Shadow War
The war against terror is played by a different set of rules for the men and women of the elite unit known as Stony Man. On the record, they don't exist, and plausible deniability is the first mandate if a mission goes sour. Off the books, the cyber teams and field commandos understand the risk…and accept America's dirtiest missions without hesitation.Intelligence has picked up chatter of the launch of an imminent strike of unknown origin and scope against the U.S. Code-named Bellicose Dawn, it involves Mexican drug runners, jihadists and international funding. Stony Man must navigate an unknown strike point, fragmented information and a brewing political firestorm. But soon it's enough to unleash the ultimate nightmare–men down, missing, maybe dead, and things going so bad so fast that the day every Stony Man member prayed would never happen may have arrived.
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JAMES WASNâT LEAVING T.J. BEHIND
No matter what.
âI need a lead, Mack,â Calvin James stated. âHal gave me the runaround. French security moved T.J., and weâre no longer trying to figure out where he is. The hit team that came after me was stripped clean. Iâve got no clues, no bread crumbs to follow.â
Bolan sighed. Every man who had signed up for Stony Man duty, including himselfâespecially himselfâhad understood that it could come to this.
Everyone had gone into the offered deal with his eyes wide open. Every man on Phoenix Force and Able Team had agreed, and now that the mission had gone south, that the worst-case scenario had finally occurred, Calvin James didnât want to play by the rules anymore.
Bolan frowned. He wasnât much on rules himself.
The Executioner picked up the phone.
Shadow War
Don Pendleton
Stony Man>®
AMERICAâS ULTRA-COVERT INTELLIGENCE AGENCY
Special thanks and acknowledgment to
Nathan Meyer for his contribution to this work.
CONTENTS
PROLOGUE
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
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
PROLOGUE
Barbara Price opened her eyes.
She awoke clearheaded and alert, knowing exactly where she was and what she needed to do. There was a war being fought in the shadows and like the ringmaster of a circus, she was at its epicenter. Her eyes went to the window of her bedroom. It was dark outside. She looked at the clock on her bedside table and saw she had been asleep for exactly forty-five minutes.
Price sat up and pushed a slender hand through her honey-blond hair. She felt revitalized after her power nap, and with a single cup of Aaron âthe Bearâ Kurtzmanâs coffee she knew sheâd be ready to roll.
She got up out of the bed, smoothed her clothes and picked up the copy of the Washington Post she had placed on her table before stepping into the upstairs hallway of Stony Man Farmâs main house. The headline screamed out at her.
Colombian Businessman Busy Senator
Marcos Sincanaros, renowned currency speculator, has been tied to campaign contributions exceeding five million dollars to Maryland Senatorâ¦
Disgusted, Price stopped reading. She had too much on her mind at the moment to worry about Washington politics. She frowned. The name âSincanarosâ was familiar, however. She resolved to ask Akira Tokaido, one of the Farmâs computer wizards, to see if Stony Man had a file on the man.
As Price walked down the hall, she began clicking through options and mentally categorizing her tasks. She had men in the field, preparing to step into harmâs way, and it was her responsibility to coordinate all the disparate parts into a seamless whole.
The Farmâs mission controller was headed to the basement when the cell phone on her belt began to vibrate. She plucked it free and used the red push-talk button.
âPrice, here,â she said coolly.
âBarb,â Carmen Delahunt began, âthe teams are in jump-off mode.â
âThanks, Carm,â Price told the ex-FBI agent. âIâm almost in the tunnel now.â
âSee you in a minute,â Delahunt said.
Price put her phone away, entered the tunnel that joined the main house to the Annex and got into the light electric rail car. The engine began to hum and the vehicle quickly picked up speed as it shot down the underground tunnel. Things were starting to click, to come together, and Price could feel the tingle she had first felt as a mission controller for long-range operations conducted by the National Security Agency. It had been there that she had made her bones in the intelligence business before being recruited by Hal Brognola to run logistics and support at the more covert Stony Man operation.
Stony Man had operated as a clandestine antiterrorist operation since long before the infamous attacks of September 11 had put all of Americaâs military, intelligence and law-enforcement efforts on the same page. As such, it operated as it always hadâunder the direct control of the White House and separate from both the Joint Special Operations Command and the Directorate of National Intelligence.
Stony Man had been given carte blanche to operate at peak efficiency, eliminating oversights and legalities in the name of pragmatic results. It also, perhaps most importantly, offered the U.S. government the ability to disavow any knowledge of operations that went badly. It was a brutal truth that if things turned wrong for the Stony Man action teams, Phoenix Force and Able Team, they would be left out in the cold.
