Close Quarters. Don Pendleton

far-fetched, mate.”

      “Not really if you consider the possibility,” Encizo said. “How else can you explain their ability to get this beacon inside the camp without being seen? Hezbollah terrorists couldn’t just waltz in and out unobserved, but local natives were around them constantly. That’s the people they were serving, remember? And let’s consider that the attack on this Peace Corps contingent was obviously part of a larger plan. The terrorists didn’t have to reveal themselves but they chose to risk doing so. Doesn’t that make you stop and ask yourselves why? It sure does me.”

      “That’s a good point,” Hawkins said.

      “I have to admit that he may be on to something,” Manning agreed.

      “Ditto,” James said.

      With all of the opinions voiced, McCarter had to consider that majority opinion had merit; it was possible Encizo had just cracked the mystery wide open. “Okay, so let’s just say we’re right and they have the locals helping them. How does exposing their operation help them? I mean, I don’t know about the rest of you but I don’t see how revealing the secret training operation in the middle of bloody South America helps the Hezbollah. Or the people training them, for that matter.”

      “What if it’s a diversion?” Russell offered.

      “Okay,” Kurtzman interjected via speakerphone, “but a diversion from what?”

      “Well, didn’t you say that they found a homing beacon on Harland that had advanced electronics?”

      “Yeah, that’s right,” Kurtzman replied.

      “And now we find this homing beacon—it also has advanced electronics. From what I’ve seen so far, I’d say much of the guts were manufactured in Europe somewhere.”

      Kurtzman said in a faraway tone, “If I’m correct in my recollection, Gadgets said the same thing.”

      “Gadgets?”

      “Don’t ask,” Manning told Russell with a smile.

      “So let’s look at what we have,” McCarter said. “Hezbollah terrorists being trained by members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, and using highly advanced technology to spin whatever plans they have. They’ve also committed several coordinated strikes, and now we suddenly have Ironman and friends headed into the heart of Tehran to assist some no-name CIA informant who claims all of this part of a plan by a mysterious group high up in Ahmadinejad’s political ranks to overthrow the Iranian government.”

      “Well, I don’t know what the hell all of that means, exactly,” Russell said, “but it doesn’t sound good.”

      “It sounds like terrorists on the verge of implementing a high-tech threat against Americans is what it sounds like,” Manning said.

      “Great!” Hawkins said. When they all looked at him in surprise he added sheepishly, “I just mean…it’ll be business as usual.”

      CHAPTER SEVEN

      Stony Man Farm, Virginia

      Harold Brognola and Barbara Price sat in the Operations Center of the Annex.

      They’d been reviewing the intelligence provided by Stony Man repeatedly for the past twelve hours without a break. Word had just come in from Lyons that Able Team had left and would reach Iraq within the next sixteen hours. There hadn’t been any word from Phoenix Force but Kurtzman had been working with Russell without ceasing, and he’d promised to have something very soon.

      “It feels like we’re being played, Hal,” Price finally said. “Almost as if someone knows our every move.”

      “I’ll admit that this has me stumped, as well,” Brognola replied. “I’m also very troubled by what Phoenix Force found in South America. That’s the second piece of high-tech equipment being used by the IRGC we’ve stumbled on in the past twenty-four hours.”

      “Don’t you get the feeling that perhaps we’ve been duped, that the IRGC knew how we would respond?”

      Brognola scratched at the two-day growth on his chin. “I don’t know that I buy they knew exactly what we’d do in a situation like this, although I’ll agree they seem to have predicted our response pretty well thus far. No, there’s something more sinister at the heart of this thing. I just can’t put my finger on it.”

      Price managed a smile. “Don’t beat yourself up, Hal. We’re all tired. We’ve been working around the clock. How about some coffee?”

      “No way,” Brognola said, raising a hand. “I don’t think I can take another cup of that battery acid that Bear slurps all day.”

      “And here I thought you enjoyed my coffee,” said Kurtzman, wheeling into the room. He headed directly to the central access terminal recessed in the table. An LCD monitor rose with the push of a button from out of the tabletop and exposed a keyboard beneath it.

      “I completed my analysis of the device that Phoenix found,” Kurtzman said as he pecked furiously at the keys. A moment later the massive HD screen at the end of the conference room flickered to life and a picture of the device appeared. “This is the closest approximation Akira could come up with based on my secondhand descriptions and the digital photos of what was left that he sent to us.”

      Akira Tokaido was a member of the Stony Man cyberteam led by Kurtzman. His exploits in the world of software engineering and programming were legendary. He specialized in programs designed to run on sensitive electronic devices, programs that handled everything from flashing EPROM to enabling secure and encrypted traffic on communications equipment. In recent years, he’d become significantly advanced with data-based graphics and 3D rendering engines. It was one of his programs that had obviously reconstructed the device displayed in front of them now.

      “Looks like a coffee urn,” Brognola remarked.

      “That’s exactly what our boys thought until they took a closer look,” Kurtzman said. “In fact, though, this thing is a highly advanced homing beacon. Certainly nothing you’d find as standard equipment in Tehran, even among their intelligence people. No…this thing is very high-tech.”

      “Source of origin?” Price asked.

      “We ran it through every recognition program we could think of, but no hits. I walked Brad Russell through disassembling the thing one piece at a time over our high-res video feed. Most of the guts were still intact—it had obviously been built to withstand heat.”

      “Sounds like maybe whoever planted it didn’t know that,” Brognola said.

      Kurtzman nodded. “Exactly. Otherwise they wouldn’t

      have left it to be found.”

      “Unless they wanted us to find it,” Price said.

      “You’re sounding a little paranoid, Barb, if you’ll forgive me saying so.”

      “Um, Bear…probably should leave that where it’s at right now,” Brognola said helpfully.

      Kurtzman looked at Price, who didn’t meet his glance, shrugged it off and continued. “So since none of the internal parts had identifying marks, I finally decided to take my best guess. There’s little doubt this thing came out of China.”

      “What makes you think so?” Price asked.

      “We had Russell overnight a package with two of the chip boards inside,” Kurtzman said. “Based on a materials analysis, quantitative architecture of the electronics and a few other telltale signs, we have a strong enough amount of evidence to draw a conclusion it originated in China—at least the parts we examined.”

      “That’s interesting,” Brognola said. “After careful analysis in Florida, Gadgets swore up and down that the watch found on Harland’s person was indisputably made in Switzerland.”

      “So the IRGC