Critical Effect. Don Pendleton

chiseled face. Shoulder-length brown hair and a trimmed beard framed that face. A patrician nose jutted from jade-colored eyes masked behind the yellowish tint of bifocals. The man rested his sledgehammer-size fists on a narrow waist that veed straight to hips and legs in camouflage fatigue pants. The man wore midcalf paratrooper boots with steel toes polished to a mirrorlike glisten. A military web belt encircled his hips, and he wore a sidearm in quick-draw fashion on his left thigh.

      “You are now a prisoner of the Germanic Freedom Railroad,” the man announced. “Your life, as your cargo, is now forfeit at my discretion.”

      Blythe could barely contain a squeal of outrage. “Now look here, I don’t give a goddamn who you are! You have seized an aircraft belonging to Her Majesty’s Royal Air Force under the command of NATO forces. And I can guarantee they’ll come quickly looking for us! You would be best to leave things be!”

      The man stepped forward and leaned close to Blythe’s ear, his breath hot on the officer’s neck as he whispered, “I know exactly what I have seized, Group Captain. In fact, we’ve been expecting you.”

       CHAPTER ONE

      David McCarter sat on a large rock, a Player’s cigarette in one hand and a sweating can of Coca-Cola in the other.

      The Phoenix Force leader chewed absently at his lower lip while he studied the lush foliage that ran along the base of Monti Sirino, about twenty miles from the Golfo di Policastro, Italy. A mission from Stony Man, the ultracovert operations unit of the United States government, had brought them here less than forty-eight hours earlier. With their mission complete in record time, McCarter and the other members of Phoenix Force could look forward to a long-needed week of R & R.

      McCarter glanced over his shoulder as the turbofans on the twin Rolls-Royce engines of the C-20 Gulfstream whined into preflight action. The time had come for them to get the hell out of there. He took a last, long drag before he crushed the cherry against a rock, field stripped the remainder and dropped the butt in his pocket. It wouldn’t do to have someone find the thing and extract his DNA.

      The fox-faced Briton’s boots crunched on the refined gravel of the makeshift airstrip. The running lights glowed faintly in the half light of dawn, most of the sunlight peeking over the horizon still obscured by trees and tall grasses at the base of the mountain. McCarter glanced at his watch before rushing up the narrow steps and into the plane. He looked toward the cockpit, wishing he would see the familiar figure of Jack Grimaldi there, although he knew he wouldn’t. Grimaldi, Stony Man’s top gun and usual pilot for Phoenix, was back in Washington recovering from a hell-raising mission in Afghanistan.

      McCarter downed the last of his Coca-Cola in a few swallows, crushed the can and tossed it into a nearby waste receptacle.

      “Oh, baby!” a voice called from the cabin. “You’re such a stud. Come over here and give us some love!”

      McCarter turned toward the sound of the voice. The fresh and eager visage of T. J. Hawkins gazed at him in mock adoration. Thomas Jackson Hawkins was a straightforward guy with a heart of gold and a Texas accent so smooth it could melt the wills of even the strongest women.

      “Don’t write checks your body can’t cash, youngster,” McCarter quipped. “I’ve been doing this kind of thing since just about before you were born.”

      “You two settle down or I’ll have to separate you,” Calvin James said from beneath the skullcap pulled over his eyes.

      McCarter didn’t doubt the streetwise black man from the south side of Chicago could do it. A former medic, Navy SEAL and member of a San Francisco SWAT team, James had proved his skills as a formidable warrior time and again. When the chips were down, McCarter could think of few men he’d want more by his side.

      “Can’t we all just get along?” asked Rafael Encizo.

      McCarter jammed a finger in Hawkins’s direction. “He started it.”

      “Shut up! ” James demanded. His lack of sleep was taking a toll.

      McCarter took a seat and clammed up. He could see the wisdom in resting. The return flight to the States would be long and tedious. McCarter didn’t like being cooped up that long; he enjoyed stretching his legs, which made it difficult to keep still with all that pent-up energy.

      Once their plane got airborne, McCarter’s eyes drooped and he laid his head back, eager for a one-or-maybe-two-hour snooze….

      M C C ARTER’S EYES SNAPPED open as he felt his pager vibrate against his thigh. He rose quickly from his seat.

      “Get it in gear, mates,” McCarter said. “The boss’s calling.”

      Everyone knew what he meant. Stony Man, more specifically Barbara Price or Hal Brognola, was signaling that a secured satellite uplink would connect to the high-tech communications systems aboard the Gulfstream jet. They wouldn’t be calling for an idle chat. McCarter had transmitted his mission report to them more than four hours earlier. They either needed some type of immediate clarification or something had come up.

      McCarter and the rest of the Phoenix Force warriors quickly made their way to the lounge at the back of the plane. This area also contained a number of LCD and CRT screens with two-way digital cameras. The sensitive electronics package hardwired into the aircraft’s special systems could transmit or receive microwave signals from any location in the world. These high-amplitude transmissions ensured Stony Man could reach Phoenix anywhere and anytime.

      T. J. Hawkins fired up the equipment while Encizo put on coffee to brew. They all sat at the table, waiting for the coffee while staring at one another’s bleary red eyes. Gary Manning, a Canadian who served as Phoenix Force’s chief demolitions expert, seemed to be the only one really awake, but probably his immediate rush to grab some sleep following their mission had a good deal to do with that fact.

      Harold Brognola and Barbara Price suddenly appeared on screen. Neither looked happy.

      “Morning, boys,” Price began. “Sorry about the rude awakening.”

      McCarter waved it away. “It’s our lot in life.”

      “I know we promised you some R & R as soon as you finished there,” Brognola interjected, “but we’ve got a serious situation on our hands and the Man wants action yesterday. Barbara, why don’t you lay it out for them?”

      Price cleared her throat, tucked a strand of honey-blond hair behind her ear and said, “Approximately five hours ago one of our NSA SIGINT stations in Luxembourg intercepted a distress call from a NATO special-operations flight out of Geneva, Switzerland. Just minutes after the call came through, all transmissions ceased and the plane dropped off radar.

      “The operative immediately reported the signal to his station chief, who in turn contacted the British RAF, since it was their plane. What none of us or them knew at the time was the exact nature of their mission. The aircraft has since been identified as an SOF C-141 placed under the command of NATO eighteen months ago.”

      “Starlifter,” McCarter said. “And that particular nomenclature would indicate it was on special-operations duty.”

      Brognola grunted. “That may very well be the understatement of the year.”

      “What was their cargo?” Hawkins asked.

      “Top secret,” Price replied. “It took officials in the intelligence agencies of nearly ten countries to get that information. Apparently the entire operation had been classified need-to-know. There are apparently some very angry delegates haranguing Britain’s PM this morning.”

      “Any idea where the plane went down?” James asked.

      “We have a very good idea,” Price replied, “but we’re apparently the first, and not ready to share the information. The President’s chief concern is to guarantee the cargo doesn’t land in the laps of terrorists or other criminal elements. We’re sending the coordinates directly to your navigational computers. Your pilots will