Lyons imagined, and you’d most likely get more than a little overlap. That, by itself, was a matter for the FBI or other federal organizations, or so Lyons had thought. He had placed the call to the Farm to express this opinion, only to be gently persuaded otherwise by Hal Brognola, director of the Sensitive Operations Group’s and Lyons’s boss. Lyons had, of course, used the diplomacy for which he was well-known when discussing the issue with Brognola.
“This, Hal,” he’d said over the secure satellite phone, “is a steaming pile of horseshit.”
“Usually it’s David who gives me grief,” Brognola had said, referring to David McCarter, the leader of Stony Man Farm’s international counterterrorist unit, Phoenix Force. “What’s the problem?”
“Don’t we have bigger fish to shoot in a barrel?” Lyons had thrown back, deliberately mangling the metaphor. “Able Team is better used on just about anything other than rousting some play-acting Commies.”
“WWUP is a remarkably powerful organization,” Brognola’d said, “whose professed ideology is admittedly socialist or Communist, depending on whom you ask. They are far from pretenders. There is serious talk of WWUP fielding a viable third-party candidate in the next presidential election.”
Lyons had hit back. “Since when does a third party have a chance? You expect me to take these people seriously?”
“You don’t have a choice,” Brognola had told him. “ We don’t have a choice. The WWUP didn’t exist before a few years ago. It’s rushed in to fill a perceived void in domestic politics, becoming a very real Communist movement.”
“And the WWUP is getting its funding from a global gang of environmentalist whackos. That’s still a job for the FBI.”
“This isn’t just about ‘environmentalist whackos,’” Brognola had insisted. “Ecoterror is on the rise, globally and domestically. Now, don’t get me wrong. We’re not talking about conservationists or legitimate environmental defense groups. We’re talking about extremists, those willing to commit violence to achieve their aims. And we’ve long gone past some animal rights activists releasing minks from cages, or vandals throwing bricks through the windows of fast-food restaurants. Our friends at the FBI, in fact, have a couple of thousand cases of arson, bombings, theft and vandalism on the books in recent years, all of them attributable to ‘green’ terrorist groups. My sources within the Bureau say they’re ranking it a greater emerging threat than the hot-button domestic terrorists of a decade or two ago—neo-Nazis, paramilitary groups, Klan splinter factions, and so on. And while the crimes are rising here in frequency and in violent intensity, they are rising simultaneously in developed nations across the globe.”
“So what’s the link?” Lyons had asked him.
“For whatever reason,” Brognola had said, sounding tired, “the radical, violent fringe of the environmentalist or ‘green’ movement has become the new home for collectivist politics domestically. The radical greens often tout a socialist agenda as part and parcel of the economic and environmental reforms they advocate. The more violent Communist and socialist groups are happy to embrace them. There’s a lot of cross-pollination between and among the various terrorist and fringe groups involved.”
“I’m not a politician, Hal. And I’m not a cop anymore.”
“I’m not asking you to be one,” Brognola had said, “and if this was about politics or could be taken care of by the local authorities, it would have nothing to do with the SOG. But Aaron’s team has identified an exponential trend in fund transfers to WWUP from accounts that can be linked, ultimately, to ecoterror groups, most notably the Earth Action Front. Most of the transactions are being routed through a single person at the top of the chain, the director of WWUP’s Chicago chapter.” Aaron was Aaron Kurtzman, head of Stony Man Farm’s cyber team.
“Why Chicago?”
“It’s the domestic headquarters for WWUP, the hub of their network of chapters throughout the country. Any decisions implemented by WWUP, including their potential presidential campaign, are ultimately made in Illinois.”
“So you want Able to…what?”
“There’s a timetable at work here,” Brognola’d confided. “The people behind WWUP, and especially their donors, have to know that their monetary transactions will look suspicious eventually. The Farm caught it a lot earlier than the usual domestic institutions would, but they’d have noticed it eventually, too. Campaign finance laws, IRS regulations, standard federal banking policies…any of these could have raised a few flags in a few hundred computers. For the WWUP and their backers to be acting so brazenly tells me that something is going to happen. Something big, considering the risks, and considering the scope of the WWUP in the United States.”
“What are you telling me, Hal?” Lyons had said, finally losing his hostile tone.
“I’ve got Aaron and his people looking into the wider implications, tracking both financial data and terrorist incidents at home and abroad,” Brognola had explained. “But our working theory is that a force or forces outside the United States is or are working very hard to exert political influence inside the country. Specifically, we theorize that one or more of these terror groups are funding a seemingly legitimate incursion into U.S. politics using, among other means, violence. Whatever they’re planning is coming to a head, or they wouldn’t be risking financial exposure. The top of the pyramid is in Chicago. I want you to take Able Team and poke your head in the dragon’s lair.”
“To see if we get roasted alive?”
“Something like that. If we’re wrong, we lose a little time and a little effort. If we’re not, we get in on whatever the WWUP is plotting, maybe make them nervous enough to expose themselves, tip their hand. The clock is ticking, Carl. Something big is ramping up, and my instincts tell me we have to move now, stop it before it can get out of control.”
The big Fed had been right about this kind of thing more than once, Lyons knew. “All right, Hal. We’ll take a look. We’ll see what we can shake loose. But I’m not promising anything resembling diplomacy.”
“Do what you do, Ironman,” Brognola had said. “That’s what I’m counting on.”
Now Able Team was on site, parked on Ogden Avenue in Aurora, Illinois. At least, two-thirds of the team was sitting in the SUV. The last member of the team, the man they called “the politician,” was on the inside, his every word monitored by the microtransceivers each member of the team wore in his ear.
The little earbud devices, nearly invisible when worn, had an effective range of half a city block. The one Blancanales wore would, if anyone noticed it, appear to be nothing more than a small hearing aid. Gadgets Schwarz had helped develop the minuscule units for the Farm’s use.
Schwarz’s banter notwithstanding, the two men kept their idle chatter to a minimum as they watched the front of the WWUP building, a converted storefront nestled between a pack-and-ship mailbox store and a sheet music shop. Blancanales could hear every word they said, so there was no point in annoying or distracting him with unnecessary chatter. As the two men waited and listened, they could hear the ringing of office telephones in the background. Now and again they could hear the WWUP receptionist’s voice, though her words were indistinct at Blancanale’s presumed distance from her. The wingnuts inside, Lyons reflected, had kept his teammate waiting for at least half an hour past his appointment time. Whether this was simply business on their part, or a calculated tactic, he couldn’t be sure. It didn’t seem likely that they’d antagonize a potential donor by making him cool his
