Gathering Storm. Don Pendleton

Brognola, a pattern. Pieces of a puzzle that needed fitting together. The President had made it clear he wanted the SOG to take on the task of dealing with the affair.

      The White House, earlier same day

      “YOU’VE SEEN the photographs Leo Turrin sent in?”

      “Yes, Mr. President.”

      “How in hell did this happen, Hal? Khariza was supposed to be dead. Out of our hair. Now he’s shown up on the Italian Riviera alive and well and having a poolside chat with his old regime cronies. Did somebody slip up, or have we been had?”

      “Right now, Sir, I don’t have answers.”

      “Get them. Put your people on this full-time. Last thing we need right now is the Middle East blowing up in our faces on top of this mainland threat. It’s just what the extremists want to happen. Stir up feelings until the whole thing goes out of control. Security assessment teams are indicating some kind of terrorist strike here on U.S. soil. The way this is going, now would be an opportune time for such an attack. We have commitments in the Middle East. A large percentage of our efforts are channeled in that direction. We don’t know that these Mideast incidents are a distraction or part of an overall plan. We need to know, Hal. People are dying out there. And there are Americans on the list. Something has to be done. Damned if I’m going to sit back and just let things slide.”

      “I understand, Sir. Phoenix Force has already had contact with one of Khariza’s group. Kamal Rasheed. They picked him up in Santa Lorca, trying to buy weapons. We handed him over to the CIA.”

      “There’s something in the wind, Hal. Too many things happening out there that tell me we could be in for a bumpy ride. All these incidents. Rumors flying around. Familiar names keep cropping up. Linked to Khariza’s inner circle. And now he rises from the dead. It all sounds a little too neat to me. Get your people on the job, Hal. If there’s a tangible threat to mainland security, I want it handled soon as. I want Stony Man to take it on board. I don’t have the time or inclination to go sparring with Agency protocols. They’ll want to discuss it in committee, weigh the various arguments and options, advise me it isn’t the right time. I want something done now. There’s too much bullshit coming at me from the other agencies. Hal, I want direct action on this. Last thing this country needs is another World Trade Center disaster. The American nation has suffered enough. Find the bastards behind this mess and come down hard on them.”

      “I already have my people pulling in all the data they can. Soon as we get it all together, maybe we can pin something down.”

      “Hal, this is priority. Find out what’s going on and shut it down. Any problems over anything you need, call me. I’ll leave contact details so you can access me at anytime.”

      Brognola recalled some of the hot spots the information had indicated. They were widespread across the Middle East and Europe.

      “Glad you mentioned that, Sir.”

      Stony Man Farm, Virginia

      BROGNOLA HEARD the War Room door open. He glanced around to see the men of Able Team entering and making their way across to the conference table.

      Carl Lyons, the team commander, Rosario Blancanales and Hermann Schwarz, were skilled, seasoned individuals. Each man had his own unique personality. For the most part, Able Team handled missions within the borders of the U.S. With the spread of terrorism, the associated threats and the expansion of the playing fields, Able Team was sometimes to be found taking trips well beyond the territorial boundaries of the U.S. mainland. In the end they went where the mission dictated.

      Blancanales took himself to the coffee station that held the simmering pot of coffee and poured himself a mug.

      “Hey, anyone want coffee?”

      “I’ll have one,” Brognola said, recalling Kurtzman’s promise to bring his own. “Black. No sugar.”

      “That it?” Blancanales asked. No one else spoke.

      Lyons dropped into a seat close by Brognola, studying the big Fed closely.

      “You okay?”

      “I could do with a couple of days somewhere quiet and deserted. Apart from that, I’m doing fine, but thanks for asking.”

      Schwarz, sitting a little distance away, leaned forward. “Why don’t you go with him, Carl? A break would be helpful right now.”

      “I don’t need a break.”

      “I was thinking about me and Pol,” Schwarz said, his face blank.

      “One day, when I’m really gone, you’ll remember all the things you said.”

      Blancanales placed Brognola’s coffee on the table, then took a seat. He glanced across at Lyons.

      “No, we won’t. We’ll be too busy having f-u-n.”

      The War Room’s door opened and Aaron Kurtzman rolled his wheelchair across the floor. He was carrying the familiar coffeepot he kept brewing 24/7 in the Computer Room. Behind the broad-shouldered cyberexpert was Barbara Price. Tall, blond and utterly capable, Price was Brognola’s mission controller. She thrived on a crisis alert, remaining calm and in control, whatever the situation. She moved ahead of Kurtzman, reaching the conference table and depositing a stack of files in front of her seat.

      “Phoenix has arrived,” she informed them as she took her place. “Be down any minute.”

      Kurtzman had moved across to the coffee station. He placed his pot down and plugged it into one of the power sockets.

      “Never leave home without it,” he said as he took his place at the conference table, in front of the panel of controls he used to illustrate his findings on the large TV wall screens. He tapped the keyboard and the screens snapped to life. Images and data were displayed in sharp profile.

      “Any new material?” Brognola asked.

      “Try this.”

      Kurtzman brought up a report from the Arabic TV network Al-Jazeera. The station, broadcasting all across the Middle East, had become known for its strong, uncensored images during the Iraq war. It had come under some criticism for the way it showed the news, but countered that it was primarily there to broadcast to the Arab nations and to depict the incidents as they happened, not in the sanitized versions shown to Western audiences.

      “Say what you like about these guys,” Kurtzman remarked, “but what you get is what you see.”

      The item showed a bullet-riddled car skewed across a street. Doors were open and bodies were seen in the vehicle or hanging half out of it. There were also three bodies on the road. The whole scene was familiar to the Stony Man crew. An ambush, the car riddled with autofire and the passengers killed before they could react.

      “Do we know who the victims are?” Price asked.

      “UN personnel based in Baghdad. The three on the ground outside the car were Iraqi police. They were in the car just showing on the right side of the picture.”

      “Did this actually happen in Baghdad?” Schwarz asked.

      Kurtzman nodded. “Our mystery players are starting to get confident. No more hiding in dark alleys. They’re showing they can do this with impunity. In broad daylight.”

      Phoenix Force came into the War Room at that point, taking their places at the table.

      “We miss anything?” David McCarter asked.

      Brognola indicated the screen image. “Aaron was just showing us the latest incident in Baghdad. UN team ambushed and shot. Three Iraqi police officers, as well. That’s on top of the Kurdish attack on a Turkish military post.”

      “From intel reports we’ve been monitoring there seems to be a lot of activity in the Middle East region,” Price said. “Now, I understand there’s always something going on, but in the last week or so, this activity has gone up a notch. There’s a concentration around Iraq.