Stony Man - Triple Strike Part 13

"If there was anyone within five miles of here when Grimaldi came in, they'll have noticed the chopper and will be coming to investigate. Maybe we can borrow their ride."

"That's what I'm counting on."

Aviano Air Base, Italy Now T~^T THE Black Hawk was safely back at Avi-ano, Carl Lyons jumped right back into his Ironman mode. The Lebanese was still out there somewhere, and Lyons intended to find him. Seeing Hermann Schwarz sitting in front of the CP's computer, he walked over to him. "Do you have a lock on him yet?"

"The Lebanese guy?"

"Who else?"

"Not yet," Schwarz replied. "The Farm hasn't finished sorting through all the E-mail addresses."

"What's taking them so much time?"

"If you'll remember, they're a little busy tracking those nerve-gas rockets, too."

"And they can't do two things at once?" Lyons growled. "I want to know where that guy is so we can put him out of business before someone else gets hurt."

"We're working on it."

Stony Man Farm LYONS'S PLAN TO GO after the Lebanese had been okayed by the Oval Office. As far as the President was concerned, anything that Able Team could come up with to put an end to the situation in Italy, as well as in Bosnia, was welcomed. And Stony Man wasn't the only agency looking for the terrorist. Hal Brognola had authorized Katzenelenbogen to share everything they had on the Italian situation with both NATO and the Italian authorities, and the race was on to find the man who was responsible for the attack at Aviano.

At the Farm, Aaron Kurtzman was putting his me-thodical mind and intimate knowledge of cybers.p.a.ce to work on the problem of finding the terrorist leader. From the extensive computer files found at the ga-rage, it was being a.s.sumed that the Lebanese was computer literate. And since computer freaks were the same the world over, it could be a.s.sumed that he had left electronic tracks somewhere in cybers.p.a.ce. All Kurtzman had to do was to find them.

He was using a raider program on the E-mail addresses that had been retrieved from the garage computer. The raider called each address, broke into the computer with a pa.s.sword generator and, once it was in, dumped its contents into a file it could read later. Fortunately the terrorists hadn't been diligent about emptying their cybernetic trash cans and were probably unaware that they contained copies of past messages filed away on a microchip. Being able to use a computer wasn't the same as knowing how it worked.

When he started running the information he retrieved from the raider program through a home-brew macro program, Kurtzman came up with what he had been looking for. "Gotcha, you b.a.s.t.a.r.d," he muttered as he punched up the video to the Aviano command post.

"Rose's Cathouse and Pizzeria," Schwarz answered. "Will that be takeout, or will you eat it here?"

"Cut the c.r.a.p, Gadgets, and put Katz on," Kurtzman snapped. His long sleep had restored his exhausted body, but had done nothing to affect his mood. Until this mission was terminated, he had no time for smart-a.s.s from anyone, not even Schwarz. "What do you have?" Katzenelenbogen broke in. "I think I have what you guys have been looking for," he replied. "I keep coming up with one E-mail address that gets a lot of traffic both in and out. It also has the most hits to Libya and Iran, so I think it's the one you want." "Send it."

Kurtzman flashed the physical address of the computer that had recorded so much traffic to Aviano. The nice thing about landline modems was that their access to the Internet and E-mail was provided by a phone-company line, and that meant there was a rec-ord of where the connection had been made. The only way to use E-mail and not let anyone know where you were sending it from was to have direct satellite links on both ends. But since that equipment was too expensive for nongovernment use, almost all civilian E-mail was sent by landline.

"Good work," Katz said when the address flashed up on his screen. "I'll get back to you if this turns out to be what we're looking for."

"Gadgets," he called out across the room, "Aaron came up with a lead on the Lebanese, and I need you to mn the address."

"'Bout time." Schwarz's fingers flashed over his keyboard. His computer had a program loaded in that would give him a map of any location in Italy. Originally developed for Interpol counterterrorist operations, it was getting a real workout on this mission. And, so far, it had proved to be a hundred percent accurate.

"I've got it," Schwarz called out. "According to the software, the address is a remote villa on the outskirts of San Simone, a couple of hours to the north of here."

"Better let the Ironman know."

"Let me know what?" Lyons asked as he walked in.

"That the Bear finally got the Lebanese's address for us and we can go to work," Schwarz replied.

"I'll start loading the car," Lyons said as he turned to go into the makes.h.i.+ft arms room.

Bosnia FINDING A VEHICLE took less time than Bolan had even hoped. By the time the Stony Man team reached the main road, they saw one of the tan Toyota pickups slowly cruising up the dirt road from the castle. This was one of the desert-vehicle conversions, in which the metal cab was removed and replaced with a canvas top so a machine gun could be mounted.

A full squad of Iranians was in the truck-the driver, a man on the machine gun and six men in the back.

