âMY PEOPLE HAVE BEEN RUNNING THE PROBABILITIES,â BROGNOLA SAID.
âIndian Point and Calvert Cliffs are their biggest and best targets to cause hysteria, even if they fail in the attempt.â
âBut they pushed up their timetable now that Phoenix Force stopped them in France,â the President countered. âAnd then thereâs Syria. And when Damascus suffers from their own chemical weapons, the response will be worse than riots. Theyâll hit everyone who knew about their facilities, which means our people in Iraq and Israel.â
The President thought about the pictures of the dead Kurds that had been used in the Fallenâs threat video. âEuropeâs out of control, and America and the Middle East are under threat. If we ever needed a miracle, we need it now.â
Price took a deep breath. âLuckily, thatâs Stony Manâs job description. The impossible missions.â
The President nodded in agreement. âThings donât get more impossible than this.â
Carl Lyons stopped at the edge of the wide puddle of blood, attempting to control his rage at the murder of a Department of Energy investigative agent. Mare Hirtenberg had been a beautiful woman, closing in on forty, but nothing pretty remained in her blood-spattered features, hazel eyes bulging out as her mouth was stretched and distorted in agony. The Able Team leader had been assigned to work with Hirtenberg for the past few days, reviewing infiltration attempts at nuclear power plants around the nation.
Hirtenberg had been Lyonsâs kind of Fed, a no-nonsense woman with a sense of irony and cynicism that appealed to him. But today, he had found her seated at her desk, her throat slashed.
The Able Team commander hit a button on his Smart phone, a speed dial command that would bring a Justice Department evidence team running. There was no hope for Hirtenberg, not with two gallons of blood painting the floor tiles and her desk. Paramedics would only be good for confirming the blatantly obvious fact that she was dead.
Something whirred softly on the other side of Hirtenbergâs desk and Lyons drew the Smith & Wesson Military and Police 357 from its shoulder holster. He sidestepped the puddle of blood and saw something move Hirtenbergâs lifeless leg along the side of the desk. He was able to notice two small darts embedded in her calf. Whoever had murdered her had utilized a Taser, directed just above ankle level. Theories of the Israeli Negev Nuclear Research Center break-in rushed to Lyonsâs mind. He briefly considered the possibility of a small trained animal slipping unnoticed through defenses.
Lyons snapped his MP-357 to eye level, brow furrowing as he realized that animals didnât have electro-motors. A dull gunmetal-black tendril writhed as it disappeared around the base of Hirtenbergâs chair. Not having a clear target, Lyons held his fire.
âCome on, show yourself,â Lyons growled, tracking the floor.
Air pistons hissed and Lyons felt an agonizing jolt in his shin. A twenty-thousand-volt current blasted along a pair of fine wires, and the Able Team commanderâs entire body seized up. The paralyzing charge tightened every muscle in the former copâs body, including the index finger curled around the tuned, 6-pound trigger of the sleek new Smith & Wesson. The high-pressure .357 SIG round cracked loudly, a bark that was nearly as intense a bellow as Lyonsâs old favored .357 Magnum cartridge, and in a moment, the continuous Taser charge dissipated.
Lyons was physically as powerful as any two men, but in the wake of a Taser jolt, even his mighty musculature went limp. Only his incredible athletic conditioning kept him from falling unconscious or careening uncontrollably off the corner of Hirtenbergâs desk. He managed to catch himself on his hands and elbows, the Smith & Wesson MP clattering from numbed hands.
At floor level, he saw a bulbous, insectlike head staring at him. Two hexagon-patterned domes formed eyes reminiscent of a dragonfly, and the only flaw in the space between them was a smoking .357-inch hole. Beneath the bullet entry, a rectangular turret dangled, slender wires dangling from it like drool. The buglike object writhed, twisted, as if recovering its senses at the same rate that Lyons did.
âNo, you donât, you little bastard,â Lyons growled, pushing off the floor. The metallic worm turned almost completely over on itself, a nodule rising from a second bulbous segment just behind the head. The Able Team leader knew it was another weapon, and he reached out, fist closing on a wastebasket. It was only a few pounds, but to his Taser-hammered muscles, it felt more like a few tons. He swung the metal receptacle in front of his face before another air-piston hissed and an electric motor whined to angry life. The wastebasketâs aluminum skin screamed as a deadly cutting wire whipped at it. There was very little physical push behind the miniature lash, but a gash appeared in the bottom of the wastebasket from Lyonsâs point of view.