Critical Intelligence. Don Pendleton

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СКАЧАТЬ mio,” he whispered, rifle forgotten.

      Three M-4 carbines fired as one from a distance of less than fifteen yards.

      “TAKE HIM,” McCarter instructed.

      Hawkins fired before the Briton finished his sentence. His silenced M-4 chuffed once. A single smoking 5.56 mm casing popped out of the weapon’s breech and arced through the air.

      The sentry staggered backward as if he had just been punched in the chest. The man looked down, shock on his face, and his cigarette tumbled from his lips.

      The man toppled over backward and disappeared from view behind one of the trucks. Hawkins’s spent shell casing hit the ground of the drainage ditch and came to rest.

      “Go! Go! Go!” McCarter barked. The ex-SAS veteran jumped up, carbine at the ready, and charged toward the trailer. Behind him the remaining three members of Phoenix Force instantly followed.

      Fifty yards back, Rafael Encizo covered their rear security.

      As they sprinted forward the unit automatically split off into two teams of two. McCarter and Hawkins ran for the front door, while Calvin James and Gary Manning peeled off to target the rear door of the structure. As they ran closer they could make out the faded white paint and black lettering reading Doctors Without Borders.

      In a bitter twist of irony the mobile home was the stolen remnant of some forgotten humanitarian mission.

      McCarter hugged the front of the trailer as he ran, weapon up and sighted in on the front door. Behind him Hawkins jogged with his weapon at a higher angle, covering the windows.

      From down the runway the sounds of Able Team firing could be clearly heard.

      McCarter ran up to the metal steps suspended below the front door of the trailer and spun around them. He kept the light carbine up and ready with the muzzle covering the entrance as his left hand went to the suspender of his H-harness web gear and jerked an M-67 fragmentation grenade free.

      Hawkins put his back against the trailer, muzzle of his own M-4 pointed upward as he reached out with his left hand and put it on the doorknob. He met McCarter’s eyes. The fox-faced Briton nodded once.

      Hooking the ring of the safety clip to the thumb of his trigger hand, McCarter pulled hard and threw the pin into the dirt. He opened his fingers and let the spoon fly free, igniting the fuse.

      Hawkins nodded back. His fingers twisted the handle all the way back and he yanked the flimsy door open. McCarter leaned forward and tossed the grenade through the opening at ankle level.

      The OD-green metal sphere flew inside the door and bounced.

      McCarter and Hawkins both turned away from the opening, throwing shoulders up against the coming blast.

      Manning and James cut around the end of the trailer and ran up to the back door. Like the front, this rear entrance was serviced by three metal stairs inside runner struts welded to the bottom of the trailer frame.

      Windows broke the surface of the mobile home, spilling bars of light out into the desert night. From this close to the structure it was easy to discern the hum of the generator placed next to the back door.

      James cut wide around the generator housing and took a knee at an angle to the back door, weapon up as he provided security.

      He and Manning saw the terrorist at the same time. The Hispanic man was adorned with a shapeless black beret and a full black beard that obscured most of his face in a tangle of knotted hair.

      He stood over a kitchen sink and casually looked outside as he washed his hands. Manning drew a tight sight bead directly between the man’s eyes at the center of his beetled brow.

      Both Phoenix Force commandos paused for a moment. Suddenly, the man’s eyes jerked wide in surprise and James tightened his finger on his trigger.

      The grenade explosion filled the space behind the man. Suddenly a thin red syrup splashed the windowpane just as the glass burst outward from the concussive force, spraying shrapnel out in a deadly arc.

      Manning and James automatically shifted the muzzles of their weapons and let loose with a long series of 3-round bursts, tearing the rear door to shreds and throwing a wall of lead into the trailer to cut off retreat for the terrorists trapped inside.

      From the other side of the trailer came the distinctive sounds of M-4 carbines firing as McCarter and Hawkins moved in to mop up.

      Smoke rolled out of shattered windows as the firing stopped.

      “Clear!” McCarter barked.

      “Clear!” James shouted.

      “Phoenix has seized objective,” McCarter announced.

      “Able is clear,” Lyons confirmed through the com link.

      “I copy.” Jack Grimaldi’s voice broke in from where he circled the Osprey CV-22B overhead. “Airfield secured. We’re coming in.”

      CHAPTER ONE

      Barbara Price opened her eyes.

      She awoke clearheaded and alert, knowing exactly where she was and what she needed to do.

      There was a war being fought in the shadows and as the Stony Man mission controller, she was at its epicenter. Her eyes went to the window of her bedroom. It was dark outside. She looked over to her bedside table and read the time on the glowing red numerals of her digital clock.

      She had been asleep for a little over four hours. She sat up and pushed a slender hand through her honey-blond hair. She felt revitalized after her power nap, and with a single cup of Aaron “Bear” Kurtzman’s coffee, she knew she’d be ready to face another day.

      She got up and smoothed her clothes before picking up the copy of the Washington Post she had placed by the bed. Before stepping out into the upstairs hallway of the Stony Man Farm main house, she reread the headline that had jumped out at her.

      Government Accounting Office Finds Fraud

      A GAO investigation led by Deputy Director Hammond Carter has led to a senate investigation of funding for several “black op” Pentagon units…

      Disgusted, Price stopped reading. The mission controller had too much on her mind at the moment to worry about politics as usual in Washington, D.C.

      She frowned. The name “Hammond Carter” was unfamiliar. If there was a new player trampling through intelligence and special operations playgrounds, then she needed to be on top of it. She resolved to have her computer wizard Akira Tokaido see if Stony Man had any files on the man.

      As she walked down the hall and then the stairs to the main floor of the farmhouse she began mentally clicking through options and categorizing her tasks. She had men in the field, preparing to go into danger and, like the conductor of a symphony, it was her responsibility to coordinate all the disparate parts into a seamless whole.

      She was in the basement and headed for the rail system to the Annex when the cell phone on her belt began to vibrate. She plucked it free and used the red push-talk button СКАЧАТЬ