.

McCarter ordered. “We need to link up with Two and then find a quiet corner.”

      “Not that way!” Encizo shouted. James was starting to turn into what was a crowd of soldiers in cold-weather gear. They were using the corners of two of the older stone structures for cover.

      “Back it up, back it up,” McCarter urged.

      James did so. But now the passage behind them was blocked by the Indian APC. Again the MRAP shook under its turret gun.

      “Rafe? Any word?”

      “Coming in now,” said Encizo.

      “Well?” James demanded.

      “Pakistan states...” Encizo said, listening, two fingers to his earbud.

      “You are killing me, mate,” McCarter said.

      “No units at these coordinates,” pronounced Encizo. “I repeat, the Pakistanis disclaim any involvement in conflict at these coordinates.”

      “Rafe,” said McCarter, “get up there.”

      “On it!”

      As James maneuvered the MRAP to get it out of the APC’s line of fire, McCarter saw the second MRAP rocket between two buildings. More slowly, what the former SAS operator swore was a Type 88 Main Battle Tank pursued Manning’s MRAP.

      “Gary, on your six!” McCarter said.

      The only answer was the thunder of the automatic grenade launcher atop Manning’s vehicle. Several of the stone buildings on either side of the second MRAP were damaged as the explosions from the hail of automatically released 40 mm grenades filled the unpaved street with dirt, rocks and shrapnel.

      Another metallic clatter, closer this time, banged the roof of McCarter’s vehicle like a drum. That was Encizo on the machine gun in their own turret. Shooting the gap between two buildings that were little more than corrugated tin shacks, James managed to cut the angle close enough to get Encizo in a position to fire on the APC. As McCarter and James watched through their viewports, Encizo’s machine gun fire blew apart the man in the APC’s roof turret.

      “Run parallel to them,” McCarter said. “Get us past and then over. We need to cut left and help Gary with that tank.”

      “I have a pit,” Manning said over the transceiver link. “Very large. Looks like a garbage dump.”

      “That’s just what the doctor ordered,” said McCarter. “Can you hold position near the edge long enough to lure the tank in? Get them heading at you under steam?”

      “Holding,” Manning confirmed. He paused. “Incoming fire is heavy. The tank is closing on us. Bringing main turret to bear.”

      “Go, Calvin,” said McCarter. “Go.”

      “The APC is coming up behind us,” Encizo said through the link. “I’m trying to brush them off but their nose armor is too heavy.” The MRAP shook as Encizo milked a steady stream of rounds from the machine gun up top.

      “No, that’s good,” said McCarter. “Rafe, let them come. Keep up a good show, but don’t stop them following. Gary, get ready. When we hit your tank we’re going to need you to push forward, circle around and give the APC a shove. And get ready with that automatic grenade launcher again.”

      “Ready,” Manning said.

      “Here we come,” said McCarter.

      “Troops, contact left, contact right!” Encizo announced.

      Soldiers were coming up on either side as McCarter’s MRAP closed on Manning’s with the tank between them. The tank was still rolling, perilously close to the cliff edge that Encizo had noted on the way toward the village. Its momentum was what McCarter was counting on.

      Encizo traversed left, then right. His machine gun mowed down first one rank of troops, then another, tearing them apart with brutal efficiency. McCarter winced as he watched the men go down. The human body was never meant to withstand that kind of antipersonnel onslaught.

      “Brace yourselves,” said James.

      “Gary! Now!” McCarter shouted.

      The nose of McCarter’s MRAP hit the rear of the moving tank, shoving it to the side. The Type 88 was much heavier than the MRAP, but the truck was no slouch in the mass department. It had enough power, coupled with the tank’s motion, to shove the right set of tracks over the edge of the cliff.

      The tank’s weight and momentum did the rest.

      The Type 88 went over the cliff.

      “Calvin, punch it!” Manning said through the link.

      James put his foot down. The MRAP again lurched forward, and the nose of the enemy APC shot past it with Manning’s MRAP shoving it forward. The big Canadian had finished his loop and come up behind the APC to repeat the maneuver. Both enemy vehicles were now tumbling into the pit down the cliff face.

      “T.J., fire!” McCarter ordered.

      Hawkins unleashed a full-automatic barrage with the MK-19, covering the pit with 40 mm grenades. The explosions that resulted turned the garbage dump into a roiling, fiery lake. The smell, even through the protection of the armored vehicles, was like nothing McCarter had experienced.

      And just like that, it was over. Nothing moved in the village. The men of Phoenix Force listened, but the only sound was the crackle of the flames in the hell-pit they had created.

      “Check your flanks, mates,” said McCarter. “We’ll need to patrol on foot with the MRAPs as cover. If there’s anything to be found in this village, we have to find it. And that means photographs. Whatever we can send to the Farm for analysis.”

      “Roger,” came Manning’s voice.

      “Got it,” said Hawkins.

      Encizo climbed down into the cabin of the truck. “Loud and clear,” he said.

      James turned to McCarter. “That,” he said, “is an awful stink.”

      “Get used to it, boys,” McCarter warned, “because my bet is that it’s going to get worse before we’re done here.”

      CHAPTER TWO

      Stony Man Farm, Virginia

      Aaron “the Bear” Kurtzman sat huddled with a “tactical battle mug” of his industrial-strength coffee. The milled aluminum mug, which Barbara Price had called a “flagon,” had been a gift from a special operations team with whom the Farm had partnered some time back. The funny thing about the mug was that it bore a set of milled rails, identical to those on an M-4 carbine. The men of Able Team and Phoenix Force had, off and on, teased the cybernetics genius about the best optics to mount on his coffee cup.

      Kurtzman, for his part, was unruffled by their good-natured ribbing. He had been the head of the cybernetics team at the Farm since the Special Operations Group had first set up shop in the mountains of Virginia. He had not, however, always been in a wheelchair. That was the result of an attack on the Farm, one that had taken a heavy toll on the men and women of the SOG. Kurtzman, for his part, had simply gone on doing his job. He did not discuss his disability and had never once complained about it to anyone, as far as Barbara Price knew.

      Price, for her part, looked through her briefing folder. The Farm’s honey-blonde, model-beautiful mission controller checked the array of switches set within the briefing room’s conference table. The flat-screen monitor at the far end of the room was already up and running. A scrambled satellite link between Washington and the Farm showed Hal Brognola’s desk in his office on the Potomac in Wonderland. The big Fed was not himself at the desk, but he would be. He had excused himself briefly to speak with some government functionary or other in the hallway. When he was done he would secure the door to his office—on which was printed, simply, Hal Brognola: Justice—and rejoin them for the briefing.

      On