a few short yards away, could hear clearly both sides of the conversation and he recognized the voice on the other end of the connection immediately. It was a voice he feared.
“Is that how you talk to a man in my position, General?” the voice asked.
Najafi’s manner and tone instantly changed. “Of course not, Your Eminence,” he said. “How may I serve you?”
Behind them Michael Suleiman moaned in agony, the noise very loud in the confined space of the mobile TOC. Najafi scowled fiercely and pointed a finger at the Hezbollah team leader. With a slash of his hand he indicated the bound and helpless Suleiman. Instantly the terrorist stepped forward and threw a right cross down onto the prisoner. The knuckles of the man’s hand connected with the sharp prominence of Michael Suleiman’s jaw, and the Lebanese political leader’s head went limp on his neck.
“There has been a change in certain global geopolitical realities that displease the Revolutionary Council,” the voice on the phone said.
“What happened?”
“The Americans in their arrogance have formally labeled our Islamic Revolutionary Guard and the Ministry of Defense and Armed Forces Logistics command as terrorist organizations. The world press is running with the story now.”
“The Americans’ insolence knows no bounds!” Najafi snarled. “How quickly they forget the humiliation of their embassy hostages on the world stage before that cowboy Reagan came to power.”
“The council agrees,” the voice replied. “This arrogance will not be ignored. Our own parliament is already constructing a resolution labeling the CIA and U.S. Army as the terrorist organizations they are—but that is only our public face.”
“You have something else in mind?”
“We want you to return to Tehran immediately. Your Ansar-al-Mahdi is to be given a new tasking. We’ll leave the Lebanese situation to VEVAK officers for now,” the voice said, referring to the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence.
“As you command,” Najafi said. “I will turn the plane around now.”
“Good.” The line went dead.
Najafi put the satellite phone down on the table and slowly turned to regard the bound Michael Suleiman. The Lebanese prisoner was only semiconscious, eyes dull and blood pouring from his torture wounds.
“Terrorist organizations,” Najafi scoffed, shaking his head with irritation. “You heard that?” he asked Ayub, who nodded. “Those cowboys will soon learn to regret their arrogant presumption.”
Najafi walked over to Suleiman and yanked the cordless drill from the man’s leg. Suleiman screamed. The drill whined to life, spinning at its fearsome 1,900 RPM. Suleiman’s eyes sprang wide in terror and he threw his head back against the chair.
Najafi lifted the drill in an almost offhand manner and plunged it into his captive’s left eye. Michael Suleiman jerked like a man in an electric chair, coming up out of his seat against his restraints, then sagging back down limply and falling irrevocably still.
Najafi yanked the drill free. Behind him Colonel Ayub bent double and vomited on his own shoes as the Hezbollah commandos snickered behind their masks. The Ansar-al-Mahdi commander regarded his subordinate with a look of cool distain until he had finished purging.
“Something you ate?”
“Yes, General,” Ayub said, wiping his mouth.
“Good.” Najafi shoved the gore-drenched power tool into the colonel’s shaking hands. “Clean that so that my briefcase is not stained.” He turned toward his Hezbollah surrogates and pointed at the corpse. “Take this piece of shit down to the cargo bay. I’m going to the cockpit. We’re on our way back to Tehran. When we’re over north Beirut I’ll signal the load master and you dump the body out so it can be found.”
“Yes, General,” the team leader replied.
Najafi turned back toward Colonel Ayub in his vomit-splattered dress shoes. “When you have finished with your valet duties, come up to the cockpit,” he told the man. He paused at the door of the TOC after removing his bloody apron. “We are going to figure out how exactly to show these Americans exactly what terror really is.”
Colonel Ayub nodded and Najafi went out the door. The politically connected military officer felt the eyes of the Hezbollah gunmen on him. He forced himself to stand straight. He looked at the bloody and mutilated body of Michael Suleiman and he forced his features into a mask of indifference despite the taste of his own vomit on his tongue.
“You heard the commander!” he snapped. “Get the body downstairs and wait for your orders.”
But the Hezbollah team was already in motion and they simply ignored the bureaucrat.
CHAPTER THREE
Stony Man Farm, Virginia—Present Day
Barbara Price pushed hard against the pedals of the elliptical machine, her honey-blond hair pulled back in a tight ponytail and her body shiny with sweat. A beautiful woman with a model’s looks, she tried to maintain a high level of fitness though her workaholic nature had kept her at the Shenandoah Valley covert operations site almost continuously over the recent months. The War on Terror had left the clandestine Stony Man personnel—both Phoenix Force and Able Team—like paramilitary firefighters, rushing from one global hot spot to the next with little downtime between assignments.
The former NSA mission controller didn’t see an end in sight, either.
The cardio trainer machine beeped at her and the readout display informed her that her forty-five-minute workout was almost over. She refocused her attention and began to swing her legs even faster. She was off her normal pace and fought hard to regain the distance before her time ran out.
Her body was fluid in motion. She was trim and muscular, with an assertive but feminine sexuality that caused men’s heads to turn when she passed. She took pride in her appearance, but her dedication to fitness was no longer about cosmetic sensibilities. When she was fit, her endurance improved, and when she went days without sleep while exercising a grueling schedule of life-and-death multitaskings, her improved stamina made her a better leader and support system for the men in her command.
Suddenly the cell phone resting on her elliptical machine’s console began to ring. Frowning at the interruption, she picked it up and looked to see who was calling the encrypted device before she answered.
“Barb, I need to see you in the War Room of the main house,” Hal Brognola announced.
“I thought you were supposed to be in D.C. today,” Price replied. “Briefing the Man on our last op in Kenya.”
“I was,” the big Fed said. “Now I’m in a chopper about thirty seconds from the Farm.”
“What have you got?”
There was a pause, and when Brognola spoke again Barbara Price could easily hear the grim note of satisfaction in his voice. “We’ve finally got a breakthrough on Stage One.”
Instantly the Stony Man mission controller stopped running, the machine slowing beneath her. “Really?” she said, her own voice
