Kitabı oku: «Sky Sentinels», sayfa 2
“I guess I don’t have to tell you about the situation at the Iraq-Iran border,” the President began.
Brognola shook his head. “I haven’t seen a news tape replayed so many times since Rodney King,” he said.
“You realize what the Iranian president is trying to do, I’m sure,” the Man said.
“Sure,” Brognola said. “They’re trying to suck us into another Iraq. Crossing the border and killing and kidnapping American noncombatants was an act of war. Clean and simple. They’re daring us to invade Iran.”
The President nodded. “Exactly,” he affirmed. “Right now, the sympathy of the rest of the world is with us.”
Brognola grunted sarcastically. “That won’t last. Particularly if we start bombing Tehran.”
“You know, I know and Iran knows that we can kick their butts nine ways to Sunday if we want to,” the President said. “But unless we nuke them out of existence, we’ll have to send in more troops to keep order, and it won’t work any better there than it has in Iraq.”
“Or Vietnam or Korea,” Brognola agreed.
“Right,” the Man said. “It’s pretty much all or nothing. We’d have to just forget about civilian casualties altogether and wipe them out. Or sit back and do nothing for years like we did when the Shah went down.” He paused a moment, then said, “But there is a third possibility. A surgical strike that frees the hostages but doesn’t do much, if any, collateral damage. It’s slim, but at least it has a chance.”
Brognola knew what was coming and remained silent.
“Where’s Bolan at the moment?” the Man asked.
“Haven’t heard from him in several days,” Brognola said. “He’s tied up with some things in Bosnia right now.”
“Able Team and Phoenix Force?” the President asked.
“Able Team’s in Oklahoma,” Brognola said.
“Ah, yes.” The President nodded. “The church situation. I understand it’s Iranian-backed terrorists there, too?”
“Maybe yes, maybe no,” Brognola said seriously. “There’s a rumor going around the intel agencies that the men who took over the church are Iranian Revolutionary Guardsmen. Pasdarans, complete with their red neckerchiefs.”
“And Phoenix Force?” the President asked.
“McCarter and his boys are catching a few hours of well-deserved sleep after that affair in South Africa. But I can have them up and ready within the hour.”
The phone on the desk suddenly rang.
“Get that, will you, Hal?” the President said. “Put it on speakerphone.”
“Certainly, sir.” Brognola rose to his feet, took two steps to the desk and pressed the intercom button on the phone.
“Nan, I told you to hold all of my calls while Mr. Brognola was here,” the President said somewhat testily.
His tone didn’t seem to have any effect on his receptionist. “I know,” the voice on the other end of the line said confidently. “But you’ll want this one.”
“Who is it?” the Man asked.
“Javid Azria,” Nan answered.
The President looked at Brognola.
Brognola looked back.
“Put him on,” the Man directed.
A click sounded over the speakerphone and a moment later an Iranian-accented voice said, “Mr. President?”
“Yes, Mr. President?” the Man said back.
Brognola stood where he was, waiting.
“In addition to the church in that cowboy state of yours,” the voice said pompously over the speakerphone, “the third suicide bomber I sent to Israel has just eliminated close to four hundred infidels by detonating himself in one of the decadent Western-inspired night clubs in Tel Aviv.”
The President remained cool. “I hadn’t even heard of the first two yet,” he said, glancing at Brognola. “They must not have been very big.”
The voice that responded turned angry. “They were big enough,” it growled. “Exactly the size I wanted them to be.”
Brognola sat silently. He was listening to one of the biggest egos he’d ever encountered in his long career.
“And, Allah willing, there are far bigger things to come,” said the Iranian president.
“Are you declaring war on the United States, Mr. Azria?” the Man asked, using the Iranian president’s name for the first time.
But the leader of the free world got no response.
All he and Hal Brognola heard was a click as the line went dead.
T HE BAPTISTRY WINDOW was only wide enough to allow three men at a time to crawl through it. And as Hooks, Langford and Schwarz launched themselves upward out of the water, Lyons and Blancanales helped shove them onto the stage.
Counting both terrorists and worshippers, over a thousand heads jerked their way.
As the water-soaked warriors jumped to their feet, the remaining two members of Able Team followed.
It had all taken just enough time for the men in the red neckerchiefs to overcome their surprise and react.
Luckily, Able Team and the OSBI men assisting them reacted a fraction of a second quicker.