With a whispered command over the comm link, the team spread out into an L-shaped ambush. Manning took the short leg of the L with his scoped Remington to take out the driver. The other five men put their a.s.sault rifles on single-shot fire. To save damaging the truck, they would take out its crew with well-aimed single shots.

Manning's silenced shot was the signal to pop the ambush, and his aim was true. The driver took the bullet and slumped over his wheel, his foot slipping off of the gas. James targeted the machine gunner and took him out with two rounds fired into his chest.

The six men in the back barely had time to bring their weapons up to fire before they, too, were cut down. Only one of them got off a burst, but it was cut short.

Hawkins ran out of the wood line and, sprinting to the slowly moving truck, swung himself up to reach out and kill the idling engine.

"Great," he said as he examined his catch.

i?

"There's no embarra.s.sing bullet holes in awkward places. It's almost as good as new."

The Stony Man team quickly dragged the bodies off the road and stashed them inside the tree line. Scooping up handfuls of dirt, they covered the blood before dropping their rucks in the back.

A quick call to Katz put them on the right road to chase their prey. After topping off the truck's fuel tank from the jerncan in the back, they moved out. James was behind the wheel with McCarter riding shotgun with the map, radio and GPS gear.

DRAGAN ASDIK HADN'T been sorry to see Major Nas-lin, his Iranian fanatics and his nerve-gas rockets leave his territory. Hopefully that would be the last he would ever see of the major. Now he could concentrate on doing what he had done before the Iranians arrived-run his own affairs and make sure that the men of his mountain battalion were ready when the call came for them to fight again.

Asdik was meeting with his subordinate commanders when the duty runner brought the news that Naslin's last track had been ambushed and all of the men killed. "The track?" he asked. "They say it was missing, sir."

The Bosnian briefly considered radioing to the Iranian base camp to warn Naslin that the Yankee commandos had captured one of his trucks. He knew that it was his duty to warn his unwelcome ally, but he just couldn't bring himself to do it. In his heart, he knew that the Americans were no danger to him or his people. They were after the gas rockets. How they had learned of them, he had no idea. He was beginning to think that the Yankees had spies every-where. Why they had waited this long to do something about the rockets, again he had no idea. But for once, he and the Americans were of one mind.

The rockets were no good and he put no stock in Naslin's claim that it was part of G.o.d's plan to bring all of Bosnia under the rule of Islam. The Iranian had talked endlessly about G.o.d's will, so Asdik decided to leave the Iranian's fate to G.o.d's hands.

If G.o.d wanted the rockets launched, he would act against the Yankees. If he didn't want to see thousands of civilians killed in his name, he would allow them to catch up with Naslin.

"Do you want the radio operator to tell the Iranians about this?" the runner asked.

"No," Asdik said. "It is in G.o.d's hands now."

"As you command."

Stony Man Farm THE PLAN TO TRACK the Iranian tracks carrying the nerve-gas rockets was going very well. While Kurtzman was sleeping off his exhaustion, Hunt Wethers was keeping an eye on the information being sent from the spy satellite over Bosnia. With Akira Tokaido as his able a.s.sistant, they had watched the rockets being loaded into nine Toyota pickup trucks and then convoyed north.

Most of the route was open to the sky, but when the trucks disappeared under the trees, the Keyhole satellite switched from optical to its MAD sensors and continued tracking them anyway.

When Barbara Price stepped into the newly cleaned computer room to see how it was going, she was stunned to be able to see the floor of the entire room for once. It was such an improvement that she considered talking to the cleaning crew about making hourly visits from now on. "How's it going?" Price asked Hunt Wethers. "I sure wish we had one of these Keyhole satellites for our exclusive use," he said wistfully as he watched the computer-generated icons that represented the Iranian trucks slowly traverse the map of eastern Bosnia. "We should be able to do this all the time."

"It would break our budget for the next twenty years to have one put in orbit for us," Price replied. "And why buy a cow when the milk is free?"

"Someday, someone in the NRO is going to figure out what we're doing and slam the door on us and lock it so we can't get back in."

She smiled. "They already have, but Aaron keeps finding where they hide the keys."

"They've stopped moving," Tokaido announced.

"Let's see where they are." Wethers's fingers clicked on his keyboard and brought up a larger-scale map.

The radar map showed a rocky bluff with a flat area in front of it and mountains on each side. The readouts indicated that the flat area was densely forested, but that was to be expected if this location was in fact a major base camp. "This may be it," he said. "This looks to me like a good place to hide."

"You'd better call Katz and have him pa.s.s that on to Striker."

"Will do."

Bosnia MCCARTER TOOK the radio call from Katzenelenbogen. "The trucks have probably reached their destination," he told Bolan as he held out his marked map. "At least they stopped in what looks like some kind of forest hideout this time."

Bolan wasn't surprised to hear that. If as many Iranians had remained behind in Bosnia as Kurtzman thought, the fortress they had left wasn't big enough to hold all of them.

