Sky Sentinels. Don Pendleton

hooking the Crossada around his throat. Pulling him in tightly, he whispered, “I hope you speak English. Because if you make any sound at all, it’ll be a race to see if you bleed to death before you get killed by the fall you’ll also be taking.”

      The man remained silent.

      “Okay,” James said, pressing the razor edge of the huge fighting knife a little harder into the man’s throat. “In the quietest voice you can possibly muster up, tell me if you speak English.”

      “I speak English,” the man whispered in a jittery voice.

      “Good,” James said. “Then tell me who you are.”

      “We are what you call Kurds,” said the man, his voice still shaking. “And we thought you were either Iraqi or Iranian troops. Which is confusing because we are now speaking English and your voice sounds American.”

      James hesitated a moment, then slowly withdrew the knife from the man’s throat and sheathed it once again. He turned the Kurd around to face him, and shook the man’s hand. “We are Americans,” he said. “At least, I am. But we’ve got a Canadian and Englishman along with us, too. We’re an international force, and we’re not after you.”

      The man still looked frightened and skeptical. “So, what do we do?” he said.

      James frowned for a moment, then said, “How far away are the rest of your men?”

      The Kurd’s dark brown eyes looked directly into those of Calvin James. “Not far,” he said. Then, guessing at what James already had in mind, he said, “They will be able to hear me if I shout.”

      “Then shout your little heart out,” said James. “Tell them we’re friendlies, and we want a meeting with your leader.” He paused for a moment, drawing in a breath of the thinning mountain air. “But first, what’s your name?”

      “My name is Mehrzad” the Kurd said.

      “I’m James,” the Phoenix Force warrior said, then shook the man’s hand again to ensure that he knew they were, indeed friendly. “Now, call out to your men.”

      Mehrzad’s voice cracked slightly as he shouted out in a dialect of Arabic. Silence followed his words, then a voice called down the mountain.

      After the next exchange, James said, “My turn.” Looking down toward the plateau where his fellow warriors waited, he yelled, “These are Kurds, guys. They thought we were Iranian or Iraqi.”

      “I’m not sure which is the bigger insult,” McCarter’s voice called up the mountain.

      “I say we kill them just for that,” Hawkins drawled.

      “Some of them speak English, Hawk,” James yelled back. “And they may take you literally and not understand that you’re making a joke.” He raised his voice even louder on the word “joke” in case other English-speaking Kurds above had heard the exchange. T. J. Hawkins was Phoenix Force’s newest member, and while he was as good at fighting as any of them, he occasionally let a careless sentence slip out of his mouth.

      McCarter’s voice came up the mountain again. “Tell them we’re laying our rifles down, Cal. And ask them to come on down to meet us on the plateau.”

      “I heard him,” Mehrzad said. Then the Kurd translated the Phoenix Force leader’s words in a loud voice.

      Above, James heard low mumbling and grumbling as the Kurds tried to decide if he and the rest of these strangers could be trusted. Mehrzad spoke again, then James watched as the members of Phoenix Force rose from behind the boulders and laid their M-16s against the rocks, finally stepping out into full view.

      A few moments passed, then the heads of more Kurds began to appear above them. They all moved toward the pathway that led to the plateau.

      James realized he had been less than ten yards below where several men had been hiding behind an outcropping in the rocks. If Mehrzad had not come down the mountain first, James would have been filled with automatic fire as soon as he’d climbed even a few more feet.

      Calvin James raised his eyes toward the sky and grinned from ear to ear. “Thanks,” he said.

      Then he and Mehrzad made their way across the mountain to join the rest of the Kurds going down to meet Phoenix Force on the plateau.

      C ARL L YONS leaned back in his reclining chair on board the Concorde and pressed a button on the control panel to his side, answering the call from Hal Brognola. “Lyons here, go ahead. We’re all listening. Where are you?”

      “I’m on my way back from dropping Phoenix Force off in Iraq,” Brognola explained. “Here are the facts as they stand right now. Another squadron of Pasdarans have taken over an entire shopping mall on the Kansas side of Kansas City. There’s no runway close by that even Grimaldi can set the Concorde down on, so I’ve arranged for a Kansas City chopper to be ready for you when you set down at Kansas City International.”

      “Great,” Lyons said. “But I want Jack flying it.”

      “I’ve pulled some strings and arranged that, too,” Brognola said over the speakerphone. “They weren’t all that happy about turning their bird over to somebody they didn’t know. But I convinced them it was a good idea.”

      Lyons chuckled under his breath. Hal Brognola had the ear of the President any time he wanted it, and he suspected the Stony Man director might have had the Man call himself. “How long ago did they take the mall over, Hal?” he asked.

      “Shortly after 1300 hours,” Brognola said. “It’s Sunday, so it hadn’t opened until noon. They gave it an hour to fill up with customers—a lot of them churchgoers who’d stopped in on their way home from services. The first communication to the KCPD came in at 1312.”

      “You suppose they did that on purpose?” Lyons asked.

      “I’m certain of it,” Brognola said. “They told the KC cops that themselves.”

      As the Concorde flew on, Lyons frowned. “Did they have demands or was it like the church—just bleed the news media for all the publicity they can and then kill everyone including themselves?”

      “No, they actually had one demand this time,” Bro gnola replied.

      Lyons waited to hear it.

      “They want every Muslim prisoner in county jails, state and federal penitentiaries all over the country released,” he said.

      “They aren’t asking much, then,” Lyons said sarcastically.

      Brognola snorted over the line. “That’s sort of the way the Man looked at it.” He paused, then went on. “We know that they know that nothing of that sort is going to happen. Even if it did, they’d just wait and then carry on with what they’ve begun at the mall.”

      “What does the Iranian president say?” Lyons asked.

      “Javid Azria isn’t making any excuses. He openly admits that these are all official Iranian Revolutionary Guardsmen who’ve snuck into the country over the last few weeks and are now carrying out his specific orders.”

      “He’s asking for war,” Lyons said.

      “No doubt about it,” Brognola came back.

      “That madman can’t believe he’s got a chance of winning against the U.S.,” Lyons said.

      “No,” Brognola agreed. “But the joint chiefs are in session and they think they’ve figured out what Azria’s large picture looks like.”

      “And?” Lyons urged.

      “Azria has vowed to wipe Israel off the map,” Brognola said. “That’s a direct quote.”

      Lyons snorted sarcastically again. “Minor change from the old ‘push them into the sea’ threat we’ve been getting since the end of World War II,” he said.

      “Well,”