Citadel Of Fear

America’s elite black ops team Stony Man Farm is dedicated to protecting the innocent. Acting on orders of the President, these soldiers and cyber techs are the nation’s best defense against violence and terror across the globe.

COASTAL CRISIS

Adding insult to injury, terrorists are discovered laundering money through Liberty City, an economic free zone in Grenada, sending Able Team undercover to follow the money trail. It doesn’t take long to discover the free city has provided a haven for building homemade ballistic missiles. Phoenix Force arrives just in time to provide backup, but the missiles have already been shipped to a rogue group with their sights disturbingly set on the California coast. Both teams must join forces to avert disaster, because failure could mean the death of the President and thousands of Americans.

McCARTER TOOK THE FLIGHT RECORDER AND SLID IT ACROSS THE TABLE TO PROPENKO

“Here, this is your first job. Take this and—”

Propenko’s scarred fist slammed down on the flight recorder. Bits of thick plastic armor flew in all directions. He scooped up the little black box’s innards and made a fist around them. Technology cracked and popped.

The Russian went to the sink, turned on the tap and flicked on the garbage disposal. He dropped the shattered remnants down the drain and the flight recorder of Drone 1 met its final mastication.

McCarter noted that the Russian’s leg seemed to be bothering him a lot less.

Everyone froze as the lights suddenly went out and the garbage disposal spun to a grinding, snapping halt. For a moment the only sound was the running tap. The lights of the neighbors on the surrounding hillsides and the lights of the city below didn’t flicker. Someone had cut the safe house’s power.

“Gear up,” McCarter ordered. “We’re about to get hit.”

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Introduction

Title Page

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

EPILOGUE

Copyright

Poland, Gulf of Gdansk

“I have movement,” Gary Manning reported.

David McCarter, leader of Phoenix Force, looked up into the scudding rain of the Baltic Sea in winter. “Able Team gets all the soft jobs…” he muttered. “What do you see, Gummer?”

Manning spoke from his sniper hide three hundred meters back. They were in Baltic marshlands and he held the only high ground, but it was barely ten meters above sea level. “Three trucks, as reported. I make them Russian civilian Zil half-tons. Canvas tops.”

T. J. Hawkins checked his weapon. He mostly approved of the Polish kit. The Beryl rifle was basically a Russian AK but sexier and built to NATO standards. The young soldier peered out into crepuscular dawn across the gulf and took in the lights of Kaliningrad across the border as they came on in the predawn. “You know, I still don’t quite get how that’s Russia.”

Calvin James checked his weapon a final time, as well. “It’s an oblast, Hawk.”

“A what?”

“An exclave federal subject of Russia.”

“You know I love it when you talk all smart ’n’ stuff,” Hawkins declared.

Calvin James waited for it.

Hawkins sighed. “Okay, what’s an exclave?”

James made the young warrior work. “What’s the difference between the Latin prefixes en and ex?”

“Ex! Like exoskeleton! Outside! Like sci-fi body armor, and bugs!”

James nodded grudgingly. “Someone give that Wal-Mart-shopping, cornbread-fed Son of the South a cigar.”

Hawkins beamed. “Yeah, but why is it Russia? I mean, shouldn’t it be part of Poland or one of the Balticstans?”

Rafael Encizo snorted. “Did he just say Balticstan?”

“That piece of property has gone back and forth more than a few times historically,” Calvin James explained. “But the last time it traded hands? The Soviets took it from the Nazis, in World War II, and they didn’t give it back. To anybody.”

Hawkins nodded sagely. “They have a habit of that.”

“That they do. It’s the Russian Federation’s only western seaport that doesn’t freeze over in winter. They aren’t going to give it back to anyone anytime soon.”

Hawkins looked to their leader. “So what are we doing here again?

McCarter watched the trucks approach down the one-lane road through the misty marsh forest. They were a dozen klicks outside the Polish city of Elbag. The land was flat, dank, forested with twisted trees right out of a horror movie and mostly undeveloped. The Kaliningrad oblast was indeed Russia’s westernmost outpost, and had a massive military presence. Not unsurprisingly, the oblast also had a massive Russian organized crime presence, and served as a launch point for Russian mafiya endeavors into Western Europe.

This stretch of coast was a well-known smugglers’ route. McCarter knew that big money was paid on both sides of the border to keep the salty, dark, cold and windswept stretch of wetlands clear of Polish state police and customs.