Ramrod Intercept. Don Pendleton

and the others dropped into silence as each of them hashed over the enormity of not one, but three separate missions. Just the same, three or five doors to bulldoze through, Brognola could see the dots beginning to connect all over the map.

      The only thing left was to take decisive action, start putting the old boot through some doors and find out what waited on the other side.

      The clean-and-simple approach.

      “Is he dropping in with a full bag of necessities, Barbara?”

      “One commando knife, his Beretta, just in case.”

      “God knows…”

      “Once he’s inside Port Sudan, the contract agent will land him the requisite hardware.”

      Brognola rubbed his face. “Okay, so I guess we just work it out as we go along.”

      “The usual,” Kurtzman said.

      “Right. What’s new?”

      Brognola found Kurtzman studying the world map on a monitor, suddenly as grim as hell. “What is it?”

      Kurtzman cleared his throat. “Well, we have a window for about, well, another two hours, tops.”

      “Meaning?”

      “Meaning if we don’t get the call, we’ll have to wait another full twenty-four hours—or rather Phoenix will have to wait. If we’re going for a dawn strike it has to get under way ASAP, according to the timetable we’ve laid out. And there’s another piece of bad news, Hal.”

      Maybe it was nerves or just plain weariness, but Brognola sounded off a grim chuckle. “Oh, this is getting better by the minute. Do tell.”

      “At roughly six o’clock, Madagascar time, the ONI-1 satellite is going to have to get moving on. Akira tells me there’s a Russian satellite moving in the same orbital path.”

      “A collision course with a Russian satellite? How in the…? Never mind. I never understood how the Russian mind works anyway. You’re telling me no one on either side can move either satellite’s orbital path from down here?”

      “Not can, but will they?” Price posed. “I’ve been stonewalled at Langley, and no one at the DOD has an answer.”

      “So,” Brognola said, “Phoenix is on their own, and we’re blind to what they’re up against because the Russians…unbelievable. It’s outer space, folks. You mean to tell me…they can’t…or won’t…”

      “We’ll still have the satlink,” Kurtzman said, but his grim expression told Brognola that was little comfort.

      The silence was hanging for long moments, thick enough to reach out and grab it, when the red phone trilled. The big Fed nearly bit his cigar in two as he felt their eyes boring into him. A deep breath, expecting more bad news, and he lifted the receiver.

      Brognola recognized the voice as the Man said, “A few items we need to go over first, and I want to make certain we are crystal…”

      He wasn’t sure if high anxiety hit the air or relief was lighting up their faces, but he knew they were reading the gleam in his eyes, stone-cold frozen and watching. Brognola didn’t even hear the next few words, but he knew enough, reading into the Man’s tone. He gave them the thumbs-up.

      CHAPTER TWO

      “Every day’s just one big party for these guys. Cars, broads, blow, not a care in the world. One big tits-and-ass joyride. I tell you what—”

      “Oh, shit.”

      Rosario Blancanales knew that god-of-thunder voice for what it signaled. Trouble was on the way, mayhem imminent and aplenty and just around the corner, but so far Carl Lyons was keeping his temper reined in.

      Barely.

      Blancanales was edged out some himself, all the waiting and watching eating at nerves demanding action. Still he regretted the slip, not wishing to incite Lyons to blow before the time was right for a real showdown.

      “What was that, Pol?” Lyons growled from the shotgun seat.

      A wry smile worked its way over Blancanales’s lips. “Nothing, Carl. I was just having a heart palpitation. Might just be heartburn from lunch.”

      Lyons was the leader of Able Team, which was comprised of the former L.A. detectives, Blancanales and Hermann “Gadgets” Schwarz. They were all friends, tried and tested commandos who would make the ultimate sacrifice if need be, and for one another if it came down to that. It wasn’t that a wrathful Lyons made Blancanales especially nervous or even intimidated—no, berserker outbursts were simply wasted energy as far as he was concerned. Try telling that, he thought, to Ironman. Best just to let him vent some steam, clean the pipes out, then get himself refocused. Men, he knew, who fought and killed the enemy side by side, who knew what it was to face down death and walk out the other side of combat had a way of coming to read and gauge each other’s mind-sets and moods better than most couples married for a lifetime.

      “I’m getting sick and tired of all this sneaking and peeking around,” Lyons growled, his gaze fixed on the strip joint across Sunset Boulevard. “Watching a bunch of goddamn playboys acting out their own Hollywood Babylon. They take two hour cocktail lunches in Brentwood, sashay out the office lobby before four, then go piss the night away gaping at ass and getting hummers in back rooms ‘reserved’ for their candy.”

      Blancanales groaned against his will. “Oh, man…”

      Lyons fixed him with an eye that was glinting between mocking and irritation. “Another heart palpitation? Maybe you should go a little easier on all that hot sauce I watch you drown your tacos in. We’re not getting any younger, my friend. We can’t assault our systems the way we used to, you know.”

      “I’ll take that under advisement.”

      Lyons went back to glowering at the front doors where two of their DYSAT exec targets had just entered to begin a long night of trolling for fun and games. “These thousand-dollar-suited pricks are starting to annoy the hell out of me. These guys, every time I see them get a lap dance they throw at least a twenty-spot away, go skipping up to the stage, same deal. A bunch of twinkle toes with shit-eating grins. Their cash is trash. Big shots.”

      Blancanales looked into the rearview glass, caught Schwarz grinning from his control console in the back of the van. He put a glare into his eyes, softly shook his head, but, damn it if Schwarz didn’t barge ahead with it anyway.

      “If I didn’t know better, Carl, I’d say you were sounding a smidge jealous.”

      “You’re right—you don’t know any better. And jealous of what? I just got a full head of steam, three days and nights out here, doing grunt dick work while we wait on Hal to tell us the Man finally made the hard call. We know these guys at DYSAT are dirty. I mean, two pigeons vanished off the face of the earth just as Hal’s Justice suits were marching to scoop them up. Two and two still add up to four where I come from, guys.”

      “We still have three to watch,” Pol said.

      “Baby-sit, you mean,” Lyons said. “And, you know, I somehow don’t get the whole scam. If this DYSAT is run by spooks and former air commandos, why hire a bunch of kids damn near fresh out of business school? Still wet behind the ears, but given the keys to the kingdom.”

      “I think I have a pretty good hunch why,” Schwarz volunteered.

      “That right? Well, Pol and I are all ears.”

      “They were handpicked, chosen.”

      “You’re telling us,” Blancanales said, “they’re sacrificial lambs.”

      “Something like that. I’m thinking they were sought out on purpose, with the specific intent of becoming scapegoats if the arms and high-tech wheeling and dealing