Double Blindside. Don Pendleton

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СКАЧАТЬ ran the address. Tracked it down through local admin for property tax they pay in the UK. House is owned by a guy called Stanley Rimmer. His bio has him down as a landlord on a few properties. Tracking back through his transactions, we came to a dead stop with the real owner of the house.”

      “The Polat group?” McCarter said.

      “Way down the chain,” Kurtzman said. “A long chain, but if you’re in there, the truth will come out.”

      “More to it, though?” McCarter said.

      Brognola smiled at the Briton’s grasp of the detail.

      “Money in the deal was paid via Aziz Makar. Our Özgürlük paymaster.”

      Brognola waited to see if anyone registered the word and was not disappointed when Hawkins tapped the file in front of him.

      “It’s in the file,” he said. “The organization fronting the opposition to the U.S. in Turkey and the hinted-at American strike—Özgürlük—keeps showing.”

      “Based on intel from Makerson and Berna Kartal’s own file, I had my people run a deep trawl across the internet,” Kurtzman said, joining the ongoing conversation again.

      Deep trawling was Kurtzman’s way of saying his team had dug their way into sites both open and secret. In Kurtzman’s eyes, if information was available, whether he got it by fair means or foul, the need was there. It was seldom the Stony Man cyber team failed to come up with the goods. When Stony Man got caught up in missions where lives and security were the main factors, Kurtzman threw rule books out the window. He hated protocols that might deter weaker individuals. They were knocked aside by Kurtzman and his people. To him the protection of America, the SOG teams and that often sneered-at word justice were more important. Aaron Kurtzman dedicated every waking hour to maintaining the integrity of his department and his people.

      “The NSA has picked up recent phone chatter involving Özgürlük. This group might have money behind them,” Kurtzman said, “but they don’t have a monopoly on staying totally undercover. They are not very sophisticated when it comes to covering their tracks. We picked up traces of communication between various individuals. Once we located cell phones from the numbers Kartal and Makerson identified, it wasn’t all that difficult to expand our lists and start tracking messages.”

      He put the text messages on-screen—most of the originals had been in Turkish, so Kurtzman had pulled in Erika Dukas, one of the translators Stony Man occasionally consulted. She had taken the messages and fed them through her computer, translating and creating English versions. Passed back to Kurtzman, the messages had been incorporated into his files.

      “Lots of talk back and forth,” Kurtzman said. “All about logistics. Supply. Locations. This last one will interest Able. You people may recall the late Jack Regan. Arms dealer who was killed a while back. Now we have his successor, a Mexican named Pablo Gutierrez. He’s picked up some of Regan’s old clients. The Echelon listening device picked up some vague chatter with Gutierrez’s name attached to a couple of emails from our Turkish dissidents. Something about a deal with a Russian—Gennadi Antonov. Vague. No specifics, but Antonov is suspected of ties to former Russian military.”

      “Where does he hang out? This Regan clone?” Hermann “Gadgets” Schwarz, Able Team’s electronics expert who had been silent for most of the meeting, asked.

      “Miami.”

      Blancanales scanned the messages on the plasma screen.

      “That damn name again,” he said. “Özgürlük. It’s like a secret handshake for these guys. But unfortunately for them, not too secret.”

      Brognola said, “Okay, people, time to saddle up. Look into it. If it doesn’t pan out, no harm done. But if there’s solid evidence, you know what to do. We don’t dare miss this in case it is real.”

      There was a brief silence as everyone around the conference table had a final run through their files. A few more questions were put forward until they were all satisfied for the moment.

      “Anyone like to hear an idle thought?” McCarter said as everyone started to move.

      Brognola turned his attention to the Phoenix Force leader. McCarter never had idle thoughts.

      “Go ahead, David.”

      “This is just rambling. If Özgürlük does turn out to be really running this threat to blackmail us and it doesn’t work and they set off a nuke close enough to damage the Incirlik base—what about the nukes already stockpiled there?”

      “Ouch,” Hawkins said. “Damn, how would that work? I mean would they go off, as well?”

      Manning said, “If they’re not actually armed, maybe not. But radioactive material could be leaked.”

      “I’ll get my team to look into that,” Kurtzman said.

      Lyons said, “Time to update the President, Hal. He’ll need to take some kind of action over this.”

      “Alerting the base would be in the cards,” McCarter said.

      As the teams filed out, Brognola watched them go, his mind already turning over what McCarter had said. The Briton had been right on the button. If the suggestions about nukes were true, with the bottom line being a detonation, the situation would go quickly from bad to worse. Apart from anything else, a strike against Incirlik would make a hell of a statement. It would hit the U.S. hard, dent its pride and take out a strategic factor in the area. The anti-U.S. brigade would get what it had wanted for a long time and Özgürlük would strengthen its position.

      If a dissident group wanted maximum publicity for their aims, a high-profile strike against a major target would be the way to go. Small incidents were not very productive, but a massive hit would focus attention. It would focus in on U.S. military presence across the globe. And collateral damage didn’t bother the perpetrators any longer—9/11 had set the benchmark.

      “So we have to work out whether this Özgürlük deal is a scare tactic or the real thing,” Encizo said as he exited the room. “We need to understand if these people are just faking or genuinely willing to set off a nuke on an American base in Turkey.”

      “And on U.S. soil,” Lyons said.

      * * *

      BARBARA PRICE, IN HER usual efficient fashion, went about organizing travel arrangements for the teams. Able Team’s was an easy option—simply having one of the on-site vehicles prepared while Lyons and his partners gathered their weapons and IDs. Fixing things for Phoenix Force took the bulk of her work. Via Brognola’s clout with the President, travel for McCarter and company was arranged on an Air Force transport on a regular flight across the Atlantic to the UK, then a switch to a similar flight from Lakenheath across to Incirlik, Turkey. For once, the odds were in her favor and the influence of the Commander in Chief allowed her to complete the arrangements within a short time. She was not made aware of any persuasive arguments the President might have used, and in truth she didn’t care. Price only wanted the end result for her people.

      If fate had decreed a different direction for her, Barbara Price could have made her living as a model, even a movie star. She had the looks: honey-blonde, with an athletic, slim figure and penetrating blue eyes. Behind the glamorous appearance, she had a keen, insightful brain that had led her to a position СКАЧАТЬ