force, then the brakes engaged and the violent shaking rapidly eased until the gigantic craft came to an easy stop.
“Well, I’m delighted to see that correspondence course in flying is really working out well for David,” Rafael Encizo commented, working his jaw to see if any teeth were loose.
Gary Manning grinned, shrugging off his harness and pulling on a black knit cap, trying not to smear his tiger-stripe combat paint in the process.
Standing, Manning swung around a massive rifle. The bolt-action .50-caliber Barrett was a sniper rifle with a range of over a mile, the monstrous 700-grain bullets were the size of a cigar and fully capable of shooting through a brick wall. Many professional soldiers considered the deadly weapon a piece of field artillery, instead of merely a rifle.
“Good news, people,” McCarter announced from the top of the metal stairs. “Bear hacked into a Quest-Star comm sat and found the airfield. It’s five klicks due east, so leave the Hummer, we go on foot.”
“Low and quiet, just the way I like it,” Hawkins stated, appearing from the flight deck. An MP-5 was in his hands, and the plastic tube of a LAW rocket launcher was slung across his back. These days, many soldiers liked the reusable Armbrust, or SMAW, but the Stony Man team much preferred the one-shot LAW. Afterward, they simply tossed away the empty tube, which saved them a lot of time and trouble. Their covert missions were usually fast, furious and short. There was no supply line. They carried everything, which made every ounce saved vitally important.
Going to the side door, McCarter checked outside through the small observation port, then turned to nod at James. He killed the internal lights and McCarter swung open the door, going from darkness into the night. The others quickly followed, readying their weapons.
Gathering outside, the team members listened to the sounds of the desert for a moment, trusting their ears to tell them if anything hostile was in the vicinity. Silence in the middle of a forest or wild glade always meant the immediate presence of humans. Or a major predator. But savage men hidden in the desert were to be feared a lot more than any mountain lion or poisonous reptile.
Slowly, the insect life recovered from the rude arrival of the Hercules, and began to sing their songs once more. An owl hooted in the distance.
Swinging down his night-vision goggles, James dialed for infrared and scanned the vicinity, while Encizo did the same using the Starlite function. That mode augmented the natural illumination of the stars until the operator could see everything as clear as if it was day. The one drawback being that unless the surge protector was engaged, somebody lighting a match or turning on a flashlight, could blind the operator for several minutes until his eyes recovered, leaving him temporarily helpless.
“Clear,” James subvocalized into a throat mike, the word repeated in the earbuds of the rest of the team.
Turning off his goggles, Encizo gave a thumbs-up to the others.
Satisfied for the moment, McCarter flipped up the lid of the compass on his wrist to check directions, then snapped it shut and started off at a run.
The kilometers passed in total silence, the only sounds the soft patting of their combat boots on the dry sand. As expected, the Mexican desert was very chilly at that time of night. The terrible heat of the day had completely radiated away, leaving the landscape bitterly cold, and soon their breath began to fog. There were small chemical packs sewed into the lining of their ghillie suits that would start to generate a soothing warmth for hours if slapped. But the U.S. Marine Corp hot-packs would make the team members light up a thermal scan like fireworks, so the Stony Man operatives simply ignored the low temperatures and concentrated on moving across the desolate and inhospitable Quintana Roo peninsula.
Reaching a low dune, the team went flat and covered the next hundred yards on their bellies. Cresting the top, the Stony Man commandos tried not to disturb the young sage plants that grew thick from the sand, and looked down the other side using monoculars. The world turned black-and-white, the view crystal clear and wire sharp.
“Bingo,” McCarter whispered into his throat mike with grim satisfaction.
Spreading out in front of the men was a wide area of land that had been cleared of all plants. Off to the side were some old cinder-block buildings, the doors were riveted metal, the windows merely ventilation slits, and lots of sand, rocks and plants were piled high on top on the flat roof. Obviously it was protection from an aerial search.
More importantly, just outside the armored door a fire was crackling inside a fifty-five-gallon oil drum, holes cut into the sides to allow the light and heat to escape. Sitting on folding chairs, there were a couple of men in ponchos talking and smoking stubby cigars, assault rifles leaning against the cinder-block wall nearby. One of the rifles was a brand-new AK-101, the other was a much older AK-47. Obviously, one of the men was new and not given the better, more expensive weapon until having proved his worth.
However, the team members still frowned at the sight. Both of the Russian assault rifles were equipped with 30 mm grenade launchers and infrared night scopes, which could be real trouble.
The sound of metal hitting metal came from another cinder-block building; streamers of light escaped from the canvas sheet blocking the wide front door. More fifty-five-gallon drums were situated under a canvas awning, along with a small electric generator. The Stony Man commandos marked it as the garage. Then they spotted another canvas lump and identified it as the proper size and shape for a heavy machine gun, or maybe an auto-mortar. However, there was no way of telling where they were.
A small wooden shack was set off by itself, clearly identifying it as the outhouse. Several yards distant was a bare metal flagpole, the tattered remains of a windsock dangling limply. Even though it was reduced to rags, the old cloth could still give an incoming plane vital information on wind direction.
Just past the flagpole, cutting across the cleared area, was a wide strip of concrete, as incongruous a sight as a buffalo in a ballet. Smooth and flat, the disguised airstrip reached out of sight, and the members of Phoenix Force nodded in admiration at the sight of pictures of more plants and rocks painted onto the landing strip. Clever. More protection from visual tracking. The team could only see the concrete because of the angle and the silvery moonlight. Otherwise, it would have been nearly invisible.
“Hidden in plain sight,” Hawkins muttered, shifting his grip on the MP-5 to screw on an acoustic sound suppressor. “Same as the Airwolves.”
“How come so many criminals are smart enough to make more money honestly, than they ever would as crooks?” Encizo asked softly, attaching a suppressor to his own machine gun.
“Irony?” Manning replied coolly, now moving the crosshairs to mark his targets.
“Don’t know, don’t care,” James replied, sliding a fat 40 mm shell into the launcher attached under the main barrel of his MP-5 weapon. His heart was beating hard in his chest, and the soldier tried his best to regain a professional calm.
“Gary, get me a number on the runway,” McCarter asked, tucking his monocular into a cushioned pouch on his web belt.
“In a second,” Manning replied. Focusing the telescopic sights of the Barrett on the extreme end of the clear strip of land, the tiny digital display on the bottom of the scope gave him the precise distance. Now sweeping the crosshairs to the other end, he added the two readings.
“Ten thousand four hundred and nine feet,” Manning replied grimly, lowering the sniper rifle. “More than enough for a B-52 to land.”
“Or
