THE NUMBERS WERE RUNNING DOWN
McCarter didnât feel they were any closer to eliminating the threat than the moment they stepped foot in this godforsaken desert. Sure, they had some idea of the terroristsâ plans but they didnât really know where they would hit or how they would do it. And if Phoenix Force failed in their mission, it only increased the chances of the nuclear material getting to its final destination.
The fact remained that Able Team didnât have any more ability to wage war against the nuclear threat than Phoenix Force. At the end of the day, they had to succeed. Failure wasnât an option and neither was compromise. This time around, the stakes were high enough that there could only be one outcome for Phoenix Force: absolute victory! Because if David McCarter knew something with certainty, it was this.
Anything less would mean tragic defeat for America and her people.
Washington, D.C.
At just after 0400 hours on a cold Thursday morning, four FBI agents hustled Dr. Philip Stout from his offices at the U.S. Navy shipyard into a waiting government SUV.
The reason for Dr. Stoutâs visit to an emergency session of the Joint Chiefs of Staff was highly classified. None of the agents strayed beyond the polite conversation required by their jobs. Still, it didnât take an advanced science degree like one of several possessed by Stout to guess that his visit likely had to do with the contents of the briefcase handcuffed to his wrist. Inside the reinforced-aluminum box were secrets so classified not a single one of the agents escorting Stout to the Pentagon had a security clearance high enough to know even the nature of its contents.
Not that they needed to. Their job was simple: transport the doctor from the shipyard to the Pentagon and keep him alive in transit.
As far as Philip Stout was concerned, the four men assigned to protect him were better off not knowing the things he knew. Stout had spent the past eight years of his career developing a prototype for the U.S. Navy, and he was about to deliver all of its secrets to the Joint Chiefs. In some ways, it made Stout feel like the member of a transplant team who had to get a badly needed heart across town with only a small window of opportunity. In some respects, it wasnât that far from the truth. If the secrets he carried with him fell into enemy hands, it could well mean a whole new day of terror for America.
And while the FBI agents accompanying him may or may not have realized that, they did realize the importance of protecting him. Especially when their SUV stopped at an intersection a mere seven blocks from their destination and two black nondescript vans suddenly appeared in the deserted intersection.
It took only a moment for the agents and Stout to realize the intent of the passengers who poured from the backs of the two vans. They wore urban-camouflage fatigues, black hoods with red headbands, and toted SMGs. The agent riding shotgun rolled down his window as he ordered the driver to take evasive action. He reached into his jacket and withdrew a Glock pistol, leaned out the window and snapped off a few rounds. The resistance proved to be short-lived when the driver, while in the course of executing a J-turn, smashed into a massive garbage truck that had appeared out of nowhere. The truck was one of the front-loading types designed to pick up commercial Dumpsters, and one of its large steel bars punched through the SUVâs rear door with the screech of wrenched, torn metal and cracked glass.
A low rumbling emanated from the truck a moment later, the droning sound of hydraulics reverberating through the SUVâs cab. The thrumming sound hurt Philip Stoutâs eardrums as the SUV began to tip forward and its rear wheels rose off the ground. Pandemonium erupted when the two agents seated on either side of him turned and began to fire their pistols at the truck. Unfortunately their efforts were in vain because the SUV continued to tip forward and soon they had to give up firing in favor of holding on to the rear seat.
Stout and the driver fared better than the rest of the occupants as they were still seat-belted in place. The two agents in back with Stout were soon clinging to their seats for dear life, their feet actually dangling in midair while they tried to hold on. Then the vehicle flipped off the steel bar of the garbage truck, the front end now providing a pivot point that dumped the SUV onto its roof.