CHAPTER 1
The dark-clad figure turned, slowly, smoothly, menacingly. The blank, staring eyes were expressionless, robotic. The figure lifted a weapon from the floor, an immense Ml68 six-barreled Vulcan cannon, and pointed it right at Patrick McLanahan. From less than thirty meters away, he could not miss. The cannon, normally mounted on a large vehicle like an armored personnel carrier, could fire hot-dog-sized shells at up to three thousand rounds a minute-there would be nothing left of his body, even after only a onesecond burst, to clean up with a sponge.
Patrick heard a clink of metal-the Galling gun ammunition feed mechanism as the figure adjusted his grip. He couldn't see a trigger-the Vulcan cannon was normally electrically operated-so he could not even guess when the gun would start firing. It wouldn't matter anyway-at this range, he'd probably be dead before he heard the sound.
"Feels good," the figure said, his voice electronically distorted. In rapid succession, he elevated the cannon straight up into the air, side to side, and around in all directions. The movements were smooth, mechanical, effortless, as if the one-thousand-pound cannon were little more than a wooden stick. He set the big gun down on the floor, then unfastened some latches, removed his helmet, and handed it to a technician standing nearby to help him. "I feel like a damned clown miming on the street, but it works pretty well."
Patrick looked at Hal Briggs but said nothing. Hal was wearing the new and improved Tin Man battle armor, and he looked as if he was thoroughly enjoying it.
The first version of the electronic armor was designed to protect the wearer from bullets or bombs-fast-moving blunt trauma or shock-but did nothing to enhance strength. The new suit added a fibersteel exoskeleton structure with microhydraulically operated joints at the shoulders, elbows, hips, knees, and ankles, with stress supports on the hands, fingers, and feet. The suit's onboard computers read and analyzed all of the body's normal muscle movements and amplified them through the exoskeleton, giving the wearer unbelievable physical strength, speed, and enhanced agility.
"Now, let's see if it fits in its convenient carrying case." Hal entered a code into a small panel on his left gauntlet, which powered down the exoskeleton and released the bindings. The exoskeleton remained standing like some sort of metal sculpture or futuristic scarecrow. He entered another code into a small control panel inside the frame on the spine, and the exoskeleton started to fold itself. In less than thirty seconds, it had collapsed down to the size and weight of a small suitcase. Hal placed the folded exoskeleton into a padded duffel bag and slung it over his shoulder-because of its composite construction, it was light and easy to carry, although the fibersteel components were many times stronger than steel. "Very cool. Every kid should have one."
Hal stepped over to Patrick, the duffel bag slung on his back, and clasped his longtime friend on the shoulder. "You okay, Muck?" he asked.
Patrick shrugged. "It just feels like one of those days when you know something's not going to go right."
"Well, Wendy did a good job getting this thing tuned up," Hal said, motioning to the bag on his shoulder. "It's very cool. I want to start putting it through its paces right away, before Masters decides to invest production money on something else."
"That may be sooner than you think," they heard a voice say. The voice belonged to Kevin Martindale. He was watching the demonstration from a corner of the test chamber. The young, handsome, energetic former president stepped over and greeted Patrick and Hal. Kevin Martindale, also a former vice president, had stayed only one term in the White House. He was a strong military advocate, but was voted out of office mostly because of actions he failed to take when the United States was threatened. What the public did not know was that Martindale preferred to use secret, unconventional forces to destroy an enemy's ability to make war before the situation grew worse.
Now Martindale was head of a secret organization called the Night Stalkers, composed of former military men and women, who performed similar unconventional-warfare missions around the world. But these operations were neither ordered nor sanctioned by any government-Martindale and his senior staff decided which missions to perform and how to perform them. In addition, squeezing or outright stealing money, weapons, and equipment from their their defeated opponents usually funded these operations.
"Very impressive," Martindale said, a fascinated gleam in his eye. These days, Kevin Martindale wore his hair much longer than he did in his days in the White House or Congress, and he had grown a goatee. He looked and acted quite a bit differently than his more conservative, buttoned-down government persona: Patrick hadn't yet decided if he liked the new Kevin Martindale. "One of Jon Masters's new toys?"
"An old toy with some new tricks," Hal responded, handing the duffel bag over to Martindale.
He was surprised at how lightweight it was. "That's it? Everything but the armor and backpack?"
"That doubles the weight-still very transportable."
"Excellent. We should talk to Jon and see if he-can make a few units available to the Night Stalkers."
"I'm sure that can be arranged," Patrick assured him.
"With the usual three-hundred-percent markup," Hal chimed in with a broad smile as he finished removing the Tin Man battle armor and stowing it in the duffel bag.
"Fine with me-I'm not paying for it," Martindale responded dryly.
The comment bugged Patrick-it summarized all of Patrick's misgivings about being part of the Night Stalkers. Yes, they were doing important work-capturing international drug dealers and criminals like Pavel Kazakov, the Russian oilman and Russian Mafia chieftain, who had the incredible audacity to bribe generals in the Russian army to invade and occupy Balkan states so he could build a pipeline across those countries and make it more profitable for him to ship oil to the West. They had captured Kazakov and dozens of other terrorists, drug dealers, assassins, and international fugitives in less than a year.
But no one in this group was independently wealthy. They had to do an old infantry soldier's trick taken a few steps further: raid the land as they marched across it. Patrick himself had threatened Pavel Kazakov, one of the world's most wealthy but most dangerous individuals, with taking his life in exchange for the tidy sum of half a billion dollars-he still made sure he was tossed into a Turkish prison, but he also threatened to kill him instead if he didn't pay up. They had stolen guns, computer equipment and data, vehicles, aircraft, ships, and hacked into hundreds of bank accounts of known international criminals to raise money for their operations. The logic was simple: Not only did they arrest the bad guys, but they also substantially reduced their ability to carry on their criminal or terrorist enterprises.
Patrick tried to tell himself that it was all for the common good-but those words kept on ringing hollow.
"Good to see you came through your 'test flight' over Libya all right," Martindale said to Patrick as they made their way out of the test lab. "But may I respectfully suggest you just get Dr. Masters to schedule some range time with the Air Force or Army on their ranges in North America to shoot down some missiles."
"Unfortunately, we can't blame that one on him, sir," Patrick admitted. "The test flight idea was mine. Jon wanted to make a big splash to impress the Pentagon, and I picked the closest country I thought would take a shot at us without starting World War Three. It turned out to be one of the most successful test flights we've ever made in a Megafortress, and certainly the most successful one for the Dragon airborne laser."
"Not too shabby for you either."
"Sir?"
"I suppose you haven't heard-I heard it from very back-channel sources," Martindale said. "You know, of course, that President Thorn has never chosen a national security adviser."