Deathbites

13

July 13, 1313 hours, Smyrna, Georgia

Hal Brognola was in the chief executive's office at Elwood Electronic Industries, talking on the telephone. Whatever the conversation was about, he did not appear pleased. In his ashtray were the remains of his last cigar. It had been bitten in two. When Lyons and Deborah appeared in the doorway, his frown deepened.

Lyons flopped into a chair and indicated one for Deborah.

"How many got away?" Brognola said into the phone. "How the hell did they get booked onto flights so fast? Shit!" Brognola paused and thought for about five seconds. "I'll have to call back. Carl's just come in and has something to report. Give me a telephone number. Okay. I've got that. Stand by."

Brognola hung up the telephone. He again picked up the receiver and dialed a number inside the company.

"Ti, can you get in here right away. Carl's just come in and things have gone sour in Boston. On second thought, find some chairs and coffee, we'll come to you. We're probably going to have to include your computer in this conference."

He hung up without waiting for an answer and dialed another three-digit number.

"Aaron, Ti's lab as quickly as you can make it. Find Pol and Gadgets. They're somewhere in the building. Bring them along."

Brognola pushed his chair back and stood up, but made no move toward the door. "Perhaps you'd better reintroduce us," he told Lyons.

"Hal, this is Deborah Devine, state cop. Deborah, this is Hal Brognola, head Fed."

Deborah gave Brognola a firm handshake.

Brognola headed for the door. "Come on," he said over his shoulder. "I want to hear what happened, but you might as well tell it to everybody at once."

When they filed into Ti's lab, the Bear, Pol and Gadgets were already there.

Ti looked furious. "Mr. Brognola," she said formally, "you hung up on me before I could give my report — I also have bad news."

Brognola just shook his head. "Report," he sighed.

"About twenty minutes ago, there was a long-distance collect call from Boston to the computer center in Santa Clara. The computer recorded it. I was listening to it when you called. Now, there has been a sudden burst of computer activity. They're using the interface with the smaller computers in their major cities to send the messages."

Brognola held up his hand to stop Ti at that point. "Let me tell everyone what happened in Boston. Then the rest of your report will make more sense."

Ti nodded.

"You and your computer had already determined that Jishin's most probable target was the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the lab where they're doing work on supercooled, superspeed computers. We rushed Manning and McCarter there just in case. They set up an ambush and sprang it as soon as they made a positive identification of the terrorists. Unfortunately Jishin was able to sacrifice her homegrown terrorists and get away with the hard-core international killers, ones that were Moscow trained.

"They had already wiped out the driver and six passengers when they commandeered a bus. They used the bus to drive back to Logan International Airport. There they simply killed passengers for their tickets and bookings and climbed onto domestic flights where they wouldn't have to show identification. That left twenty-two more bodies at the airport. Manning and McCarter are having the destinations of the victims checked out, and are standing by for further instructions."

Ti did not give them time to discuss the tragedy in Boston. Her fingers flew over the computer keyboard. Suddenly Jishin's hoarse voice rasped from a speaker.

"This is Commander Jishin. I wish orders sent out to all branches immediately."

"Yes, Commander."

"Condition red. All base commanders are to destroy their targets tomorrow at twelve hundred hours. Have you got that?"

"Yes, Commander."

"Then send it immediately. I'll call in a few hours for acknowledgments.''

The line went dead. Over the dial tone, the man in Santa Clara said, "Yes, Commander."

The group sat in silence. Brognola stood up. "I have a telephone call to make. Everyone please wait for a couple of minutes." Then he strode out of the lab.

By the time Lyons had introduced Deborah to the rest of the Stony Man crew, Brognola was back. He sat behind the desk and sighed.

"It's up to us," he announced. "As I said at the top of this mission, this is an election year. The President will not use the army, the FBI nor the Justice Department against HIT. He seems worried that it'll appear that he's attacking the unemployed."

"Politics," Gadgets spat. He said it as a dirty word.

No one else said a thing.

"So we have only ourselves and a strike planned from each of the HIT training centers," Brognola said. His voice was heavy.

