I said before, this Babbit’s willing to help us,” Lyons concluded. “She says she has some sketchy details of other plans this group might have. If we grant her immunity, she’ll deal.”
“You know our policy, Carl,” Brognola replied. “We don’t ‘deal’ with terrorists.”
“I understand that, but we may not have any other choice. If David and the rest can’t make a connection there, then we’ll have to work it from our end. She’s the one lead we have, Hal, and I want to exploit that to our advantage.”
Lyons was right, of course, and Brognola knew it. Sometimes the rules had to be bent. That was the name of the game, and it was fortunate that Stony Man had the freedom to conduct operations as they saw fit, as long as they kept the President apprised.
“All right,” Brognola conceded. “I’ll arrange for her to be cut loose and remanded to your custody. See where she leads you. But whatever you do, keep her alive. You’re right. She’s our only link to whoever’s behind this.”
“Understood,” Lyons said, and he disconnected the call.
ONCE THEY HAD concluded their call with Lyons, Price and Kurtzman began working on their intelligence, performing keyword searches and investigations into the backgrounds of Babbit’s deceased associates. It didn’t take long to figure out that most of them had ended up at the remote training camp in Louisiana after responding to an ad in a mercenary magazine. An anonymous caller took out the ad by contacting one of the magazine’s copy editors, faxing the three ambiguous lines advertising paid mercenary training, and paying for the job by money order mailed without a return address. The caller had given a fake name and the address and telephone number turned out to be that of an elderly woman who had two weeks before been admitted to a long-term nursing facility.
“They call themselves the Resurrected Defense League,” Barbara Price told Phoenix Force.
McCarter’s face filled the computer screen in the Communications Center of the Annex. John Kissinger—on a charter flight back to the States—was also on the conference line via his cellular phone, but he had no video feed.
“Sound like a nice bunch,” Kissinger interjected.
Price talked about their conversation with Lyons, then said, “We’re convinced these two incidents are connected, and we’re also sure these won’t be the last.”
“You have any luck with those tapes we sent?” Encizo’s voice cut in, although Price couldn’t actually see his face.
“Bear and Carmen are now working with facial recognition software to see if they can identify any of the dead and tie them to any of the members Able Team neutralized in New York. We’re also analyzing the prototypes data you sent to see what connections we can pull from that.”
“What else do we know about this group?” McCarter asked.
Price frowned. “Not much. They’re relatively new to this game.”
“Couldn’t prove it by us,” T. J. Hawkins said. “This attack was well planned and coordinated. They were obviously practiced and ready for any eventuality.”
“They managed to take us by surprise,” Gary Manning said.
“Only the fact we were separated saved our hides,” Calvin James added. “If we’d been together when it went down, we probably wouldn’t be having this conversation right now.”
“It’s good to hear you’re back to your old self, Calvin,” Price said, smiling into the camera.
James’s grinning countenance suddenly filled the screen, pushing McCarter slightly out of view. “Thanks, Barb, because it damn sure feels good to be alive.”
McCarter took back center stage and with a cock-sure grin and sideways glance, said, “You can play nice-nice later, mate.”
The line erupted with laughter.
“Okay, enough with the court jester routine,” Price said, although she knew they weren’t taking her that seriously. She was happy to know everyone was still breathing. The morning’s news had really worn on her.
“What about the prototypes, Barb?” Kissinger asked. “Is there anything you think can help us there?”
“Possibly, but I’m not sure how far we can go. As you know, although Phoenix Force may not have been told, we were first alerted to this from a Pentagon connection of Hal’s. There’s a Navy man who spent considerable time consulting with the design and development engineers at Stormalite’s headquarters near Lake Victoria. His name is Kendall Remar, a rear admiral with the Naval Air Warfare Detachment at NAF Key West. What I need you to do, Cowboy, is to divert there. He’s expecting you. He has a wealth of additional information he can provide, which we then need you to forward to us and the field crews.”
“No problem,” Kissinger replied.
“What about us?” McCarter asked.
“I think I can help out there,” Kurtzman replied, wheeling up next to where Barbara Price stood with her arms folded. “I have Carmen sending an upload to you now. We connected two of those faces with a photo capture by a camera posted at the airport. We don’t have positive IDs on either of these guys yet, but we have confirmed they’re both players you went up against at the conference.”
“Where are they headed?” McCarter asked.
“Well, we can only guess as to final destination, but the plane they boarded was headed for Spain.”
“Seems like a strange place to go,” Gary Manning interjected.
“Not really,” Price replied. “There is significant support in Spain for a wide variety of terrorist organizations. We’ve known this for years, actually, but because of very stringent laws and Spain’s influence in both the UN and the European Union, we’ve never really considered the risks of operating there worth the potential costs in U.S. foreign relations.”
“Of course,” McCarter said, snorting. “We wouldn’t want to upset those protecting terrorists. That would be a bloody shame.”
“I know the politics are something that sticks in your craw, guys, but you know there’s little I can do about that,” Price said.
Price was very empathetic to the teams. Walking the line they had to walk was difficult. It certainly wasn’t something she could have brought herself to do; her political convictions were a little too strong for that. But the members of Able Team and Phoenix Force had to temper those convictions and maintain some level of neutrality. Still, it didn’t stop them from bitching about it, and Price saw no reason to begrudge them being able to verbalize. Most of the time, it was just a way to blow off steam.
“So where do we go from here?” James asked.
“Well, I just spoke with Jack and he’s waiting for you at Adelaide Airport. He’s fueled and ready to go. The plane that carried our two terrorists landed in Madrid less than twelve hours ago, so you’re not far behind.”
“Far enough,” Encizo pointed out.
“Listen, we’ve already got every operative in Spain on this,”
