It was time to get the payback that RhemCorp, Rhemsen and Fitzpatrick so richly deserved.
“Please,” Lyons said, “let him be here. Let him be waiting here. I said I would put him down with my boot on his neck, and I meant it. Please, let him be here.”
“Ironman, are you praying?” Schwarz said.
“Not as such,” Lyons said. “Just hoping the forces of irony and Murphy’s Law are with us instead of against us.”
The road wound through a stand of trees, most of them dogwoods and Southern pines. Blackstar goons began coming out of hiding. They were using the trees to hide themselves. One of them made the mistake of coming too close to the road, trying to line up a good shot through the windshield. Lyons poured on the speed, spun the wheel left and smashed him down with the gnarled sheet metal of the forward bumper. The man’s cracking body snapped and crunched under the big Suburban’s wheels. The doomed man never even had time to scream.
Schwarz and Blancanales exchanged glances.
Finally, the main facility came into view. Sandbag emplacements had been set up and behind the sandbags there were fire teams with machine guns. The second the Suburban was visible, the men behind the sandbags began shooting. Trace fire drew Technicolor lines across the property and ripped apart the trees screening the building.
Lyons looked to Schwarz. “Blow out the front windshield,” he said.
“Ironman?”
“Do it!” Lyons said. Schwarz nodded and ripped his 93-R from its shoulder holster. Switching the weapon to 3-round burst, Schwarz pumped several trios of shots through the windshield. Lyons slowed their momentum long enough to recline his seat, throw his legs up over the dash and put the soles of his boots on the damaged safety glass. Schwarz did the same without prompting. Together, they kicked out what was left of the pane, leaving a few pebbles of safety glass in the interior of the truck.
Lyons pulled his seat back into driving position and slammed his foot down on the gas once more. “Pol,” he said, “get that Milkor. Let’s make it rain.”
Blancanales didn’t need to be told twice. With the rotary grenade launcher in his fists, he positioned himself between the front two seats. Then Lyons floored the accelerator once more. The transmission was making an alarming grinding noise.
“That doesn’t sound good,” Schwarz said.
“She’ll hold together,” Lyons said. “Pol, wait for it.”
Machine-gun fire began to stitch the hood of the vehicle. Steam rose from the Suburban as they picked up velocity. Then black smoke started to pour out of the howling engine. A bullet blew apart the top of the seat just to the right of Lyons’s shoulder. Lyons spat foam.
“Now, Pol! Fire!” Lyons shouted.
Blancanales began shooting, punching high-explosive grenades among the sandbag lines. The rounds had their intended effect. The enemy fortifications were blown to pieces, together with the Blackstar gunmen behind them. Lyons pushed the smoking, spewing and dying truck through the sandbag lines and gunned it as they headed up the ramp that was the front steps of the building.
Double doors, reinforced with metal bars, awaited.
The Suburban smashed through.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
The members of Phoenix Force moved in formation to the nearest of the hatches that led inside the oil rig. Behind them, bodies and flaming debris littered the deck. There was still moaning and screaming audible as they closed the hatch behind them. There were a lot of wounded men out there who would not live to see the morning. Whether pirate or mercenary, there wasn’t a man among the dying who was any concern to Phoenix Force.
McCarter wished for a can of Coke and wondered how he had gone this long without. The hatchway in which they stood led down a short corridor with no other doors except the exit. That hatch was locked down. Fortunately they had come equipped with explosives and something specifically for an oil rig environment: a portable torch.
Manning, who was good with explosives and demolitions in general, had opted to carry the torch as part of his kit. He fired up the little unit. The torch consisted of a trigger-equipped nozzle, a flow regulator and an arm’s length of compressed gas tube. Its ignition was electric and, while it was a significant amount of additional weight, it was not so heavy that it would slow a big man like Gary Manning. The Canadian took a pair of industrial shades from his gear, put them over his eyes and went to work on the hatch wheel.
McCarter glanced at his chronograph, peeling back the black ballistic fabric cover that enclosed the watch face. They were vulnerable whenever they encountered a barrier such as this. He did not want them out here, rear ends swinging in the wind, any longer than was necessary. Phoenix Force bottled up, as it were, could not effectively fight. But these types of bottlenecks had to be fought through if they were to reach their goal.
Manning finished his work on the hatch and pulled it open. The rest of Phoenix Force was already in formation, with McCarter and Encizo kneeling, James and Hawkins standing behind them. Manning threw himself to the deck and protected his face with his arms.
The shooters who had been waiting on the other side, all wearing Blackstar uniforms, managed to get off a few wild shots, but nothing that came close to hurting the men of Phoenix Force. The coordinated bursts from their Tavor assault rifles mowed the thugs down, dropping their bodies in clumps that lined the floor of the platform corridor beyond. Blood began to well in large, spreading pools.
McCarter gave Manning a hand up. Loading a shotgun round in his Tavor’s grenade launcher, Manning led the way, with the rest of Phoenix Force backing him up. They came to a split in the corridor. Signs posted for the oil rig workers indicated that to the left was a machine shop, while to the right were medical facilities.
“Machine shop or sick bay?” Manning asked.
“Go left,” McCarter said. “I’m not in the mood for any of us to need medical, and if there are any wounded stragglers there, I’d rather consider them neutralized than have to put the poor buggers out of their misery for good.”
