High Assault. Don Pendleton

scrambled backward through the opening, remaining orientated toward the open parking lot the team had just crossed, carbine up and ready.

      On the other side of the breach he found the unit in a tight defensive circle. A single-story outbuilding lay inside a concrete enclosure. A metal placard in red and white showed the universal sign for electrical danger above black Arabic script. McCarter looked at Hawkins, who immediately moved to lie down and take up a position in the breach.

      Gary Manning set his machine gun down and quickly pulled open the Velcro flap of a pouch on his web belt. He pulled an electrician’s diagnostic kit from the container while Rafael Encizo pulled a pair of compact bolt cutters from the compact field pack on his back.

      “Right, mate,” McCarter whispered, “don’t electrocute yourself, then.”

      Manning didn’t look up as he quickly assembled his gear. “Do I tell you how to act like a complete jackass?”

      “Not once,” McCarter admitted, but the corner of his mouth crept upward.

      “Then perhaps you can let me do my job wisecrack free?”

      “Not a chance, mate,” McCarter replied with complete seriousness. “Your ego’s already too well developed for my liking.”

      Manning stopped what he was doing and looked at the Briton. “My ego?”

      “Hey, now,” McCarter protested, “if you’re still mad about that little waitress in Barcelona—”

      “Perhaps later would be a better time for this discussion?” James cut in, voice as dry as the Iraqi air.

      Manning looked up and nodded toward Encizo. “Ready.”

      Encizo quickly used the bolt cutters to snap the locking arm of the rusted old padlock connecting the panel access doors. The muscles on his forearms jumped out in stark relief like cables running down to thick wrists. The lock popped free with a sharp crack and dropped to the ground at his feet. Encizo picked up his MM-1 and scooted quickly back.

      James helped him put away the bolt cutters as Manning replaced Encizo in front of the access panel. He reached up and pulled the metal hatches apart to reveal a wall of exposed wires, relay switches and conduit housings.

      From behind them, T. J. Hawkins suddenly hissed a low warning.

      McCarter instantly moved to his side and sidled down low to present a minimal profile as he eased around the corner. Beside him the former Army Ranger lay his finger in the gentle curve of his trigger, taking up the slack. Out on the parking lot a dry wind pushed dead weeds and loose trash around. The area was an island of dark between two illuminated areas of population so the headlights of the approaching vehicles were easily visible.

      Hawkins lay the scope on the convoy, quickly working the dampener on his scope’s light amplifier to compensate for the illumination of the vehicle’s high beams. The images of the Iraqi police squad in three Dzik-3 armored personnel carriers filled the crosshair of his reticule. M-2 .50 caliber machine guns were mounted on the roofs.

      “Who the fuck are those guys?” McCarter demanded. “That wanker Anjali’s boys? This isn’t part of the plan.”

      Hawkins carefully zeroed in his scope and scanned the crew as they parked their vehicles in a wedge formation facing the abandoned warehouse Phoenix Force had used to shield their initial movements after disembarking from the first wheeled APC minutes earlier.

      “They’re police for sure,” Hawkins answered. His voice was grim. “But to a man they’re wearing green insignia shoulder epaulets.” He removed his eye from the sniper scope and looked over at the former SAS commando. “David, they’re Shia militia. Muqtada al-Sadr’s boys.”

      “Bloody hell!” McCarter swore.

      Caracas, Venezuela

      “GODDAMN IT to hell!” Lyons swore. “We’re in country ten fucking minutes and we’ve got Chavez’s head spook nosing up our asses.”

      His big hand slammed the steering wheel of the rental SUV, a black Ford Excursion. His eyes darted up to the rearview mirror, scanning the flow of traffic behind them for any obvious tails or suspicious patterns. Caracas was a teeming, modern city of three million people and the streets were packed with automobiles, motorcycles, service trucks and pedestrians. Around them, skyscrapers of steel and glass rose in prototypical urban canyons. They would have to be sharp if they were going to spot a surveillance team in that kind of environment.

      “At least the Farm was able to get us the information quickly,” Schwarz pointed out as he slipped his PDA into a pocket. “It’d be much worse if we weren’t aware el douche was hot on our ass.”

      “Having Venezuelan internal security meeting us right there at the airport is a bad, bad sign,” Blancanales said. He sat in the back using a PDA of his own to download a software upgrade created by Schwarz into the vehicle’s GPS system. “Something got SNAFUed right from the beginning.”

      “We can’t roll on the VEVAK agent till we get to the safehouse,” Lyons said. “But we can’t lead a team of Chavez’s secret police right to a U.S. safehouse, either. Freakin’ fine mess.”

      “I guess we have to identify the shadow unit, then outdrive them.” Schwarz shrugged. “I mean, the CIA does everything the CIA can do. The Farm does what the CIA can’t.”

      “Or the FBI,” Blancanales agreed. He caught Schwarz’s eye in the rearview mirror and winked. “Or the LAPD,” he added, voice casual.

      Lyons, an ex-LAPD detective, stiffened in response to the inclusion. “Finest police force in the world. You can go to hell. Only reason I left is because SOG has a better dental plan.”

      “No, no. This is true,” Schwarz said. “Absolutely. In fact, if you were to do an unbiased comparison of the three organizations I would say it’s obvious the LAPD comes out on top.” His voice was completely deadpan as he continued. “This is a no bullshit story, heard it right from the big Fed, Hal, himself. The LAPD, the FBI and the CIA were all trying to prove that they are the best at apprehending criminals. The President decided to give them a test. He released a rabbit into a forest and each of them had to try and catch it.

      “The CIA goes in. They place animal informants throughout the forest. They question all plant and mineral witnesses. After three months of extensive investigations they concluded that rabbits do not exist.

      “Then the FBI goes in. After two weeks with no leads they burn the forest, killing everything in it, including the rabbit, and they make no apologies. The rabbit had it coming.

      “The LAPD goes in. They come out two hours later with a badly beaten bear. The bear is yelling, ‘Okay! Okay! I’m a rabbit! I’m a rabbit!’”

      “Ten will get you one that bear had done something,” Lyons fired back as his two teammates laughed.

      Instantly, Hermann Schwarz stopped laughing. “Pol, does that qualify as an actual joke from the Ironman?”

      “Close enough, as far as I’m concerned,” Blancanales replied in a sober voice, sounding slightly bewildered.

      “Screw you both,” Lyons replied. He then promptly ran a red light. “Got the bastards! Green current-year Impala, looks like three of them in the rig.”

      Blancanales turned and quickly looked over his shoulder. “I got ’em. Looks like three in the vehicle,” he repeated. There was a sudden blare of horns, squealing brakes and a chorus of angry shouts around them in the intersection. “They just ran the red, too,” Blancanales added.

      “We’re on now,” Schwarz said. “Of course if we actively loose these ass clowns then they’ll know we’re up to something and we’ll have to go completely black instead of trying to maintain cover.”

      “Good,” Lyons muttered, and pushed the accelerator to the floor. “I was getting goddamn tired of all the bullshit sneaking around we’ve been doing.”

      “Oh,