Lyons was the first to fire, triggering a 3-round burst from his M-16 into the head of the man who had been shouting from the pulpit. Lyons turned toward where the minister and the dark-complected man holding the remote detonator sat and saw that the minister had already grabbed the other man’s hand. He held it in both of his own, his fingers tight around the device, preventing the terrorist from entering the code that would bring down the entire church.
Hooks and Langford knelt on both sides of the pulpit. The OSBI director was firing his AR-15 steadily in semiauto mode, taking out one door guard per round. Return fire whizzed back toward him, some of it striking the pulpit while other rounds perforated the large cross hanging just above the choir loft. Occasionally a round flew past them into the baptistry and a plopping sound echoed forth as it spent itself in the water.
The members of the choir had all hit the floor. Next to him, Hooks fired his Kel-Tec PLR-16, which had obviously been converted to full-auto. Each tap of his forefinger drove another khaki uniform and red scarf to the ground.
Schwarz and Blancanales were firing their own M-16s into the red-scarfed terrorists in the aisles and balcony. In addition to these warriors, several men and one woman within the congregation itself had risen to their feet and joined the battle, killing the terrorists near to them with hidden pistols. These off-duty cops and citizens with concealed-carry permits had been smart enough to wait for the right time to fight.
Lyons’s well-trained brain had taken in all of these facts in a heartbeat, and now he turned his attention back toward the biggest threat in the church—the amateurish improvised bomb that still stood on the floor next to the chairs where the minister and his guard had been moments earlier. The two men were wrestling on the floor, each doing his best to gain control of the remote electronic detonator.
Skipping from the back of one choir chair to another, Lyons made his way down the rows through the choir loft toward the stage. Moan, cries and shrieks could be heard just beneath his boots.
So far, the vibrations from all of the rounds being fired throughout the church had failed to detonate the IED. But that didn’t mean the next one wouldn’t. Or the one after that. And the minister and terrorist wrestling on the floor were still too close to the device for comfort.
Lyons let his M-16 fall to the end of its sling as he jumped off the last row of choir seats and landed on the stage. A second later he had drawn the Randall Model 1 fighting knife and was diving on top of the grappling men. Lyons knocked the minister to the side, taking his place and grabbing the terrorist’s wrist with his free hand. Before the man had a chance to push any of the buttons, the Able Team leader had thrust the point of the Randall’s seven-inch blade through his wrist. He twisted the knife back and forth. Ligaments and tendons popped as the Able Team leader literally cut the detonator out of the man’s hand with the Randall’s razor-sharp edge.
The man with the scarf screamed at the top of his lungs as blood began to shoot from his wrist. Grabbing the detonator from the man’s useless fingers, Lyons put all of his weight on the Randall, feeling it cut through to the other side of the wrist, penetrate the carpet below, then lodge itself in the wood beneath.
As he rose off the terrorist’s chest, Lyons saw the man try to pull the knife out of his wrist with his other hand. Unsuccessful, he screamed as the pain proved more than he could endure.
The man with the knife through his wrist fell back in agony.
The minister had risen to his feet after being knocked clear by Lyons a moment earlier. The Able Team leader looked at him. His hair and clothing were disheveled and torn from the life-or-death wrestling match in which he’d just been engaged, but his eyes were clear.
Lyons pulled his trademark .357 Magnum Colt Python from his hip holster and twirled it so that the grips faced the minister. “You know how to use this thing?” he asked the preacher.
The man nodded his head. “Cylinder turns opposite from a Smith & Wesson,” he said.
Those few words convinced Lyons that the preacher knew his guns. “Keep him here,” he said, looking down at the man still pinned to the floor. “Don’t shoot him unless you have to. He may have valuable information for us later.”
The minister nodded as he took a two-handed grip on the Python and aimed it at the terrorist’s head.
Lyons lifted the M-16 and turned toward the congregation. Catching a glimpse of khaki running toward a foyer door at the back of the sanctuary, Lyons directed a 3-round burst into the terrorist’s back. The man dropped to the carpet a foot from the door.
Turning slightly, Lyons saw a member of the congregation wearing a plaid sport coat and dark tie aiming a Glock at one of the terrorists. But another terrorist, behind the man in plaid, was aiming an AK-47 at his back.