"Not quite," Ti corrected. "Our computer is holding the command. It hasn't passed it on to the branches yet. I thought we might just not pass it along, but give phony acknowledgments.''

"Do you know the acknowledgment routine?" Brognola asked.

Ti shook her head.

"Then let's pass the command along but stagger the orders. One city every two days. That will give us time to cope."

Deborah spoke up. "It won't work. There's a daily log. The change in orders will be discovered by five o'clock tonight."

"Let's figure the minimum time spread we need," Gadgets said. "We'll send the first order to strike on schedule and spread the rest. That will give us some acknowledgments. We can use those to fake the rest."

"What cities do we have to cover?" Brognola asked Ti.

"Atlanta, Boston, Houston, Kansas City, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, Salt Lake City and Seattle."

"All those. Start by eliminating Boston. We're standing by there already."

Ti's fingers flew over the keys. "Done," she reported.

"I think we'd better get Yakov to Seattle right away," Pol suggested. "He's the only one close enough to do anything if we don't manage a decent delay."

Brognola turned to Kurtzman. "Run me a package of all the information we have on the Seattle branch of HIT. I'll give it to Yakov as soon as I can get him to the telephone.

"The rest of you work out a schedule for covering these various branches. We can't afford to lose more computer people."

Brognola picked up a telephone and began the tedious process of placing a secure call to the head of Phoenix Force, who was a guest of the Canadian government at an antiterrorist conference somewhere in or near Vancouver.

Kurtzman wheeled up to the desk with a few sheets of printout before the call was through. The call took nineteen minutes to place and six minutes to transact, including relaying all the information that Kurtzman had summed up.

Brognola hung up the telephone, then spent another six minutes arranging arms and transportation for the Israeli terror fighter. When he was finished, he leaned back and | looked at his team.

"What have you come up with?"

"First, while you were on the telephone, the acknowledgment came back from Boston," Ti said. "It was negative. Apparently the Boston commander feels that he's already lost all those with enough training to conduct a raid."

"I'm in favor of letting the message go through and seeing what the reaction is," Brognola said.

"Can't hurt," Politician said.

Ti picked up the report on the group discussion. "We can rule out an attack here in Atlanta. There's no one to do it. We think the command should go through to sit in the untended computer in case Jishin returns."

Politician took up the report while Ti worked. "The next most difficult place for us to reach in decent time is Minneapolis. My guess is that some of those professional terrorists are going to each destination to back up the local HIT teams.

"Gadgets and I have a business there. My sister, Torn, runs it. We suggest that you arrange for the FBI to take Toni along and meet the next couple of flights from Boston. The idea is to try to find a reason to hold the terrorists and prevent them from beefing up the locals. If we schedule things correctly, Gadgets, Carl and I can take care of Kansas City and have Jack fly us to Minneapolis, and later, on to Salt Lake City. If we put a four-or-five-hour time differential in their attack orders, we should be able to handle all three cities ourselves."

"Besides," Gadgets added, "we'll have Toni keeping an eye on things in case they break wrong."

"Sounds okay," Brognola agreed. "I could get the FBI to help on a watchdog basis — as long as they weren't involved in the actual fighting. That leaves Texas and California. I can reach Texas easily enough, but California is a long way away."

"So you go straight there by military jet," Pol said. "We'll schedule it about last to give you the most time. Babette can keep an eye on the activity in their office in Santa Clara and alert you if something goes off schedule.''

"What about Houston?"

"We thought you could bring Manning and McCarter down from Boston. That will leave Stony Man without a temporary commander. We suggest that Aaron get there as quickly as possible to coordinate all our activities," Ti said.

"What about keeping this place running?" Brognola asked.

"Deborah and I will just have to manage somehow. With the Atlanta office wiped out, it's unlikely we'll have an attack to deal with. I'll stay in touch with Aaron and help with the coordination."

Brognola thought for a few seconds before deciding. "With only ourselves to rely on, you've come up with the most workable plan. Get those messages out and let's go to work. I just hope we can..."

