The Chameleon Factor. Don Pendleton

      PROLOGUE

      Military Target Range, western Alaska

      The guard went stiff as the knife blade slid into his head.

      Mouthing a silent scream, the U.S. Army guard dropped his weapon as Professor Torge Johnson shoved the blade in deeper, exactly behind the right ear where there was a small opening into the brain, a slim passage known to many as Death’s Doorway.

      Gurgling, the guard began to claw at his side for the semiautomatic pistol in his shiny black holster. Frowning at the man’s resilience, Johnson savagely twisted the blade to sever the brain stem. The guard went limp, his body turned off like a light switch, his rapidly dying brain only a few moments behind.

      Easing the corpse to the grass, Johnson yanked out the bloody blade just as a tremendous explosion sounded in the distance. As the professor wiped the murder weapon clean on the guard’s uniform, cheers sounded from the grandstand above.

      Sliding the blade up his sleeve, Johnson checked the cheap watch on his wrist. Good. Everything was precisely on schedule. Taking a cigarette pack from his jacket pocket, he carefully peeled off the back to expose a thin layer of adhesive. Reaching up, he just managed to press the pack to the bottom of the wooden seats of the grandstand overhead. As his hand came away, the pack stayed in place and there was an audible click of the electronic device arming itself.

      Glancing briefly at the bright rectangle of light that marked the only door to the space under the grandstand, Johnson stepped over the cooling body of the guard and weaved his way through the maze of struts and support beams to reach the middle section. Attaching another cigarette pack there, he continued the process slowly, emptying every pocket of the deadly cargo until reaching the opposite side. Glancing back just once to check his lethal handiwork, the professor allowed himself a brief smile of satisfaction, then set his expression into neutral and stepped through the open doorway and into the bright sunlight.

      Taking a real cigarette from the pocket of his old suit, Johnson lit it with a butane lighter and drew the smoke in deep, savoring the building excitement. Soon now, very soon.

      Walking out of the bushes that blocked the entrance of the doorway, the man pulled up his fly and tried to look embarrassed as if he had been inappropriately relieving himself in the greenery.

      An elderly U.S. congressman sitting at the edge of the grandstand happened to catch the gesture and chuckled in sympathy.

      “Don’t blame you.” He grinned. “Hell of a day, isn’t it, Professor?”

      Johnson pressed a finger to his lips and hushed the plump politician. Although he looked exactly like the professor, his voice didn’t match in the least. The impostor’s heart was pounding as he fingered the second butane lighter in his pants pocket. The device was actually a pneumatic dart gun of considerable power, the flesh-colored darts coated with a neurotoxin that paralyzed instantly, and death came in foaming agony a few seconds later. Come on fool, go back to the show and enjoy the last few seconds of your life. The reaction of the darts closely resembled a heart attack, especially in older people, but the trick lighter carried only three darts: two for victims and the third for himself to prevent capture. The Americans disliked torture, but in his case their military intelligence and CIA would happily have made an exception. Being captured alive wasn’t an option in his mission.

      Touching two fingers to his brow in a mock salute, the congressman winked at the professor and turned back to the display on the target range below. Johnson relaxed slightly and exhaled a long stream of smoke. Good.

      The grandstand, filled with politicians and high-ranking military personnel, was situated directly behind a tall barrier of wire mesh as protection from any stray shrapnel. Fifty feet below was a wide field that stretched to the distant ice-capped Baird Mountains. The target range was pitted with huge craters of assorted sizes from the wide variety of missiles used this day. The green tundra was beginning to resemble the surface of the moon, a few of them still smoking. Standing untouched in the midst of the destruction and desolation was a small concrete bunker with a slim radio antenna raised high enough to sway slightly in the warm breeze.

      “Look there!” somebody cried, standing to point.

      Johnson gave no reaction as two Harpoon-class missiles rose over the horizon, their fiery exhausts as bright as newborn stars. The politicians and generals in the review stand cheered at the sight. Unable to tear himself away for a moment, Johnson stayed to watch as the missiles rose sharply, then rotated about their long axis to sharply angle downward toward the ruined field. Flashing forward at nearly Mach speed, the Harpoons raced for the bunker and then incredibly went on by, their wake churning up clouds of dust and scorched earth.

      The crowd roared its approval as the deadly missiles continued onward to slam into the pitted side of a hill a mile away.

      “Son of a bitch, the bloody thing works!” a colonel shouted while applauding. “It really works! The missiles couldn’t see the bunker!”

      “So that’s what this is, a radar jammer?” a senator grumbled with a scowl. “Big deal. We’ve had those for decades.”

      “Not like this!” a general stated proudly. “There’s never been anything like this thing!”

      “Well, we certainly spent enough on the damn program!” a senator yelled over the crowd noises.

      Turning away from the jubilation, Johnson started for the gravel walk that led to the parking lot when he noticed a Marine guard looking in the bushes.

      “Lose something, Corporal?” the professor asked in a friendly manner.

      The Marine looked hard in return, and Johnson felt the hairs on the back of his neck start to rise. This man wasn’t like the rest, he realized. Everything looked fine, but he felt that something was wrong. That combat-sense thing soldiers were always talking about. Part instinct, part training.

      “Just routine,” the corporal said, straightening the strap of the M-16 assault rifle slung over his shoulder.

      But Johnson could see that the bolt had been worked on the weapon, making it ready for firing. No! There was no time for this! Seconds counted. He had to move fast or die with the rest!

      “I know what you’re looking for,” Johnson whispered. “Come on, he’s over here.”

      Leading the soldier to the open doorway below the grandstand, Johnson stopped at the entrance. “It’s darker than shit in there. Got a flashlight?”

      The soldier shook his head, and Johnson pulled out his cigarette lighter.

      “This’ll do,” he said, and pressed the hidden stud.

      There was a soft hiss. The soldier grabbed his throat as the tiny