Lyons swung the M-16 around and sent another 3-round burst over the heads of the people huddling beneath the pews. The bullets all hit the man in the red scarf in the chest, dropping him out of sight a second before the man in plaid triggered his Glock.
The terrorist the churchgoer had aimed at fell to the man’s pistol fire. He turned his gun on yet another of the intruders, never knowing that the Able Team leader had just saved his life.
Schwarz and Blancanales had moved down off the stage and were creeping along the sides of the sanctuary, using the pews as cover and targeting any terrorist who presented himself. Hooks and Langford were still battling away from the side of the pulpit.
Raising his eyes to the balcony, the Able Team leader saw that only one of the attackers was still on his feet, firing downward over the safety rail. Raising his assault rifle, the Ironman caught him in the chest with yet another burst of fire. The man screamed. Then his scream was cut off and a gurgling sound replaced it as his chest filled with blood.
Falling forward over the rail, he did a half flip before the back of his head struck the top of a pew. By now, the gunfire had begun to subside, and the cracking sound of the falling man’s neck breaking echoed throughout the large sanctuary.
The various law-enforcement officers waiting outside began to enter the sanctuary through the foyer doors, and suddenly the battle was over.
“Check for wounded!” Lyons called to Schwarz and Blancanales. Both men nodded back at him. In the meantime, Langford walked to the pulpit and began talking in a calm voice, doing his best to end the screams of horror and other noise from the people under their seats. In a few seconds, heads began to rise as it became apparent that the nightmare was over.
Lyons returned to where the minister was still covering the man pinned to the floor. “Pastor,” he said, “I need a room where I can talk to this guy. Nice and private.”
The minister nodded as he handed Lyons’s revolver back to him. “I’ll take you to one of the Sunday-school rooms,” he said. “By the way, thanks.” He paused a moment, then said, “You don’t look like regular policemen. Not even like special state agents like our own Gary Hooks.”
“Nobody looks like Gary Hooks is my guess,” Lyons said.
The minister laughed. “He marches to a different drummer, all right. I’m Rick Felton, by the way. Call me Rick.” He stuck out his hand. “And you?”
“Just call me Lyons,” the Able Team leader said.
“You must be federal agents of some kind,” said Felton. “Is that what it is?”
“Sort of,” Lyons said as he knelt next to the man on the floor. “It’s hard to explain.”
Lyons turned his attention to the man on the floor. Reaching down with both hands, he wriggled his fingers beneath the man’s wrist, then yanked upward. There was still screaming and loud moans all over the sanctuary, but this terrorist’s shriek was loud enough to turn all heads their way.
Lyons left the knife in the man’s wrist, using the grip to guide him down off the stage and out through the closest exit. As they descended the steps, he saw both the Oklahoma City Police and Highway Patrol Bomb Squads enter the sanctuary. He pointed toward the bomb behind him, then moved on.
As they neared the door, Schwarz and Blancanales suddenly appeared next to him. “Only two civilian injuries, Ironman,” Schwarz said. “Both superficial flesh wounds.”
“Lucky,” Lyons said as Felton led them down a hallway past the church kitchen.
The minister glanced over his shoulder and shrugged. “I think there might have been a little more than luck involved here, don’t you?” he said. When no one answered, he continued to speak as they walked on. “Tell me how I knew you were in the baptistry,” he said, smiling. “Better yet, tell me how you knew I’d know, and that I’d be willing to fight for the detonator until you got to me. And tell me why none of the congregation was killed, and why that bomb never went off. By all rights, we should all be dead right now. You think that all just happened by coincidence?”
“I don’t know,” Lyons said.
Felton glanced up toward the ceiling. “Well, I do,” he said, smiling.
Lyons followed the minister to a door with a metal sign that read Adult II Sunday School. Felton pulled out a key ring and opened it, holding the door wide while Lyons led the captured man inside, still holding the knife. As soon as they were all inside the room, Lyons sat the man wearing the red scarf in a metal folding chair. The man was still making low, whimpering noises that the Able Team leader found irritating. Twisting the knife slightly, he made the prisoner scream.
“Okay,” said Lyons. “You keep whining like a baby and I’ll keep twisting the knife. Or you can act like a man and I’ll treat you like one.”
Their captive rattled off something in Farsi.
“You speak English?” Lyons demanded.
The man shook his head.
Lyons pulled on the knife again and the man screamed, “Yes! I speak English! I speak very good English for you!”
