CHAPTER TWO

       Fayetteville, North Carolina

      “Level twenty-one,” Schwarz announced triumphantly. He went through the motions of a little victory dance in the passenger seat of the old Chevrolet Suburban, something he had been developing for the past several levels. Or at least, that was what he had been telling Blancanales and Lyons. From the driver’s seat, Lyons shot him a sidelong glance.

      “You can quit that anytime,” he growled.

      “No, I really can’t,” Schwarz said. He had his secure satellite smartphone in his hands and was once again playing the candy monster game. He did not look up as he spoke. Blancanales, as he often did, pretended not to hear the exchange, instead watching out the window of the SUV.

      The old Suburban was one that had been in the Farm’s motor pool rotation for a while. It had steel running boards, which you hardly ever saw on big SUVs these days. It even had a few patched bullet holes that Blancanales had noticed when Lyons had first brought the vehicle around. He knew that, regardless of its appearance, the old truck would be well maintained by the mechanics at Stony Man Farm. Not for the first time it occurred to him how fortunate they all were to be able to take the maintenance of their vehicles and weapons for granted.

      The resources of the Farm were extensive, but they were not limitless. Brognola went through a number of different legal and political gymnastics in Washington to divert the funds from various black bag project budgets to pay for the Farm. It helped that the President of the United States was in on the Sensitive Operations Group’s existence, of course. The Man always saw to it that budget expenditures manipulated by Brognola were signed off as they came up. But it was still an ongoing battle, not just coordinating a venture as elaborate and as dangerous as the Farm’s counterterrorism efforts, but also making sure the budget money flowed where it needed to flow. Blancanales understood very well the politicking and people wrangling that must come with the job. He was glad the tasks did not fall to him.

      “Level twenty-two!” Schwarz whooped and moved his arms in a tight circle like a sorority drunk at a nightclub.

      “I am going to throw that thing out the window,” Lyons threatened. “You’ve been doing that for the past two hundred miles.”

      “I could go back to ‘I spy with my little eye,’” Schwarz said. “I spy—” he began.

      “Pol,” Lyons said without turning to look back at Blancanales. “I want you to take out your Beretta, put it to the back of my head and put me out of my misery.”

      “You can make it, Ironman,” Blancanales said encouragingly. “Maybe focus on the mission. Count to ten and think of England.”

      “One,” Lyons muttered. “Two. Three…”

      They were outfitted with their usual complement of personal weapons, as well as some of the latest goodies from Stony Man Farm’s armorer. Lyons was carrying his customary Colt Python in a shoulder holster under his bomber jacket, while Blancanales and Schwarz had opted for light windbreakers to conceal their pistols. Blancanales had long ago become very comfortable with the Beretta M-9, while Schwarz often opted for the Beretta 93-R machine pistol. His slightly oversize, select-fire pistol also rode in a shoulder holster. His twenty-round magazines were also compatible with Blancanales’s weapon, should it come to that.

      In a large duffel bag in the back was Lyons’s tremendous automatic shotgun, a drum-fed Daewoo USAS-12. There was also a cut-down Colt 9 mm SMG for Schwarz and a short-barreled M-4 carbine for Blancanales. Plenty of loaded magazines, grenades, explosive charges and other hardware had been provided—Blancanales wondered, sometimes, how many blacksuits spent their days just thumbing ammunition into magazines for the Farm’s counterterror teams—as had been an M-32 six-round 40 mm grenade launcher. The modified Milkor MGL-140 with a fore-grip, collapsible modular buttstock, recoil pad, and quad-rail Picatinny fore-end could empty a half dozen grenades on target in less than three seconds. Their grab bag of firepower from the Farm also included plenty of Hellhound breaching/antipersonnel rounds and DRACO thermobaric grenades. Blancanales would have to check to be sure, but he thought their load-out also included some buckshot rounds—each grenade boasting twenty-seven 00 buckshot spheres that could blow a cone almost a hundred feet across at almost 900 feet per second.

      It was a pretty typical bag of tricks for Able Team.

      Each man also carried a tactical one-hand-opening folding knife with an integral guard, sizable chunks of steel that had been honed to razor edges. Blancanales had been resisting the urge to play with the one issued to him. It was clipped inside his right front pocket.

      “Level twenty-three,” Schwarz announced. He turned to regard Lyons smugly. Lyons kept his eyes on the road, but Blancanales thought he could see the big former cop’s shoulders tense. Lyons might not really snatch the phone and pitch it out the window, but he seemed to be giving it some serious thought.

      “Here’s what we’re going to do,” Lyons said, still staring straight ahead. His knuckles grew less white on the steering wheel as he spoke. “We hit the parking lot and break out the heavy hardware. Gadgets, you break left, cover the left side of the lobby as we head in. Pol, you break right. Watch the flanks while I drive up the center. You’ll lay down covering fire as I—”

      “Wait,” Blancanales said. “What?”

      “Uh,” Schwarz said. “Ironman?”

      “What?” Lyons said, sounding annoyed.

      “Are you…are you planning to just roll in and shoot everybody?”

      “Well, what else?” Lyons said. “Obviously he’s the bad guy. He’s going to try to kill us as soon as he figures we have enough evidence to take him down. So, like I said at the briefing, we just cut to the end. It will save a lot of time and hassle.”

      “You’re not serious,” Schwarz argued.

      Lyons sighed. “No. I’m not. But it got you to put down that damned game for thirty seconds, didn’t it?”

      Blancanales looked at Schwarz, who looked at Lyons. Lyons looked at both of them before turning his attention back to the road. Then Carl “Ironman” Lyons began laughing. It was a deep, hearty laugh.

      “You had me going,” Blancanales admitted.

      Schwarz blew air through his mouth. “Yeesh,” he said. “Remind me not to get on your bad side, Ironman.”

      “You’re already on it,” Lyons said. “You and that candy monster whatchamacallit.”

      “Level—” Schwarz started.

      “You announce what level you’re on one more time,” Lyons warned, “and I’m going to throw you out of this truck at seventy miles per hour.” Schwarz wisely chose not to comment further. “Twenty bucks says this Rhemsen character tries to punch our tickets the moment he thinks he can’t get away with his lies.”

      “You’re on,” Schwarz said. “We’ve seen too many corrupt captains of industry. Sooner or later one of them’s bound to be a patsy.” He looked back at Blancanales. “You want in on this action, Pol?”

      “I know better than to get in the middle of