translated, the name means ‘the Revenge of Allah,’” Brognola offered helpfully.
“They’re a relatively new group, a radical cell that grew up from al Qaeda and finally split off when their numbers got large enough,” Price continued.
Schwarz snorted. “Oh, as if al Qaeda wasn’t radical enough.”
“What’s their angle, this IUA?” Lyons asked.
Price replied. “Murder, mayhem and terror wherever they can spread it.”
“In other words, the usual.”
“Yes. They are fundamentally an Islamic extremist group, interested only in the conversion of all peoples to their religion. Anyone not willing to convert ends up on the shortlist for termination and especially us heathen, capitalist dogs here in the United States.”
“Any idea how many we could be dealing with?”
“Not yet,” Brognola said. “This particular group hasn’t taken a whole lot of credit for terrorist acts around the world, which is interesting only due to the fact there are some significant incidents recently attributed to them by world opinion. They were especially prolific in Pakistan, India and some African countries. But their biggest impact has been recent events in Iraq. They have even taken on those terrorist groups with very similar platforms.”
“That’s odd,” Schwarz remarked.
“Yes, we thought so, too,” Price said. “But our intelligence, while scant, is pretty accurate.”
“Doesn’t sound like they play well with others,” Lyons said.
“Whatever the case, you’re to proceed with all haste but extreme caution. Understood?”
“Gotcha,” Lyons said.
“Jawohl!” Schwarz said.
“Muy bueno!” Blancanales added from the driver’s seat.
Price pursed her lips and shook her head with resignation before signing off.
“I don’t think she’s much on our sense of humor,” Schwarz said.
“Speak for yourself,” Lyons replied.
With that, the Able Team leader turned toward the armory. There wasn’t any reason not to take Stony Man’s intelligence at face value. If Price and Brognola were convinced that the IUA was extremely dangerous, then that was good enough for Able Team. Lyons opened a slide-away panel that released by punching in a code on the keypad set in the face of the heavily armored weapons safe.
“What’s your pleasure?” he asked Schwarz.
“I’ll take the G-11.”
A good choice indeed, Lyons noted. Manufactured by Heckler & Koch, the G-11 sported a fifty-round magazine positioned horizontally above the barrel. It chambered 4.7 x 33 mm DE11 caseless cartridges, which eliminated the need for any extraction or ejection mechanism and this minimized muzzle rise. This in turn provided a tremendous increase in first-hit probability, particularly in the hands of a marksman like Schwarz.
Blancanales called for the Beretta SCS-70/90. This weapon only differed from the assault rifle version by sporting a folding, tubular metal butt and slightly shorter barrel. Blancanales preferred it for these features in addition to the fact it fired 5.56 x 45 mm NATO rounds at a cyclic rate of six hundred rounds per minute with a muzzle velocity exceeding 900 meters per second.
Lyons decided a combat shotgun would not do this time, and opted for a trusted M-16 A-3/M-203 combo. He’d grown accustomed to earlier variants of this weapon while serving on the LAPD, and come to appreciate it over the years for its reliability and accuracy. Not to mention that if they were going up against some terrorist hardasses, the Able Team leader wanted some extra oomph in his arsenal, which the M-203 grenade launcher promised to provide.
Each of the Able Team warriors also carried his preferred sidearm and plenty of extra ammo. They weren’t expecting trouble—assuming the terrorists had done what they came to do and were probably long gone—but they were damn sure ready for it.
When they pulled up in front of the address where the vehicles had been registered, Lyons took shotgun position and looked out the window. The darkened structure loomed in the hazy afternoon light. The crumbling facade of the factory didn’t surprise Lyons in the least since he’d already convinced himself and his colleagues that the place would probably be abandoned. Neither did it surprise him to see the many broken windows, with glass strewed across the rutted parking lot. What really frosted Lyons was the audacity of the terrorists to have parked their vans out front in broad daylight. It was as if they were saying, “You moronic Americans are too stupid to track us down, so we aren’t even going to bother trying to hide our transportation.”
Well, Able Team had a message for them.
“Ballsy of them to just park right out front,” Blancanales said as if he could read his friend’s mind.
“Think they’re not expecting company?” Schwarz asked.
“No,” Lyons said. “I can’t buy that.”
“I smell a trap,” Blancanales offered.
“Me, too,” Schwarz said.
“Well, we’re not going to find out sitting around out here,” Lyons said.
Blancanales grunted and then put the van in gear and turned into the parking lot. He increased speed when he passed between the once stately chain-link gates that now dangled uselessly from their fence poles. Immediately the air came alive with autofire, and muzzle-flashes issued from the darkened interior of windows on the second floor. Most of the rounds missed but those that did hit ricocheted off the reinforced Kevlar and stamped-steel body of Able Team’s customized van—the latest in bulletproof technology being tested by Stony Man.
Lyons jacked the charging handle of his assault rifle and said, “Let’s play ball.”
CHAPTER THREE
Namibia, Africa
The road from Walvis Bay to Windhoek, national capital of Namibia, had seen its share of world history, and if the pain in David McCarter’s backside was any indication, it had seen more history than repairs in certain parts.
Windhoek, on the other hand, sported all the conveniences of most modern cities. Not that this had been McCarter’s first visit to the region. It had taken the South-West Africa People’s Organization, aka SWAPO, twenty-two years to bring independence to this area and another two within the United Nations to convince South Africa to end its regional administration. Since 1990, the country had been governed under a democratic constitution headed by a president and national assembly. And while McCarter spoke a little Afrikaans, very little, the official language thankfully remained English.
“Dr. Brown, let me be the first to welcome you to the Republic of Namibia,” said Dr. Justus Matombo, chief medical adviser to the national assembly.
“It’s our pleasure, Doctor,” McCarter replied, shaking Matombo’s hand.
Matombo wasn’t