“Somehow I knew you were gonna say that,” Lyons told him. Still holding on to the knife handle, he turned to Felton. It was obvious that the minister was uncomfortable being there while Lyons inflicted even this slight pain on their captive. “Pastor,” he said, “you might want to take Hooks and Langford through the church and see if any of these guys escaped the sanctuary and are hiding someplace. On the other hand, there are probably SWAT teams already doing that, so I’d go back to the sanctuary and get behind the pulpit if I were you. I’m sure your presence would be of great comfort to the congregation during this stressful time.”
Felton was no fool, and his facial expression told Lyons that he knew the Able Team leader simply wanted him out of there. But he nodded, then looked at the bleeding man in the chair. Even though the terrorist had attempted to murder him, his family and a thousand other people in his congregation, the preacher’s eyes held no malice—only a trace of sorrow.
Felton looked up at Lyons, Schwarz and Blancanales. “Do what you have to do to save lives,” he said. “And I’ll keep working on their souls.” He paused for a minute, then started for the door. “Someday the lion will lay down with the lamb,” he quoted as he twisted the doorknob.
“Yes,” Lyons agreed. “But I’m afraid it’s not going to be today.”
CHAPTER TWO
“Gadgets,” Lyons said to Schwarz, the Able Team’s electronics expert, “go double-check what the bomb squads are doing and then hurry back.”
Without a word the Able Team warrior zipped out of the Sunday school room door and disappeared down the hall toward the sanctuary.
Lyons pulled the red-scarfed man’s arm over the table in front of where he was sitting and braced it with his left hand. “This is going to hurt,” he told the terrorist. “Hold your breath.”
With a sudden yank on the Randall’s grip, he withdrew the blade of the custom-made fighting knife.
The terrorist screamed and jerked the injured limb back against his chest, cradling it like a baby with the other arm.
“Do us both a favor,” Blancanales said, irritated. “Act like a man instead of a bitchy little girl. You’re a shame to our entire gender.”
The prisoner quieted down, but small little moans still came from his mouth.
“Do like he said and shut up,” Lyons growled. “Or I’ll do the same to your other arm.” In truth, the Able Team leader had no intention of torturing the man. Torture was too unpredictable. The subject tended to tell his tormenters whatever he thought would make them stop, and it might or might not be the truth.
The fact of the matter was, Lyons had even found pinning the man’s wrist to the stage to get the detonator distasteful. But it had been the only practical way to disarm him. Guiding him into the Sunday-school room with the blade still stuck in his arm had been equally unpleasant. But it, too, had been the fastest and most pragmatic way of getting him out of the sanctuary and to a place where he could be questioned.
Now, as the injured man fell silent and tears streamed down his cheeks, Lyons looked him in the eye. “We’ve got two different routes we can take here,” he said to the man. “You can tell us everything you know about who you are and what your plans were.” He paused for a second, then went on. “Or we can play games until you bleed to death.” He pointed to the man’s wrist where the blood continued to leak in a slow but steady stream. Miraculously, it appeared he hadn’t completely severed any of the major arteries in the process of cutting the tendons and ligaments.
But he had to have at least nicked one.
Snatching the red scarf from around the man’s neck, the Able Team leader used it to wipe the blood off his knife. Then, dropping the Randall back into its sheath, he said, “Let’s start with your name. What is it?”
The man closed his eyes but the tears still flowed from under his eyelids. “Umar,” he finally mumbled.
Lyons leaned down, stuck a thumb on top of both of Umar’s eyelids and opened them for him. What he saw inside was a man who was as terrified now as the poor, defenseless congregation in the sanctuary had been during the earlier siege. “Okay, Umar,” he said. “Tell me who you and who the rest of the men are.”
Umar paused a moment, as if trying to think of an answer that would satisfy Lyons but still not betray his countrymen. But when he saw Lyons’s hand drop back down to the grip of the Randall knife, he said, “We are the Pasdaran. What you call the Iranian Revolutionary Guard.”
Schwarz had reentered the room and now stood on the other side of the man with the punctured wrist. “Right,” he said, leaning down on the other side and sticking his nose an inch away from Umar’s. “And I’m George Washington, father of this country.”
Umar shook his head back and forth violently. “No!” he declared, his eyes still on Lyons’s hand gripping the knife. “It is the truth. We have been sent here by President Azria himself.”