He was interrupted by the telephone. He scooped it up and growled, "Brognola." Then he sat and listened. "Good work," he said, finally. "Stay at the airport. I'm arranging for you to be flown to Houston to stop a raid there. Stand by, Kurtzman will give you the intel."

The Bear wheeled over to the computer terminal, taking the telephone with him.

Brognola updated the rest of the group.

"Your analysis is depressingly correct. By identifying most of the bodies and finding out where they were booked to fly, we know that professional terrorists are on their way to Minneapolis-St. Paul, Los Angeles, Houston, Salt Lake City, Kansas City and Seattle."

July 13, 1602 hours, St. Paul, Minnesota

FBI agent Tim Williams looked at his partner Carlos Sanchez. Sanchez shrugged. Neither of them liked the assignment, but orders were orders. They would delay the flights from Boston and try to question the passengers. That was routine, but why was a civilian keeping an eye on them? A licensed private detective at that. It was degrading. Williams glanced at the detective. Not hard to glance at.

She was a small woman. She looked as though she was in her early twenties, but there was a poise, a sense of experience. She wore her hair long, and brushed until it gleamed. The makeup was subtle. It could afford to be; she had big dark eyes that could drive a man wild. A good figure, too. Williams tore his eyes away to get his mind back to the unpleasant assignment.

"Miss Blancanales," Sanchez said to the woman.

"Friends call me Toni," she said.

"Miss Blancanales," Sanchez continued, "we can't stop every passenger from these flights and say 'Are you a terrorist?' What do you expect us to do?"

"Well, Mr. Sanchez, you might pay special attention to anyone who doesn't wait for his or her luggage, or whohas to read tag numbers in order to identify it," Toni said.

Williams reflected that it was a solid suggestion. If the terrorists killed for the airline tickets and bookings, they would have no use for any luggage thatwas checked. He hastened to agree with the woman and save Sanchez from having to do so.

"A good suggestion, Miss Blancanales. We'll do that."

"Thank you," she answered. Then she spun on her heels and walked away, later standing far enough from the agents not to be associated with them, but close enough to observe. The location was not lost on Sanchez.

"Fink dame," he muttered under his breath.

There was no more time to simmer. The flight they wanted was in and the first passengers were trickling into the terminal building. Of the first half dozen, two men and a woman headed straight for the exit. With an uneasy glance at Toni Blancanales, the two FBI men moved to intercept the three.

All three were calm. Too calm. Each asked if they were under arrest. Each insisted that they had an important appointment and could not be delayed. Finally, each insisted that they be charged or released. Williams glanced at Sanchez.

"Do we hold them?" Williams asked.

"On what grounds?"

"Come off it, Sanchez. You know we can always dream up a reason. These three are too smooth for my taste."

Sanchez shrugged. "Let's lay it on the queen and let her decide." He glanced at where the female detective had been watching. She was no longer there. "Hell, she doesn't even care enough to stick around. We've got no grounds to hold them."

Sanchez turned back to the three. "Go ahead," he told them. "Sorry to have had to delay you."

The trio hurried out of the terminal. Just as the doors closed behind them, Toni came from the other direction.

"I managed to look into the baggage that's supposed to belong to two of them," she told the FBI agent. "The clothing couldn't possibly fit."

Sanchez turned dull red. "You can't search baggage without a warrant," he bellowed at her.

People stopped to stare at them.

"For Christ's sake. Cool it," Williams warned his partner.

"Where are they?" Toni demanded.

"We had no reason to hold them. I let them go," Sanchez said in a lower tone of voice.

"You did what!"

"Listen, lady," Sanchez said, obviously deciding the best defense was an offense. "If you went into luggage without a warrant, I'm arresting you right now."

Toni ignored the threat. "You'll never find a witness," she told Sanchez. "My firm supplies the security here. When I read about innocent people being killed by those terrorists, I'll be thinking of you."

She turned and stalked away.

Sanchez watched her go, before leading the way to the agency car. He threw the keys to Williams, and then hunched himself low in the passenger seat.

"So will I," he muttered to himself. "So will I."