of their SUV.

      McCarter tipped his cap. “Morning, guv.”

      Korkaz snorted. He spoke with a British accent. “I know someone who has spoken for you.”

      “Then sell me some guns, mate.”

      Korkaz eyed McCarter astutely. “Brighton Beach lad?”

      “You are a gentleman of discernment. This is my friend Cal.”

      “Pleased to meet you. Your friends can stay in the car. Follow me.” McCarter and James shot each other another look. The Middle East was a barter culture. Usually tea and hospitality and a feeling-out process preceded deals. Manning, Encizo and Hawkins gave WTF looks from the backseat. McCarter and James rolled the dice and followed as Korkaz led them behind the covered car bays to a small, weed-choked automotive graveyard of rusting hulks. “I don’t know what you have heard, Mer—?”

      “David.”

      “Call me Corkie. But things are a bit crazy around here of late.”

      “Aren’t they always?”

      “More than usual.”

      “Even for around here?”

      “Even for around here.”

      Korkaz led them to a rusting yellow school bus. He clambered inside and yanked up a hatch in the floor. A short flight of wooden steps led down into darkness. The Druze hit a switch and cheerfully bright track lighting illuminated a low but spacious bunker full of crates.

      “So you want to go into Lebanon?” Korkaz asked.

      “No, I don’t.” Phoenix Force had operated in Lebanon on a number of occasions. They had found answers there. Usually at terrible cost, and they were answers that nobody wanted to hear. “But I have to. What’ve you heard?”

      “Nothing good. Killings. Inexplicable ones. Bad ones, even for this—how do you say?—neck of the woods.” The Druze suddenly grinned disarmingly. “I would not go there unarmed were I you.”

      “So what have you got?”

      “I have something for you. I am not sure if it fits the bill, but you may recognize it from your salad days of youth.” Korkaz opened a crate and McCarter felt a twinge of nostalgia as he gazed upon the contents. Korkaz nodded. “No one wants submachine guns anymore. Everybody wants PDWs and ARs.” Korkaz sighed at the dully gleaming cast-steel weapons. “Dying breed.”

      McCarter took up one of the submachine guns. The Sterling was a weapon he was well familiar with. Unlike most automatic weapons the magazine curved out from the left-hand side rather than down from the bottom, which made it look vaguely like one half of a backward crossbow. The beer-can-thick, fattened, black metal tube of a built-in sound suppressor modified the barrel of this example. The weapon was a Sterling Mk-5. McCarter had carried just such a weapon during his stint in the British SAS. “Brilliant. Where’s it from, then? India?”

      Korkaz blew out a long, thin stream of smoke. “Iraq. Republican Guard security detail.” The Druze nodded at James. “Got them from some Yanks a while back.”

      McCarter pulled out a massive wad of Euros. “I’ll take them, and every spare magazine you have. Pistols?”

      “Browning Hi-Powers, manufacture.”

      It was all old-school British gear and what McCarter had been weaned on. “I have a lad who is something of a sharpshooter. You have anything with a scope sight? Preferably sighted in?”

      “I might have something, but most likely old.”

      “That’ll do.” McCarter sighed hopefully. “Got any grenade launchers?”

      “I wish.”

      McCarter’s cell rang. He didn’t recognize the number. He answered in a neutral English language accent. “Hello?”

      “The Minerva Hotel. You have ninety minutes. If you are not there, there will be no further communication.” It was the same woman’s voice with the same accent he couldn’t identify.

      The line went dead. Korkaz and James looked at McCarter expectantly. McCarter shrugged at Korkaz. “You know the Minerva Hotel?”

      The Druze nodded. “I do, Hezbollah took unofficial ownership a decade ago. The IDF has bombed it dozens of times. It is mostly a pile of rubble with a rats’ nest of tunnels beneath that put my poor cellar to shame.”

      McCarter just didn’t see his job getting any easier. “You wouldn’t have any hand grenades?”

      Korkaz stroked his beard. “There might be a few Indian manufacture Mills bombs lying about.”

      “I’ll take all you have.”

       CHAPTER SEVEN

      The Minerva Hotel, Lebanon

      McCarter grimly surveyed the hotel. She was old, built in the turn of the last century European style. People had once called Lebanon the Switzerland of the Middle East. Now the hotel, much like the nation, was a bullet-and-bomb-scarred pile. He scanned the shattered balconies and the gaping, blown-out main entrance and lowered the Israeli artillery binoculars he had gotten from Korkaz. “I got nothing.”

      “Copy that.” Gary Manning, the team’s sharpshooter and demolitions expert, scanned through the scope of an old but serviceable Belgian Special Police Rifle. “No movement.”

      Thomas Jackson Hawkins, the team’s newest member, squatted behind a bit of broken wall. “Daylight meet, everything around is blown down. No way to sneak in without being seen. The approach is kill-zone.”

      McCarter nodded. If whoever called the meet had bad intentions, they were going to start off with big advantages. However, the Briton was fairly certain whoever it was wanted them to come inside first. “By twos, Cal, Rafe, take point. T.J., with me. Gary, on our six. Watch the windows.”

      The team froze as a pair of F-16s roared by overhead. Phoenix Force moved out as the fighter jets screamed toward Israel to re-arm. Calvin James and Rafael Encizo moved forward scanning with their weapons. They crouched by the yawning main entrance. James hand-signaled the rest of the team forward. McCarter moved swiftly across the deadly open ground waiting for fire to suddenly erupt out of the upstairs windows. None came. He snuck a look at the lobby. Everything that wasn’t part of the building’s structure had been stripped. An RPG had obliterated СКАЧАТЬ