because the only means that they had for picking up the fleeing humans was thermal imaging. In the hot and humid atmosphere of the rain forest, however, it was impossible to get a clean lock on the Stony Man warriors and their CIA ally. The SUV had proved to be an easy target, simply because its mass of metal and hot engine proved a much easier target for even tropic-hazed sensors.
Unfortunately the metal in their weaponry and equipment provided the tight-beam radar spotlight with a small means of tracking them. It was a tiny, low-profile signature, but still enough to give the operators of the drones something to lock on to.
Blancanales, his senses tuned by years of experience in jungles across the globe, found a cave and ushered the others into it. It was small, and a tight fit, but once inside, they were shielded not only from streams of light machine-gun fire, but also the probing radar beams that hunted them through the rain forest
Arquillo was crouched, hands on her khaki-clad knees, reddish hair damp and soaked, covering her face as she gulped down air to replenish herself from the frantic run. Lyons rested a hand on her shoulder and she glanced up at him. He offered her a canteen of water.
“Damn near got us killed suggesting we go back to the SUV,” she panted before taking a swig of tepid water. She swallowed, knowing that she needed the moisture.
“We’re alive,” Lyons told her. “No harm, no foul.”
Arquillo straightened and leaned her head against the cave wall. She dragged a curtain of sweat-dampened hair from in front of her eyes and looked over Able Team. “I still let my guard down too soon.”
“Well, it’s not like we can drive you back to a day-care center for CIA agents, can we?” Blancanales asked, winking. “Someone blew up our ride.”
Schwarz breathed slowly and deeply, willing his body’s autonomic reactions to subside so that he could concentrate on his PDA. Inside the cave, under a sheet of heavy rock in the side of a hill, he’d lost satellite contact. He switched the device over to transmission scanning and moved closer to the mouth of the cave.
“Isn’t he going to give our position away? One good shot with a rocket like before, and this cave becomes a tomb,” Arquillo said.
“Nah. I’m on passive scan, this unit has radar-absorbent paint over its metal, and I left my rifle with Pol,” Schwarz mentioned as he studied the screen.
“Checking to see if the spotlight is near us,” Arquillo concluded as she watched.
The electronics expert nodded. “See, they can sweep the hillside with relative impunity because it’s a tight beam. No radiation spills over to be noticed, even by sensors checking the area, unless they’re right in the arc of the beam.”
“Which the PDA is,” Lyons said. “You don’t pick them up, they can’t pick us up.”
Blancanales looked at Schwarz. “They’re still sweeping the area?”
“Yeah. And even if the spotlight is off us, those drones still have thermal sensors. It won’t be efficient, but after wasting so much ammo, they might just see what they could do with more rockets.”
The ground shook violently and Arquillo ducked. Dust rained from the roof of the cave, making her cough.
“See what I mean?” Schwarz asked, crouched near the mouth of the cave.
“We could just shoot them down,” Lyons growled.
Blancanales shrugged. “So then they’d send forces on foot after us.”
“I’d rather go one on one with enemy soldiers than cower from rocket strikes,” Lyons countered.
“Got a point there,” Arquillo agreed. The rumbling thunder of artillery rockets slamming into the hillside around them was unnerving and left her feeling impotent and helpless. At least in a gunfight, she knew she had an even chance to survive and win.
Schwarz looked at the roof of the cave. “Don’t worry. The tunnel’s holding up. We’re under enough rock that it’ll take a direct hit to bring it down.”
A loud thunderclap split the air in the cave, and Arquillo and the Stony Man warriors curled up in reaction to the nearby explosion.
“Say something else to tempt fate, smart-ass,” Lyons grumbled.
Schwarz held a finger up to his lips, then pointed to the roof of the cave. The rolling thunder of the air strikes had stopped, the drones’ rocket pods spent and empty. Schwarz grinned. “I was counting their shots. That was it.”
“Good,” Lyons answered. “With any luck, they’ll send out a patrol. It’ll be a relief to have a human opponent.”
CHAPTER FOUR
It didn’t take long for Phoenix Force to grab the hard drives out of the controllers’ computers. They just ripped open the casings and sliced the IDE cables. The hard drives were durable and fit into Manning’s backpack.
While Manning and McCarter were tearing apart CPUs, James, Encizo and Hawkins were repairing the tires of one of the pickups. The Toyota pickup was a bit old and weathered, but an inspection showed that the vehicle was in good running condition. All it took was a tire change, and it would be back in action. The pickup would be less conspicuous than the covered trailers, as well as having the benefit of maneuverability.
Hawkins scrounged the other vehicles and found spare gasoline canisters.
“All set?” Manning asked James as he topped off the pickup’s tank.
“Yeah,” James replied. “Time to go?”
Manning looked at his watch. “We’ve got a minute.”
“Okay,” James said, screwing the cap on the jerri can.
“No, we’ve got a minute to reach minimum safe distance,” Manning explained.
“Aw heck. We were supposed to be coming in quietly,” James muttered.
McCarter slid behind the wheel and started the engine. Hawkins and Manning squeezed into the front with the Briton, while Encizo and James clambered into the truck bed. Encizo’s and James’s darker coloring would be less conspicuous in the Lebanese countryside than the other members of the team, who looked distinctly European.
Manning’s estimate of a minute to reach minimum safe distance was spot-on. Utilizing distract mechanisms already in the trailers, as well as some “Eight-balls”—one-eighth of a stick of C-4 plastic explosives—Manning had wired the drone operations centers well. The trailers ripped violently apart, but there was little flash. Electronics and corpses were ground to bits by the detonations.
While Manning had done his demolitions work, McCarter took fingerprints from the dead, utilizing a fingerprint scanner. Now, as he drove, Hawkins plugged the scanner into the sat-phone-linked laptop and uploaded information to Stony Man Farm.
“Barb, see if these are current Syrian operatives,” McCarter had text-messaged along with the data file.
Hawkins looked up from the laptop. “Bear says that it’ll take a few hours for them to check the records for certain.”
