Oceans Of Fire. Don Pendleton

nodded at Price. “The Shark is marked.”

      “Good work, Phoenix One. Target has been acquired.”

      “Affirmative, Base.” McCarter’s motorcycle peeled down a side street. “Breaking contact.”

      The Stony Man computer wizard watched Sharkov’s armored convoy as it wound its way through traffic and disappeared into the casino’s rear garage. He leaned back in his wheelchair and typed a few keys. The giant screen split between the real-time feed of the satellite watching the Silk Road casino and a geopolitical map of Southern Asia. “The question is, Sharkman,” Kurtzman mused, “if you have the packages, where are you planning on taking them?”

      “NOW, I DON’T NORMALLY dig nines.” Clayborne Forbes held up an SR-3 Vikhr short assault rifle. “But this baby puts them out at a thousand feet per second with a bullet twice the weight of a normal 9 mm. Throw in the tungsten steel penetrator? This shit sings. Kevlar? Car doors? Titanium? If you aren’t wearing ceramic when this hits you—” Forbes’s smile was ugly as he handed it to Calvin James “—Jack, you are dead.”

      Sharkov laughed harshly and took another weapon from the crate.

      James examined the weapon. It had a stubby barrel and a folding sheet-metal stock. The super-heavy 9 mm bullet was fired from a cut-down AK-47 rifle shell. The weapon’s light weight produced heavy recoil and a cyclic rate of 900 rounds a minute that was almost impossible to control on full-auto, and ate up the 20-round magazine in a matter of heartbeats.

      However, in the Vikhr’s favor, the design bureau of the Russian Central Institute of Precision Machinery Construction had been asked to create a compact, concealable weapon that could penetrate most known forms of body armor and semihardened vehicles for Russian Special Forces. That was all metaphor. The real specification was in fact for a short-range weapon that would penetrate armored limousines, body armor, the bodyguards wearing it and the VIP they were trying to protect. The Vikhr had been designed as an assassination weapon, pure and simple, and it had met the specification with wild success.

      James snapped the folding stock into place and shouldered the Vikhr. The weapon’s inaccuracy was somewhat mitigated by the laser-designator mounted beneath the barrel and the optical sight above. He wouldn’t care to go into open battle with it, but for slaughtering someone in a phone booth or defoliating the occupants of a limousine during a drive-by, he was hard-pressed to think of a better weapon.

      Forbes seemed intimately familiar with it.

      “Fact is, Cal. This town? Hell, this whole country, is wide open. Zhol’s got the local juice.” Forbes grinned at Sharkov. “And the Shark has Moscow backing him.”

      “Da.” Sharkov nodded. “That is correct.”

      “Hell.” Forbes checked the fit of the Vikhr’s shoulder rig. “As long as we don’t assassinate the president or blow up a mosque, we can do anything we want, kill anyone we want, hell, take anything we want.” He racked the action of his weapon and chambered an armor-piercing round. “This place is a goddamn gold mine.”

      “You Navy SEAL, huh?” Sharkov turned his black eyes on Calvin James. “Like Forbes.”

      “Yeah.” James tried his shoulder rig and found he could draw the weapon smoothly from under his leather jacket. “Back in the day.”

      “Back in day.” The Russian savored the American slang.

      “So what’s the plan?”

      “Baby-sitting from Point A to Point B. Nothing could be simpler.”

      James knew too much eagerness on his part would get him killed. They were both Special Forces operators, and from long, hard experience, hated being kept in the dark. He put some doubt into his voice. “Uh-huh.”

      “Listen, man, I know you don’t like being out of the loop, but this shit is on a need-to-know basis.”

      “Need to know.” Sharkov nodded.

      James let his frown speak for him.

      Forbes nodded in empathy. “We aren’t pimpin’, and we aren’t pushin’ drugs. I can tell you that.”

      Sharkov scowled at the admission.

      “No, man, I told you, the brother’s cool.” He looked at James frankly. “We’re transporting technology that some people with the right kind of money want to acquire. That’s really all you need to know. Consider yourself a caravan guard. You guard the boss and the goods with your life. You do that and you’re gonna see the fattest paycheck of your life, with more to follow.”

      Sharkov grunted. “Exactly so.”

      Forbes cocked his head. “You down with this?”

      James racked his Vikhr and flicked on the safety. “I’m down with it.”

      “Good, that’s real good.” Forbes handed him a bandolier with eight spare 20-round magazines. James checked each one out of habit, noting the blue-gray needle points of the tungsten carbide cobalt penetrators protruding from the tips.

      “Point A to Point B, huh?”

      “That’s right.”

      “Does a brother get to know where Point B is?”

      Forbes looked to Sharkov. The ugly Russian shrugged dismissively. “He is SEAL. He will figure it out soon enough anyway.”

      James looked back and forth between the two men. “And?”

      “Afghanistan, man. Kabul.” Forbes tossed his weapon and ammo on the bed. “Our old stomping ground.”

      “We’re driving from Dushanbe to Kabul?”

      “That’s right.”

      “That’s a long-ass drive.”

      “Right again.” Forbes leaned in and spoke in a conspiratorial tone. “But, strangely enough, the safest. Like I told you. We got the juice.”

      “So when do we ship out?”

      “Tomorrow, at dawn.” Forbes leered. “So tonight I’d go with Bermet or the twins, but not all three. You’re going to need your beauty sleep for this one.”

      CHAPTER FIVE

      “Wake up, Sunshine.”

      Calvin James was already awake. He had sensed the door of his room opening and without opening his eyes had known it was Forbes by the big man’s footfalls and the power of his aftershave. Some of James’s limbs were pinned by the sleeping Bermet, but beneath his pillow his right hand was curled around his Heckler & Koch .45. “Morning.”

      “Look at you.” Forbes stared down in mock disapproval at the tangle of bodies on the bed and the champagne bottles strewed about. The big man tsked and shook his head. “You’re a disgrace to the race.”

      James began to disentangle himself from Bermet. “When you see a sister here in Tajikistan, you let me know. Until then…”

      “When in Rome.” Forbes grinned and handed him a mug. The coffee was Turkish, strong enough to strip paint and heavily laced with sugar and cardamom. James sighed as he sipped the coffee. “This place does have amenities.”

      “It’s good to a big fish in a small pond,” Forbes agreed.

      “Yeah.” James stood. “But I want to be a big fish in a big pond.”

      “Oh, yeah?” Forbes looked at him measuringly. “Well, first things first. We got a job to do. Get dressed. Bring your bag. Follow me.”

      “How soon till we leave?”

      “You have twenty minutes.”

      James got up and went to the bathroom. He ran water and then pressed his ear to the door. He could hear Forbes speaking