sake of posturing.”
“Like it or not, that’s the hand we’ve been dealt,” Brognola said. “Phoenix Force will probably be landing in Bilbao within the hour. They’re going to scope out the best plan of attack there and await orders. Pol, I want you and Jack to fly to Barcelona and see what you can come up with there. If we turn up any leads on the tank’s whereabouts, we’ll change focus and move inland in hopes we can head it off.”
“And if we aren’t able to head it off?” Blancanales asked.
“I think you’ve already touched on the consequences,” Brognola said. “If they get that tank close enough to lob a nuke at Barcelona, we could have casualties in the millions….”
CHAPTER TWO
Cordillera Cantabriea Mountains,
Vizcaya Province, Spain
“Looks like we’re gonna hit the ground running, big time,” T. J. Hawkins said as he double-checked his parachute gear.
“Fine by me,” replied Rafael Encizo, who was preparing to roll open the side door of the MC-130H Combat Talon that had transported Phoenix Force from North Korea. They were flying at less than twenty-five hundred feet over the easternmost fringe of the Cordillera Cantabriea Mountain Range, some eighty-five miles south of Bilbao. Standing alongside Hawkins and Encizo was former SEAL Calvin James, the group’s medic. He, too, was suited up and ready to jump once the Talon reached their hastily determined insertion point. The other two members of the commando force, Gary Manning and David McCarter, were up front in the plane’s cockpit. It was Manning, the big Canadian, who several minutes before had fielded the call from Spain’s Agency of Military Intelligence about the sighting of a twenty-man BLM force moving through the mountains. Ground troops were reportedly on the way to the area, but Providence had given Phoenix Force an opportunity to have the first crack at the purported masterminds behind the recent theft of the top-secret FSAT-50 battle tank. According to AMI, this particular group didn’t have the tank with them, but there was a chance they were in possession of the twin nuclear warheads stolen at the time of the tank heist.
“All set?” James called out to Hawkins and Encizo.
Hawkins nodded as he slung an M-60 machine gun over his shoulder. James and Encizo were both armed with M-4 carbines, the latter’s rifle supplemented with a submounted 40 mm grenade launcher. For backup, all three men had M-9 Berettas tucked in shoulder-strap web holsters.
“Let’s do it,” Encizo said.
James yanked the door along its rollers and staggered slightly as wind howled its way past the opening. He leaned forward and stared down through a smattering of thin-rib-boned clouds at the rolling green mountains below. Their insertion point was a broad meadow flanked on three sides by mountain peaks. The BLM was reportedly three miles away, trekking a path downhill from the northernmost mountain range; the peaks would likely block their view of the parachutists as they made their drop. James hoped their luck would hold out. If they could land undetected, it would give them an opportunity to position themselves before the enemy reached the meadow. In a situation like this, it was crucial to make the best of any advantage.
Manning’s voice suddenly crackled through the small speaker mounted over one of the cargo holds. “We’re there, guys. Give yourselves a ten-count, then go give ’em hell. We’ll hook up with you as soon as we set this bird down.”
The three paratroopers lined up before the open doorway. James counted down, then lunged out of the plane. He immediately paralleled his body with the ground below and extended his arms and legs outward, slowing his fall. It felt for a moment as if he were flying. Glancing over his shoulder, he saw Encizo and Hawkins were airborne as well, framed against the sky above him, similarly spread-eagled. The Talon had flown on and was already banking to the right, ready to dip behind the nearest mountain peak and begin its descent toward a remote, long-abandoned airstrip dating back to days when there had been plans to develop one of the neighboring valleys into a resort community. There, according to plan, McCarter and Manning would rendezvous with the arriving Spanish militia. There were supposedly a few mountain-worthy Jeeps in the convoy, and Manning had been told that a pair of AH-1Q Cobras were additionally being diverted to the site from a military air base in Bilbao. Using Jeeps and choppers, it would hopefully be possible to move quickly and have the ETA forces surrounded by the time they reached the meadow. The trick, obviously, would be to capture or neutralize the enemy without detonating its lethal cargo.
As he drew closer to the meadow, James spotted a few dozen sheep grazing in the tall grass fifty yards to his right, watched over by a young boy and a large black sheepdog. He tugged at his shroud lines, trying to veer as far away from them as possible. The boy had already spotted him, however, and soon the dog had turned and begun charging through the grass toward him, barking loudly.
“Beat it, Lassie,” James muttered under his breath as he prepared to touch down. “You’re blowing our cover.”
The dog continued to yelp, but the moment James hit the ground, it stopped in its tracks, apparently intimidated by the size of James’s quickly collapsing chute. James tumbled expertly and was already unhitching the chute harness when he rose to his feet. He jerked at the lines and hissed at the dog, sending it chasing after Hawkins and Encizo.
Once he’d gathered up the chute and bunched it into a ball, James stuffed it beneath a nearby bush, then strode quickly toward the young shepherd, putting a finger to his lips. The boy, no more than eleven years old, took a tentative step back. A black beret was cocked at an angle on his head, and his hands were clenched around an old Steyr SBS Forester rifle. The weapon was nearly as big as he was, but James had the sense that the boy knew how to fire it.
James had learned to speak Spanish while growing up in a Chicano neighborhood on Chicago’s South Side, but he knew that the boy most likely spoke Basque, a language as dissimilar from Spanish as it was from English. Still, he needed to say something to calm the boy. The last thing he wanted to do was to have to draw on him.
“¡Hola!” he called out softly, holding his hands out at his sides. Continuing in Spanish, he said, “Don’t be afraid. We come as friends.”
The boy’s expression remained unchanged and he continued to aim the rifle at James. Finally he spoke, not in Spanish or Euskara, but in English.
“Why should I believe you?”
James was momentarily taken aback. By now Hawkins and Encizo had landed and were headed toward him, the sheepdog barking at their heels. The boy took another step back, fanning his rifle back and forth to keep all three men covered.
“He doesn’t trust us,” James told the others out of the side of his mouth.
“I gathered that much.” Encizo stopped alongside James and sized the boy up, then offered a disarming smile. “Your papa taught you well,” he said. “Atzerri otserri, eh?”
It was the boy’s turn to be surprised. He kept his rifle aimed at the men but slowly lowered the barrel as he called out to his dog. The dog fell silent and scampered to the boy’s side, then sat on its haunches, tongue trailing from its mouth as it caught its breath.
“Where the hell did you learn how to speak Basque?” Hawkins asked Encizo.
“There was a Basque janitor at my high school,” Encizo said. “We got to know each other with all the time I spent in detention. I picked up a few phrases.”
“What
