utilized in a city was when the Israeli Defense Force had fired one at a terrorist leader who had taken up residence in an apartment building ringed with bodyguards and the added “protection” of innocent Palestinian civilians living in the building. The whole complex had been taken out by a single one-ton bomb that killed fourteen and wounded fifty others. The building had been turned into a crater, and had the warhead been launched at any other time, the death toll would have been even greater. It wasn’t the kind of move that Lyons would have preferred, but to only kill fifteen people with two thousand pounds of high explosives, launched from a supersonic strike fighter, was a sign of how deadly those modules could be.
That was the kind of firepower that a terrorist group, no matter how disciplined, could hardly keep secret. There would be bragging, an increase in veiled threats, something that broke loose into the whisper stream, rumors flying through the underground that someone would trade in on. Hundreds of the high-tech units could be combined with weapons no more refined than steel pipes stuffed with plastic explosives and rolled out of the back of a cargo plane. One of these could easily be dropped into a meeting of Congress, or an airport crowded with innocent travelers, causing death and devastation in a manner that terrorists loved.
The arms-dealer trail was their only lead. It was what had gotten them to Chicago, but nothing had gone further. The Farm’s cybernetic crew had worked hard, pulling out the stops on suspected foreign and domestic terrorist groups who would have the money and coordination for such a theft under the opinion that perhaps one cell had been disciplined enough to hold their tongues.
But that wasn’t how it appeared. From radical Islamic fundamentalists—the scourge who gave the Arab world a bad reputation—to Illinois neo-Nazis—a scourge who gave all humanity a worse reputation—no one seemed to be primed with confidence or assigning extra security to protect their illicit firepower.
The laser modules had moved on somewhere, and they had most likely gone to be stored with the bombs that they were destined to steer toward death and destruction.
Lyons knew that the trail had gone cold, and with that sudden chill came the realization that the next chance they’d have would be when fire fell from the sky upon American citizens.
The lobby was empty except for the cage where a security guard leaned back in his chair, idly watching black-and-white screens. Lyons only got a glimpse of the man as he’d passed, but the ex-cop had his senses tuned to suck in as much data as possible.
The guard was all wrong. Instead of a bored, inattentive washout with a slight roll, or an exhausted beat cop working a second job to feed his kids, this guy was fit and he was focused. He’d given Lyons the same eyeball treatment that he’d received, and his attention returned to the security screens. The gun in his holster was a customized Colt-style 1911 autopistol, carried locked and cocked in quality leather. Modern cops were the kind of people who preferred different arms, and in a city and environs like Chicago, the single-action sidearm was not approved, nor as inexpensive as the Glocks and other polymer-framed pistols that had risen in popularity. While the guy might have been SWAT, thus having the standard of training to have a police rig for the 1911, he still wasn’t in “second job” mode. No radio played in the silence of the lobby, nor did the guy wear earbuds attached to a digital music player.
The laid-back approach was faked. That level of security awareness, plus the high-profile, skill-intensive sidearm, added up to the sum that Lyons sought. This was the place he was looking for, and he strolled with renewed confidence and energy. He didn’t believe that he’d need Schwarz or Blancanales for this leg of the investigation. After all, this was only an organized crime transportation service, and while there would be a need for armed guards around the storehouse and loading docks, this was too much of a residential building to serve as either, though Lyons wouldn’t put anything past the mob. Chicago had a significant Italian-American organized community still, much like New York and New Jersey, and the Mafia had remained resilient enough to resist being put to pasture by groups who had risen to power in other major metropolises. These low-income tenements were nothing like the monolithic, soul-draining prisons like Cabrini Green, which had been demolished after they’d become cesspools controlled by powerful drug gangs.
Still, this particular tenement was big enough to prove to be a good fortress while still being low profile.
“Hey, Blondie.” The guard’s voice rose. “I gotta buzz you in. Who’re you here to see?”
Lyons was halfway to the elevators and stopped, looking over his shoulder. If this guard was as sharp as he’d assumed, there was no way that the security man would miss the arsenal he wore, no matter how loosely the leather jacket draped over it. “I’m here on business. Didn’t Scalia tell you?”
It was a bluff. Lyons had spent a few moments on the phone with Chicago’s org-crime unit, making use of his old contacts from when he was an undercover Fed, and he’d picked up a few names from the police that he could drop. Scalia was high enough that security wouldn’t want to be caught questioning his orders, but not so important that he would seem out of the loop giving such orders.
“Scalia?” the uniformed guard asked. “Don’t matter. You’re walking in here armed. I wouldn’t be surprised if you had a 25 mm turret in there.”
Lyons smirked, then pulled his lapel aside. “Nah. Just a six-inch .357 Magnum.”
“Damn, son,” the guard said. “Not far from it.”
“So what? I have to leave my heat here at the desk?” Lyons asked.
The guard shook his head. “I do have to pat you for wires, and I’d like to see your cell.”
Lyons nodded, doffing his jacket. The guard made note of Lyons’s body armor, and kept feeling. He was a professional, not minding having to mess with another man’s junk to look for concealed electronics. A signal sweep might not work in case the device had remote activation.
The guard took Lyons’s Combat PDA, the only phone he’d had with him. Luckily, the Able Team leader had switched it over to a new identity, locking off any history of calls to law enforcement, replacing it with a series of random names and numbers produced by an logarithm devised by Hermann Schwarz and Aaron “the Bear” Kurtzman to provide a clean identity. Only Lyons’s thumbprint could return the device to its normal contact list and background data. Stony Man Farm was nothing if not efficient and well-prepared when providing its members with secure communications.
“You kinda Nordic-looking to be muscle for the outfit,” the rent-a-cop said.
Lyons chuckled. “And you bleed marinara sauce?”
The guard smiled. “Welcome to the new thing. Diversity in operation.”
“My phone?” Lyons asked.
“Stays here,” the sentry returned. “Someone clones your signal and dials in, it’s like you’re wearing a mike anyway. The only phones past this lobby are landline.”
Lyons nodded. “Scalia don’t fuck around when it comes to OPSEC.”
The guard’s interest was piqued now. “Military?”
“Private contractor,” Lyons answered with just enough disappointment to let the real veteran know that he was someone who hadn’t been tolerated in a war zone by military brass, but had been in action and carried the same battle confidence that someone in the Sandbox would have.
“Well, just keep things private, Mr. Contractor,” the guard replied. “I’m not the only one here you’re gonna mess with.
