Sky Hammer. James Axler

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      “Done.” The engineer grinned, extended a hand, and the two men shook.

      “So who would you call?” the DJ smiled.

      “The FBI, man,” the engineer stated with a wave. “These crank yankers might be the real thing.”

      The DJ laughed, then he heard the reverberating drum roll of a Metallica song fading away and rushed back to his board to shove in a commercial for acne cream. When it was over, he shoved in the longest running song he could find, which bought him thirty minutes. Time to contact CNN and get a big check!

      Heading back to the engineering booth, the DJ paused at the sight of the 9/11 wall poster of the Twin Towers. Vaguely he seemed to remember that everybody had lots of hint and clues about the forthcoming attack, but nobody had told the FBI.

      “Aw, shit.” the DJ sighed and picked up a phone. “Hello, Operator? Please give me the phone number for the Philadelphia division of Homeland Security.” He paused. “Yes, ma’am, this is an emergency.”

      “What are you doing?” the engineer demanded, horrified, rushing out of the booth.

      “Doing the right thing. We’re ratting these assholes out, and I hope Homeland puts ’em in a cell down in Gitmo. With extra rolls of film.”

      The engineer rolled his eyes heavenward. “That guy on the phone was right. You’re an idiot.”

      “That may be,” the DJ said, feeling oddly patriotic. “But if you have any porn on the computer, better start purging. Homeland might check it out, and this dump needs you.”

      “Sure, who else would work for these wages?” The engineer snorted rudely. Then he returned to the booth and started hastily accessing files on the station’s PC to delete them like crazy.

      Trevose, Pennsylvania

      “WHAT IS A ZOG?” Zdenka Salvai asked as her commander got behind the steering wheel.

      “Something Nazis talk about,” Bella Tokay replied, tucking away the voice scrambler, then starting the stolen car.

      The vehicle had been obtained outside of a strip club on Admiral Wilson Boulevard in Camden, located just over the bridge from Philadelphia. Few people told friends that they were going to a strip club, thus they were safe to kill. The owner of the vehicle wouldn’t be missed for a long time. Perhaps days. Eventually his body would be found; a corpse inside a plastic garbage bag soon filled it with fumes, and the bags often popped like balloons. It wasn’t the optimum way of disposing of a body, but it was sufficient for today. They needed only a few hours.

      The redhead lit a fresh cigarette. “I hate Nazis,” she stated, puffing out every word. Her long fingers were stained yellow from the constant cigarettes and her teeth were the same. But few men ever noticed that, their vision rarely rising above her ample cleavage. Between her knees was a large object covered with a blanket. Some sort of metallic hose could be seen sticking out from underneath, and there was the faint smell of jellied gasoline.

      Tokay laughed. “As do we all,” he agreed, releasing the brake and heading north on Route 1. Bethlehem was far away, but they had plenty of time. On the seat next to the man was a newspaper, the checkered grip of a compact machine gun barely visible beneath it.

      “Think they will take the bait?” Petrov Delellis asked from the rear seat. Cradling a bulky X-18 grenade launcher, the giant Hungarian seemed to fill the back of the sedan. There was a clean new bandage on the side of his neck, a gift from the stubborn CIA agent in Paris. A goodbye gift.

      “Of course they’ll take the bait,” Tokay replied smugly, steering around a flatbed truck hauling steel beams. “And they’ll waste precious time chasing us around, until the Castle is obtained, and then the boss lets us kill them.”

      “We can’t kill them now?” Salvai said with a scowl.

      Tokay smiled, cold and mercilessly. “Well, maybe one or two,” he answered.

      Sandy Hook, New Jersey

      AS GRIM AS EXECUTIONERS, Able Team strode out of the rolling smoke screen, firing their weapons at every step. Ricochets zinged and threw sparks along the concrete wall separating the parking lot from the little museum, and people with guns ducked behind the stout barrier.

      Still bodies sprawled everywhere on the asphalt between the rows of cars, including a state trooper without a face, a 9 mm HK pistol still in his hand, unfired. A former Los Angeles cop himself, Carl “Ironman” Lyons felt a visceral surge of rage at the sight, but controlled his temper for the moment and kept going. The dead and the dying didn’t matter right now. Only killing the terrorist bastards who had invaded the beachfront park.

      Unfortunately, Able Team had no counterattack plan, no clever tactics or fancy maneuvering. The numbers had fallen, and the three counterterrorists had arrived too late to stop the deadly assault on the vacation spot. Now all they could do was a full-frontal charge with guns blazing.

      Moving from vehicle to vehicle, the three Stony Man operatives maintained a steady cover fire with their assault rifles and shotguns. Circling a bread truck, they caught one of the Red Star agents in the process of reloading his AK-47 rifle. The arming bolt had jammed, probably from overheating. The Chinese agent cursed at their sudden appearance and dropped the Kalashnikov to claw for a Norinco pistol at his side.

      “Don’t do it, bub,” Hermann “Gadgets” Schwarz warned, leveling his M-16 assault rifle.

      But if the Chinese agent understood the words, he made no sign, and the deadly Norinco .45 barely cleared leather when Gadgets sent a wreath of tumblers across the man’s chest. The Red Star agent was thrown backward against a car, shattering the side windows with his splayed arms. Gurgling into death, the agent slid to the asphalt, leaving a trail of red across the car. But Able Team was already on the move, constantly trying to stay ahead of the terrorists. A split second later, a Chinese-made RPG streaked out from behind the souvenir kiosk and the Buick erupted into a fireball from the white phosphorus rounds.

      Popping up from behind a concrete wall near the public restrooms, a Chinese operative fired a long burst from his machine gun, riding the chattering weapon in a tight figure-eight pattern for maximum killpower. The cars in the parking lot were torn apart by the hellstorm of incoming lead, windshields exploding, hoods buckling, tires bursting, and finally a stray ricochet got a gas tank and a compact car violently detonated into a fireball, spraying shrapnel across a dozen other vehicles.

      Taking a stance, Schwarz pumped a shell from the M-203 mounted under the barrel of his M-16. The bomb tracked perfectly, arching high to land on the other side of the concrete seawall. The Red Star agents scattered as thick volumes of smoke rose from the hissing charge. But a salty warm breeze was blowing in from nearby coast, already thinning the protective cover.

      “On three,” Lyons said, readying the Atchisson autoshotgun in his arms. He had only a single 40 round drum with him, so every shot had to count. He hadn’t been expecting a firefight! “Okay…three!”

      The men broke around another SUV, got onto the dented hood of a station wagon and jumped to the top of the seawall. Two Red Star agents were crouching behind the barrier, their weapons aimed for the open section ten feet away, obviously waiting in ambush.

      “Hey,” Rosario “The Politician” Blancanales said softly.

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