Lyons straightened but still stared hard at the man across the table. Could that be true? Javid Azria, the president of Iran, was a megalomaniac every bit as crazy as North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il. And regardless of Azria’s claim to the contrary, everyone knew Iran had been working on a nuclear program ever since he had taken control of the country. And Azria had either refused or stonewalled all attempts by the UN to inspect that program.
If Azria had already worked out the kinks in his nukes, it might just have resulted in the courage to send official troops onto American soil. That possibility cast a whole new shadow over an already dire scenario.
“What were you supposed to do here?” Lyons demanded.
Umar took a deep breath, then looked down at his wrist, which was still spouting blood.
“I wouldn’t waste too much time if I were you,” said Rosario Blancanales, who stood directly behind the man. “You’ve probably lost a pint or two already. Feeling a little light-headed?”
Umar slowly nodded to indicate that Blancanales was right.
“Then I’d talk fast if I was you,” Lyons said. “While you still can. Believe me, you tell us the truth—the whole truth—and you’ll get immediate medical attention. You’ve got my promise on that. If you don’t, we’ll just watch you slowly pass out and then die right here.” He leaned closer and added, “It’s your decision.”
“We are Revolutionary Guard,” he said. “And our orders, which came directly from the president’s mouth, were to find a large church in the area of the U.S. known as the Bible Belt, take it over during a Sunday-morning service and blow it up.”
“And you were planning to blow yourselves up with it?” Lyons asked.
Umar nodded his head, and it was apparent to all three Able Team warriors that the line separating terrorists from officially sanctioned government soldiers had finally been crossed. It was also obvious that Umar was getting close to the point where he’d pass out.
“So it was a suicide mission?” Schwarz said.
Umar nodded. “Yes,” he said, his voice weak.
Lyons knew he’d have to hurry if he planned on getting more intelligence information out of this bleeding Pasdaran. As if to emphasize his thoughts, Umar’s chin suddenly fell to his chest and his eyes closed again.
Lyons slapped him across the face. “You’re faking it, you little scumbag,” he said. “You think we just gave you a way out of all this. You’re wrong.”
Either the slap or Lyons’s words or both brought the Pasdaran’s head and eyelids back up immediately.
“So I can assume that you’re not the only squad of Pasdarans in the country?” Lyons said.
Umar nodded. “There are dozens,” he said.
“Where do we find them?” the Able Team leader demanded.
Umar slowly shook his head, and it was obvious that he really was getting dizzy now. “I do not know.” His words slurred like a drunken man’s. “Each unit knows only their own orders.”
Lyons straightened to his full height and turned away from the bleeding man, his thoughts returning to Iran and Azria and the nuclear program. American intelligence agencies all knew that most terrorist strikes against the U.S. were backed and supported by the various governments of the Middle East. But this was never admitted to by those governments. To openly send official troops—especially troops as identifiable as these men in the red scarves—was unheard of.
Carl Lyons knew that Iran had developed nukes. His gut assured him of that. But did they have missiles, too? Ironically, that was where nuclear programs in rogue countries such as Iran usually got stalled. Building nuclear bombs was relatively easy compared to developing their delivery systems.
Lyons continued to stare down at the bleeding man. Even if the Iranians didn’t have missiles to tote the nukes halfway around the world, there were many other ways to sneak them into the U.S. and then detonate them. And even if they didn’t attack America, Israel was barely a stone’s thrown away from Iran.
One nuclear explosion in Israel and a chain reaction could easily escalate straight into World War III. Such devastation was unthinkable to the average, sane man no matter what his politics or the country he called home. But to a madman like Javid Azria it might seem to be a perfectly logical step.
The Able Team leader turned back to Umar and saw that the man really had fallen asleep this time. “Pol,” Lyons said, “go get some cops to wrap this guy up and get him to an ambulance where he can be transfused.” He looked at the man in the chair who was still clutching his arm to his chest in his sleep. “And tell them he needs to be arrested and guarded. We may get more out of him later if he lives.”
Blancanales hurried out of the room.
Schwarz and Lyons walked out together. They had taken only a few steps down the hall back toward the sanctuary when Lyons’s satellite phone rang. Lyons held the instrument to his ear and said, “Yeah?”
“You learn anything worthwhile?” Hal Brognola’s voice asked.
