Cold Snap. Don Pendleton

hires. Given the different cities, the different working conditions, bigots are not going to cooperate well with professionals no matter what their skin color.”

      “I sure as hell wouldn’t want to be with them,” Lyons added. “Add money, training and skill, and we’ve narrowed down the field considerably.”

      “White group. Definite cash. They’re using actual 5.56 mm, not civilian .223 Remington,” Schwarz noted. “And the missile looks like an FGM-172B.”

      “English,” Lyons said.

      “One of the two warheads developed for the SRAW—short-range assault weapon. It’s a multipurpose fragmentation munition designed for anti-personnel as well as use against thin-skinned targets,” Schwarz said. On his tablet, he called up the detonation of the police car as recorded on multiple surveillance cameras that watched the scene.

      “We don’t have good visuals on the shooters. Their heads were covered, as were their eyes, and they were driving fast enough to not give cameras time to focus,” Schwarz added. “They could be any nationality short of Pakistani in skin tone. Also, no apparent tattoos visible, even with short sleeves.”

      “Skinhead gangs, bikers and such trend toward that, but only if they’ve actually been in prison,” Lyons mentioned. “These could be free-born fanatics.”

      “I was thinking the same,” Schwarz answered. “Like the Cosmic Church, which fostered the National Resistance.”

      “Which in turn gave birth to our dear friends, the Aryan Right Coalition,” Lyons growled.

      “We’ve got work to do on narrowing this down,” Schwarz said. “I’m sending the data we’ve collected through to the Farm.”

      Lyons nodded. “Good. The sooner we get to smack answers out of someone, the sooner we get started.”

      Schwarz managed a weak smile. “Anyone tell you that you’re sexy when you’re a bloodthirsty avenger?”

      “Not this week,” Lyons answered. “But it’s only Tuesday.”

       CHAPTER THREE

      It was early evening when three members of Phoenix Force and Dragonfin went wheels up from Langley Air Force Base on board the C-17 Globemaster.

      The C-17 was on loan from the United States Air Force Reserve, and the paperwork for the flight stated that the craft was taking supplies to MacMurdo Station, off the Ross Ice Shelf where the Saburou Maru had been attacked and sunk. With that cover, every subsequent trip would be off the books.

      David McCarter overlooked the Dragonfin, running his fingers across its smooth, flat-black hull. The boat had originally been scheduled to auction after the Drug Enforcement Agency had captured it from drug smugglers. Its hold had carried two tons of cocaine. Even with all of that bulk, with its twin motors it was capable of 80 miles per hour. It was a new generation of cigarette boat.

      Catamaran, McCarter reminded himself, not cigarette. The lads would have a fit over you misidentifying their little canoe.

      His friends Calvin James and Rafael Encizo, both sturdy sailors—James tall and raw-boned, Encizo stocky and stout—had been overjoyed at the acquisition of a “go-fast” boat by Stony Man Farm.

      Go-fasts were originally meant, and still utilized, in sports racing, but as with all things legal and legitimate, greedy men saw other uses for them. For years, drug smugglers had utilized the amazingly fast, low-profile craft for ferrying tons of drugs across international waters. While not as fast as a helicopter, “go-fasts” were still far swifter than any cutters or interceptor boats except for those craft also based on racing designs. For pure racing purposes, stripped down to cockpit, fuel cells and engines, the design on this particular catamaran hull projected a top speed of more than 200 miles per hour.

      This particular beast had been specifically designed for long-haul smuggling and defense of its contraband. It was meant to counter U.S. Coast Guard Deployable Pursuit boats. To add to the survivability of cargo and space, Dragonfin was a twin-hulled craft. On the bottom there were two slim-line keels, where the Mercury drives were housed. Each was capable of 1,000 horsepower. For long range, the engines were equipped with four 200-gallon fuel cells. With a relatively sedate cruising speed, those cells would give it phenomenal range, but when it came to putting the throttle to full, they would tear along, as equipped, at more than 180 miles per hour. They sacrificed about thirty miles per hour with combat turrets for M-2 Browning machine guns, Mk 19 automatic grenade launchers and an M-242 Bushmaster 25 mm cannon, all operated by remote control.

      With those weapons installed, Dragonfin could engage targets at up to almost two miles.

      Aside from the turrets, Dragonfin had also been upgraded with a Kevlar polymer coating on the hull, which served to minimize the radar signature of the craft on top of the waves. Its sleek, almost space-fighter-looking design would also be hard to make out against the ocean, thanks to the dark blue mottled-camouflage patterns set into the coating. When they’d first seen it, it had been painted jet black by the smugglers, which almost was good enough.

      Almost, however, hadn’t kept the boat from being captured or appropriated by Stony Man Farm.

      Underneath, there were streamlined housings for torpedoes, and Dragonfin had four of those deadly fish held in reserve just in case their targets had more than two inches of rolled homogeneous steel armor. The most important addition, however, was a communications system that would keep them in satellite contact with Stony Man Farm, allowing them real-time satellite imagery and telemetry to track any target they needed.

      The Globemaster would give them near-speed-of-sound transit around the planet if necessary in their hunt for the attackers of the Japanese whaling ship.

      James, Encizo and McCarter were to be the three-man crew for this journey. While the burly Gary Manning and the young, athletic T. J. Hawkins would be going to Japan to investigate possible intrigue in that country. McCarter’s two friends, having spent years of their lives working with boats and diving, would be acting to help McCarter crew Dragonfin. It was a bit of a letdown, as both James and Encizo were adept at Japanese language and culture to some degree; James from the time he’d spent in Japan while in the United States Navy, Encizo from his close friendship with deceased Phoenix Force operative Keio Ohara.

      As it was, Gary Manning had also had a good, close friendship with Ohara, often working hand in hand with the electronics expert; his skill with the language would be bolstered by a local asset of Phoenix Force’s, a man named John Trent.

      It only made sense, the Stony Man action and cybernetics teams had determined, that if there was a plot afoot aimed at discrediting Japan’s credibility and destroying their ships, there would be clues to be garnered on Japanese soil. While McCarter and the Dragonfin crew went to the high seas to hunt and destroy the armed ships responsible for hundreds of sailors murdered, Manning, Hawkins and Trent would operate together and look for malicious agents on land.

      McCarter didn’t envy Able Team. The three of them were going after a group of sadistic murderers who’d tried to make it look as if Japan was smothering dissent with their whaling program with hired killers. The team had a handle on who might have been hired to make the bloody assault only a few hundred yards from the White House, but once again, they’d be diving into the deadly, murky world of American white supremacist groups.

      Not that life on Dragonfin would be fun and games. The Antarctic Ocean was a cold place and while the ship had amenities for long-distance travel, thanks to the cocaine smugglers before them, McCarter and his allies would be spending twenty-four hours a day in their immersion survival suits, like those worn on arctic fishing boats. They’d also have to eat MREs—meals ready to eat.

      For now, though, McCarter and his partners would be heading to the Ross Sea and, hopefully, the trail of the ship killers would not have gone too cold.

      McCarter grimaced at that thought. The Ross Sea is as cold as hell. An’ us lucky blokes have to find a needle in that haystack.