Atomic Fracture. Don Pendleton

lot. And not much.”

      “Maybe I should address you as Mr. Dickens, then,” Brognola said. “That sounded an awful lot like, ‘It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.’”

      Kurtzman whirled the wheelchair almost 180 degrees to face the man. “There’s internet chatter like crazy among the crazies,” he said matter-of-factly. “Almost an eight hundred percent increase in what we’re used to.” He inhaled a deep breath. “So we’ve got to assume something bigger than usual is in the works.”

      “But you don’t know what it is?” Brognola chomped down a little harder on the cigar stub.

      Kurtzman nodded and more strands of hair bounced on top of his head. “Precisely,” he said. “Which I guess would fall under your Dickens’ quote as being in the ‘worst of times’ category. However I did pick up the word nuke encoded in one email. But for the most part, they—whoever they are—have gone to a whole new software program.”

      Brognola’s eyebrows lowered. “We can thank that little weasel Edward Snowden for that,” he said. “I’d like to get my hands around his throat. He’s the reason our enemies have changed software and everything else they can.” He clamped down harder on his cigar, then changed the subject slightly. “Nuke, of course, is our abbreviation for nuclear. Do you mean—”

      “Yes,” Kurtzman interrupted the big Fed. “Most everyone in the world, regardless of language, calls nuclear weapons ‘nuclear weapons.’ And they use the same shorthand version of the word—nuke—just like we do. The atom was first split by men who spoke English and so the word has become integrated, without change, into just about every culture on Earth.”

      “Was the word used in any sort of context you could make out?” the director asked.

      Kurtzman shook his head. “Negative. But keep in mind it’s also a word that gets kicked around all the time in cyberspace slang. It could mean our worst fears—some terrorist group has gotten its hands on a nuclear bomb and is planning to use it somewhere in the world. But that’s not necessarily the case. There’s a lot of bragging, and posturing, and bring-on-the-jihad-high-school-pep-rally-type crap thrown around between the terrorists these days, too.”

      “Now I see what you mean by having a lot and having nothing,” Brognola said. “But we’ve got to always assume it could mean something disastrous.”

      Kurtzman nodded. “Of course we do,” he said. “The bottom line is that I just don’t know exactly what’s going on at this point.”

      The SOG director stared the computer genius straight in the eye. “You aren’t telling me you can’t decipher this new software cyber babble, are you?” he asked, a puzzled look on his face.

      Kurtzman almost smiled. He did his best to remain modest about his abilities with what he often referred to as his “magic machines.” And most of the time he was successful in that modesty. But he also knew there was no one in the world quite as skilled in both the science and art of cyberspace as he was. That wasn’t his ego speaking, either. It was just the way it was. Or as Yogi Berra had once said, “It ain’t brag if it’s true.”

      “No, Hal,” the man in the wheelchair said, “I’m not telling you I can’t decipher it. I’m just telling you that because of all of the intelligence information Snowden leaked about how we follow terrorists, they’ve gone to whole new programs and it’ll take a little while for me to figure them out.” He paused and took another deep breath. “The terrorist groups—all of them—are getting much better at covering their tracks than they used to be. There are so many of them, and they’ve linked up with dozens of Third World countries in the Middle East and Africa. Which means they’ve gained access to more sophisticated electronics than they used to have.

      “They’re also getting more and more help from former Soviet computer experts who hire themselves out as sort of cyber mercenaries.” The Farm’s cyber genius shook his head slowly as he scratched the side of his face. “It’s a lot like the difference between what we were when Stony Man first started and where we are today. In the beginning, we were lucky to have computers that could even access the internet, send email, whatever. And now...” He turned slightly and swept a hand across the front of the dozen or so computers to which he had access. “We’ve progressed,” he said. “But so has the enemy.”

      A thin smile curled the corners of Brognola’s mouth and the cigar stump rose at a steeper angle between his teeth. “In the old days we were lucky to have two-way radios with face transmitters and headphones,” he agreed. “So yeah, we’ve come a long way.” The cigar stub had almost disappeared inside his mouth now and he took it out and dropped it into a trash can just to the side of Kurtzman’s desk.Then, reaching inside his jacket, he pulled out a leather cigar carrier, slid the top off and produced a fresh stogie—which wouldn’t be smoked any more than the last one had been. Sticking the cigar in his mouth, he returned the case to his pocket and said, “But the world was a safer place in those days, overall. I never thought I’d miss the old Soviet Union. But at least they were more practical when it came to things like nuclear warfare.” He chomped down on the cigar. To Kurtzman, it looked as if he was only a few tobacco leaves away from biting the cigar in two. “Moscow knew that a nuclear strike would mean nuclear retaliation, and be disastrous for both countries and the whole world. These terrorist organizations either don’t realize that or don’t care. They think they’re on a mission from God.”

      “They’re about as much on a mission from God as the Blues Brothers were on Saturday Night Live,” Kurtzman said.

      Brognola chuckled. Then his eyebrows lowered and his voice turned serious. “Okay,” he said. “I’d better get going. I’ve got to track down Able Team. They’re test-firing some new weapons with Kissinger off-site, and I think we’d better get that done right away. Because when you decipher this chatter flying back and forth across computer land I suspect they’ll be on an immediate flight out of here to...wherever.” Kurtzman turned back to his keyboard. “Will do, Mr. Director,” he said as his hands once again flew across the letters, numbers and symbols with lightning speed.

      “Thank you, Mr. Bear,” Brognola said as he started walking away. He had gone only a few steps when a computer in the bank in front of Kurtzman suddenly rang out with a siren not as loud, but not unlike an emergency tornado warning in the suburb of some Southwestern U.S. city. Kurtzman wheeled to it, then tapped a few keys and stared at the screen.

      Brognola stopped and turned back.

      A moment later Kurtzman’s head swiveled and he stared at the big Fed. “You know that ‘wherever’ you said Able Team would be flying off to, Hal?” he said.

      Brognola nodded.

      “I know where it is,” said Kurtzman.

      CHAPTER THREE

      Carl “Ironman” Lyons raised his hands to cover his ears as soon as the first shot was fired. In his peripheral vision, he could see that John “Cowboy” Kissinger—Stony Man’s chief armorer—had done the same. Kissinger wanted to test some new weapons not just on the Stony Man firing range but under more realistic battlefield conditions, so had arranged for a visit to a “kill house” used by SWAT teams both local and federal.Covering their ears had been an instinctive reaction to the thunderous noise. Even coming from inside the enclosed walls of the kill house the outside effects of the explosions were painful. Not unlike synchronized swimmers, each man outside the house ensured their earplugs and coverings were secure before the next round was fired.

      More shots exploded inside the walls and the Able Team leader pictured Rosario Blancanales—better known to his fellow Able Team members as “Politician” or simply “Pol”—making his way through the rooms of the practice range. The kill house had three levels and each room, hallway and staircase was equipped with “pop up” targets that featured good guys, bad guys, hostages and innocent bystanders—all of whom had to be shot or passed by with less than a second’s consideration by the brain.

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