“Just some general stuff. No specifics,” Lyons answered. “These guys claim to be official Iranian Pasdaran instead of terrorists, and according to the one who lived, there are several dozen bands of them scattered across the U.S.” He paused as Schwarz opened the outer door of the church. “But each squad appears to be autonomous. None of them know what the others’ orders are.”
“Well,” Brognola said, “I can tell you what at least one of them is doing at the moment.”
“What’s that?” Lyons said.
“I’ll brief you once you’re in the air,” said Brognola. “One of the local PD helicopters will take you to the airport, where Charlie Mott’ll be waiting for you.”
Blancanales joined them as they walked down the steps of the church. Almost as soon as Lyons had pushed the button to end the call, he heard the chatter of helicopter blades in the air above him. Looking up, he saw a blue-and-white chopper with OCPD markings.
The chopper set down on the grass in front of the church and the men of Able Team quickly boarded. A moment later the helicopter was rising again, headed for Will Rogers World Airport a few miles away.
D AVID M C C ARTER came wide awake as soon as the phone rang next to his bed. Before it could chime again, he had snatched it from its cradle. He glanced at the wristwatch on the table next to the phone and saw that he’d had four hours of sleep.
Well, the native Londoner thought, it was at least more than usual. “McCarter here,” he said into the mouthpiece.
“Grab your buddies and gear up,” Hal Brognola’s voice said into the phone. “You’re on your way to Iran.”
McCarter yawned. “Iran,” he said. “Always wanted to go there.”
“Well,” Brognola said, “you’re gonna get the chance. I’m about to land outside and I’ll brief you and the other guys once you’re on board.”
“You’re going in with us?” McCarter asked.
“No,” Brognola clarified. “I’ll just be riding along to run down the situation for you. Jack will fly me back as soon as you’re on the ground.”
McCarter yawned again. “That’s going to cut into your own time,” he said, glancing at the wristwatch again.
“Not as much as you think,” Brognola said.
“Come again?” McCarter requested.
“You’ll see what I mean in a few minutes. Grimaldi’s got a brand-new toy.”
David McCarter saw no reason to keep questioning Brognola on the subject. So he changed it. “Anything special we need to bring with us?”
“Just your personal weapons and other gear,” said Brognola. “Kissinger’ll be loading the extras while you round up your men.”
“Affirmative,” McCarter said. Even as he spoke he was pulling open a drawer filled with BDU clothing. “Just give me five.”
“I’ll give you four,” Brognola said, and then the line went dead.
McCarter donned a clean blacksuit—the skintight, stretchy combat clothing of Stony Man warriors—and zipped up his boots. He reached for the large duffel bag that held the rest of his equipment. He had learned long ago that you packed before you slept in one of the Stony Man Farm bedrooms. Stony Man missions broke quickly, and tasks that required five minutes had to be completed in four.
Or less.
Leaving the room, McCarter walked along the hallway knocking loudly on the four doors he passed. The other members of Phoenix Force knew what the noise meant.
They were heading out again.
Two minutes later, the five-man squad walked out the front door of Stony Man Farm’s Main House and headed for the landing strip. Just in time to see a strange plane land on the runway.
“What in bloody hell is that thing?” McCarter said to no one in particular as they walked toward the aircraft.
“It’s a Concorde,” Gary Manning said. The burly Canadian was Phoenix Force’s explosives expert.
“We know it’s a Concorde, Gary,” said Rafael Encizo. “What our brilliant former British SAS man means is, what’s it doing here? ”
A moment later the five warriors had boarded the bird-looking Concorde, which was being flown by Jack Grimaldi, Stony Man Farm’s number-one pilot. Brognola sat in the redecorated passenger’s area in a reclining chair that was bolted to the carpeted deck. The other men dropped down into similar seats around the plane.
“Okay,” said Thomas Jackson Hawkins in his South Texas drawl. “I give up. Where’d you pick up this monstrosity, Hal?”
Hal Brognola laughed. “Got it practically for a song,” he said. “When the Concordes went out of business. As you can see, we’ve completely redone the inside.”
“How come you didn’t tell us about it?” Calvin James asked. The former Navy SEAL was from the south side Chicago.
“I wanted to surprise you,” Brognola said. “These recliners are great to sleep in. It’s going to give you more rest before each mission.”
“You’ll get no argument from me on that,” McCarter said as the Concorde took off down the runway again. “But first tell us why we’re heading for Iran.”
