July 7, 1948 hours, Atlanta, Georgia

Aya Jishin looked over the thirty long-noses crowded into the meeting room. She never thought she would get lonely for the sight of a civilized face, but she was. Nogi did not count. He was of Japanese origin, but too many brushes with Yakuza swords made him look more like an apple doll than a human. His appearance did not matter: he was willing to train barbarians to kill barbarians. That was all that counted.

"Good evening, former victims," she said, addressing the group. "You've been put out of work by automation. Now you're going to put the automators out of business."

The audience had to strain to catch her hoarse, croaked words, but they seemed to think it was worth the trouble. Shouts of assent greeted her opening remark.

She continued. "All of you joined Workers Against Redundancy because computers and automated machines have robbed you of your means of earning a living. WAR welcomed you, just as it's welcoming thousands of others each day. But the thirty of you were meant to do more than write to your congressmen, to be more effective than picketers, to pack more punch than a leaflet delivers. Welcome to the muscle and heart of WAR. You will form the local Harassment Initiation Team, known as HIT."

Being part of a hit team seemed to appeal to the audience. They cheered again.

Jishin waited for the cheering to stop. She expected it, not because she had any illusion that she was an orator, but because the unemployed long-noses had been carefully selected. She was speaking to the angriest of the angry, the ones who would take any excuse to strike out against the system.

She had already delivered the same speech in four other parts of the country, and there were still more HIT groups to start up. Wherever shortsighted government policies created large groups of unemployed, Jishin looked for a potential group of terrorists waiting for someone to come along and aim them at someone.

"We have had successful actions in both California and New Jersey," Jishin told her enthusiastic audience. "Tomorrow Georgia will know the real cost of using machines to rob people of their jobs and their self-respect.''

While waiting for the cheering to again subside, Jishin smiled. There was plenty to smile about. These angry, homicidal long-noses represented only a small fraction of the unemployed. Others who were desperate for social action, but not willing to vent their hostilities in blood, were given jobs as volunteers for Workers Against Redundancy. WAR was the perfect front for selecting and training the psychotic misfits. As long as North American governments put such a low priority on full employment, she would never run out of cannon fodder.

Jishin walked over to a large-scale wall map and picked up a pointer. She instantly had the attention of the group.

"This is Elwood Industries. After tomorrow it will cease to exist."

She paused again, beginning to tire of all the cheering. She wanted to get to the meat of the briefing. That was the difficulty with using locals — too much energy had to be expended working on their enthusiasm. Her own squad of terrorists did not need all this. They knew that the real joy came from killing, torturing and maiming.

The cheering died down and they paid close attention. They knew that Nogi, the martial-arts instructor, would choose only half of them to join him and the seasoned veterans in the assault on Elwood Industries. That meant keen competition for the joys of battle and the even greater joys of combat pay.

Jishin quickly snowed the audience her battle plan.

"So," she concluded, "tomorrow at three-thirty in the afternoon, those of you who qualify will get to write your names in the book of history as Americans who dared to stand up for mankind against the machine."

That was good for three minutes of cheering.

Jishin was glad it was over. She left the rostrum content. Six HIT units in place. No one could stop her now.

July 8, 1430 hours, over the Atlantic

Something poked Carl Lyons in the ribs. He stayed relaxed as though he did not notice. The poke came again, stronger, more insistent.

Lyons's hand flew up in a blur of motion. His forearm connected with something hard that went flying. He tried to roll toward his attacker, but the seat belt restrained him.

Lyons opened his eyes. He was on the Stony Man executive jet. Pilot Jack Grimaldi and teammate Rosario Blancanales were standing over him. Lyons looked down the aisle of the Saberliner and saw Politician's stick lying on the carpeting.

Lyons flipped a lever and a small motor moved his seat to the upright position. He undid the lap belt and stretched before acknowledging the existence of the two men.

"Why'd you poke me with that stick?" Lyons demanded of Blancanales.

"Jack has a top-priority radio call waiting for you," Politician replied. He laughed. Waking Lyons was not as tough this time as it usually was.

"Who's flying this damn thing?" Lyons, still groggy, demanded.

"It's on autopilot," Grimaldi answered.

Lyons followed the pilot to the cockpit. He picked up the mike.

"Scrambler's on the broadcast," the pilot informed him.

Lyons settled into the copilot seat and pressed the transmit button.

"Ironman here."

Hal Brognola's voice sounded mechanical as it came out of the descrambler.

"Grimaldi still on line?"

"Yes. Shoot."

"What's your ETA southeastern seaboard?"

Lyons looked at Grimaldi who held up one clenched fist.

"About an hour," Lyons said.

"I'd like you to stop in Georgia and pick up a woman. We should talk to her, but my main worry is that terrorists will get to her first."

"So, send the federal marshals."

"If I read the situation correctly, the marshals would get wiped," Brognola insisted.

Lyons leaned back. "You'd better fill me in." He signaled to Grimaldi to set the course for Atlanta.

"There's been two computer-research facilities attacked by terrorists. Everyone has been butchered and the buildings bombed into rubble. In both cases the bombs were delayed to get the police when they started to investigate. We've been tracing down every possible link between the two places. The M.O. is the same, but one was in New Jersey and the other in California.

"Then a researcher — named Lao — in Atlanta reported that a new data bank contains the research notes of a Dr. Uemurea. We checked out Uemurea and found that he was killed and his lab destroyed much the same way as the two places that were destroyed here. After that we found that both places in the U.S. which were hit had just started to use the same data bank that Lao tells us has Uemurea's research in it.

"It's an outfit called Small Chips. I have a gut feeling that the research facility where Lao works will be next on the list. That's why I want Able Team there as quickly as possible. Those terrorists don't leave any survivors."

"Okay, Stony Man," Lyons said, ready to sign off.

"Hold it!" Brognola barked through the descrambler. "I've got a message coming in from Smyrna, near Atlanta. Stand by to receive."

"Standing by," Lyons told him.

Two minutes later, Brognola was back.

"How close an ETA can you give me, Ironman?"

Lyons glanced at Grimaldi who was operating the onboard computer.

Grimaldi took the mike from Lyons.

"Jack here, Hal. I can set us down at Hartfield in forty-one minutes at the present cruising speed, or I can burn the hell out of it and shave that to thirty-four minutes."

"Not good enough," Brognola said. "I just got word that people are collecting near Elwood Industries in Smyrna. The line went dead in the middle of the telephone conversation. I'm afraid it's going to go down any minute."