"How far away is it?"

"About sixty miles. We should reach it in three or four hours."

"It'll still be dark then," Bolan said, "and that will let us get in close without being spotted."

CHAPTER NINETEEN.

Northern Italy

After loading the tools of their trade into their rented Lancia sedan at Aviano, Able Team had gotten a good night's rest before hitting the road for San Si-mone on the scenic Adriatic coast and the Lebanese's remote villa to the north of the town.

Like most small towns in that part of Italy, San Simone's origins probably went back to Roman times if not earlier. As Able Team approached the town, many of the buildings had stone walls that didn't look like anything that had been built in recent memory. Inters.p.a.ced with the older buildings were, of course, modem, slablike concrete-block structures with all of the charm of a large cardboard box. Nonetheless, the place was charming; too charming to be the home of a terrorist.

"We should stop for lunch," Rosario Blanca.n.a.les suggested as they started into the town.

"I had a big breakfast," Lyons countered, "and I want to get on with this."

"Talking to the locals may save us a lot of ha.s.sle later," Blanca.n.a.les reminded him. "In a little country place like this, they're bound to know what's go-ing on at the villa."

"You have a point," Lyons admitted.

"Good," Schwarz announced as he awakened from his nap. "I'm starving."

Like in all older Italian towns, the twisting streets were narrow and a smart person parked his car halfway up on the sidewalk and hoped a bus didn't side-swipe it on the way past.

"The one on the right or the left?" Schwarz asked, eyeing the two sidewalk caf6s, unable to make up his mind.

"The left-hand side. It's in the shade."

The trio didn't have to wait long after seating themselves at an outdoor table adorned with a check-ered tablecloth and a small bouquet of mountain flowers in a gla.s.s vase.

"Can I help you?" the waiter asked in heavily accented English.

"What would you recommend for lunch?" Blanca.n.a.les asked, glad not to have to use his clumsy Italian. He was getting better at it, but still had a ways to go.

After taking their orders for the dally special, the waiter departed.

"This is the life," Schwarz said as he tore off a chunk of bread from the loaf the waiter had left and slathered it with b.u.t.ter. "When this gig is over, maybe we can do a little R and R up here."

"In your dreams, Gadgets," Lyons told him, reaching for the bread himself. "Hal will want us back home ASAP to check in on the latest crisis that someone has invented. We're not authorized to take time off. It's not in our contract." "b.u.mmer."

"Excuse me," Blanca.n.a.les called to the waiter af-ter they had finished their meal. "Yes, sir?"

"We came up here to take a look at the Villa del Norte. Do you know anything about the current own-ers?"

The waiter's face tightened. "I would not advise you to go up there, sir. The owner is a foreigner, and he does not welcome visitors."

"We would be willing to compensate him for his time."

"He has no need of money," the walter said. "Though the Virgin knows that he spends little enough of it here in San Simone. He thinks that he is-how do you say it? too good for simple people like us."

"Is he a German, then, or English?"

The waiter laughed. "No, but he is just as bad. He is an Arab."

Bingo. Lyons smiled to himself. It seemed the first mistake terrorists always made was to anger the lo-cals. Whoever this Lebanese guy was, he should have read Mao's Little Red Book before embarking on a career of terrorism. Mao had written a manual for guerrilla fighters, but the same principles worked for terrorists, as well. If their prey had alienated the lo-cals, they wouldn't be keen on watching the place for him or warning him if trouble was coming.

"We may try our luck anyway," Blanca.n.a.les said as he paid the tab and included a respectable tip. "Thanks for the information."

"My pleasure."

AS THE NAME IMPLIED, the villa was situated on a low, barren hill to the north of town. After driving past it on the main highway for a closer look, Schwarz drove the Lancia up a cow path and parked under a grove of olive trees behind the crest of another low hill to the east. Taking their weapons and surveillance gear out of the trunk, they walked to the crest of the hill and set up to watch the villa.

"There's not a h.e.l.l of a lot of cover and conceal-ment around that place," Schwarz noted. "We'll have to crawl in on our bellies to keep from being seen."

"We'll hit it at night, then," Lyons said.

"Did you see the lights on the poles around the compound when we went by?" Blanca.n.a.les commented. "He's got the place lit up like a Christmas tree."

"And," Schwarz added, "I just spotted the dog kennel in the back of the main house. They're penned up now, but you know that he's going to turn them loose at night."

Lyons's instincts always pointed him toward using immediate, overwhelming force to solve a problem, any problem, which was why he was called the Ironman. This didn't mean, however, that he couldn't be patient or subtle when he had to be, but patience was always his second choice.

With the lights and dogs to deal with, a more sub-tle approach was clearly called for this time. "What's your call, Pol?" he asked.

"I say we keep an eye on this place and try to see if we can establish their routine. If it looks like it's going to be too much for us to handle, we may have to call in the Italians to take care of him."