They made their way down the path provided. They had not gone far, checking adjoining hatches as they went, when they found a wounded man lying in the corridor. He was wearing the overalls of an oil rig worker. A nasty, bloody stain spread across his abdomen. He appeared to be holding his guts in. Encizo and Hawkins knelt to check him over, while Manning took up station with his Tavor and its 40 mm grenade launcher, watching their backs.
“Easy, lad,” McCarter said. “Do you speak English?”
“Yes,” said the wounded man. He was Filipino, with a tattoo of a spider on his neck. He had the look of a manual laborer, the type of fellow you would expect to find on a rig such as this.
“What happened?” McCarter asked.
“Pirates,” the man replied. “Pirates and soldiers. They had so much guns. So much guns. We tried to fight. We fight, and we fight. But they take the rig. Most workers escape. They go in boat. I am hurt and can’t leave. I think I dying.”
McCarter looked at Encizo, who turned from the wounded man and shook his head. “Machete wound, looks like,” Encizo said quietly. “David, he’s been gutted. I’m surprised he’s stayed alive this long.”
McCarter put his chin on his chest for a moment. When he made eye contact again with the wounded man, there was a pleading expression on the Filipino’s face.
“I dying,” the Filipino repeated.
“You are, mate,” McCarter said. “I’m sorry. There’s nothing I can do.”
“There is,” the wounded man said. “You can use your gun. I want go. I don’t want stay. It hurts. It hurts too much. Please. Please help me go.”
McCarter felt his face burning. It was what he’d feared the man would ask. He eased his Hi-Power out of its holster, made sure the suppressor was firmly attached, and placed its muzzle over the man’s forehead.
“You’re sure?” he asked softly.
“I sure,” said the man. “Please. You number one. You help me. Thank you. Thank yo
u.”
McCarter looked the man in the eye and pulled the trigger.
The Briton stood. “Come on. Let’s get out of here.”
They made the machine shop. Here their progress was arrested by a group of pirates firing Kalashnikovs. The hollow clatter of the familiar weapons was deafening in the enclosed space. Empty shells bounced and jingled against the heavy machinery of the tool stations. All those motors and metal made for excellent cover from direct gunfire, but any oblique shots immediately ricocheted in every direction.
McCarter had to back off several steps and hunker down on one knee to lower his target profile as stray bullets buzzed and zinged over his head.
Unclipping a pair of grenades from his web gear, McCarter nodded to the others. “Grenades, lads,” he said. “Unlimber them and prime them. On my three. One…Two…” He waited while his teammates readied their handheld bombs. Then he pulled the pins on first one grenade, then the other. “Three!”
Phoenix Force tossed their grenades into the machine shop. Then McCarter pulled the hatchway shot. There was a brief moment of silence when all the enemy guns stopped. Through the sealed hatch, they could hear frantic screaming.
The entire section of the oil rig vibrated with the strength of multiple explosions layered on one another. Just when the men of Phoenix Force thought the worst must be over, another rolling thunderhead of explosions shook the rig. It hammered the door that McCarter held, threatening to rip it from the hinges. This time, the explosions were accompanied by significant heat. McCarter was forced to release the hatch. He shook his hand in the air.
“Damn, that smarts,” he said. “Gave me a good burn, that did.”
Manning slid past his team leader and opened the hatch. He stepped inside. The others followed.
McCarter was amazed at what he saw. “Now that,” he said, “is a well-shaken group of enemy gunmen.”
“That’s one way to put it,” Manning said, sounding grim.
They walked through what had once been the machine shop, this time unopposed. The explosions had turned the space into a charnel house. There were bodies and pieces of bodies. Many of the corpses were charred and black, blown apart, unrecognizable as human. Weapons, both whole and broken, were everywhere. Metal shrapnel had torn the place to ribbons, smashing the machines, scattering their components across the space and embedding them in the walls and ceiling. Many of the pieces of metal were smoking. The stench of burning, scorched flesh was nauseating.
“Careful not to touch anything you don’t have to,” Manning warned. “This is all still hot. And there’s no telling what other surprises there might be.”
“You’re thinking booby traps,” James said.
“Got to be,” Manning said. “That’s the only thing I can think of that could have set everything off so badly in here. The grenades were designed to kill. But there was nothing in them that could have done this. There simply wasn’t that kind of payload. This was other explosives, maybe satchel charges, maybe even explosive vests for use taking hostages or securing an exit. The grenades tore everything apart here, yes, but that was a precursor blast only. The explosives were set off by the grenades or by dying men in here. That’s what did the majority of the damage we’re seeing.”
Encizo consulted his smartphone. He was checking the deck plan, and McCarter looked on over the Cuban-born guerilla fighter’s shoulder. “That access hatchway at the other end,” Encizo said, pointing, “will take us to one of the storage holds. Beyond that is a set of steps. That leads to a catwalk that connects one part of this section of the L to another part of the opposite section. The elevated walk has access points here and here.” He indicated glowing icons on the phone’s screen. “We’re going to need to watch for a crossfire coming through there. It could get hairy.”
“Understood,” McCarter said. “All right. Let’s move out.”
They hit the hatchway and threw it open. The storage area beyond was fairly typical of such enclosures, although something about it struck McCarter as odd. He realized, at the last minute, what it was that was bothering him. The crates had been arrayed in a wedge formation, the very kind of formation you would use if you were going to defend the space from hostile attack—
“Down!” Manning roared. The big Canadian had noticed it, too, and he flattened himself against the deck while his teammates joined him. The Blackstar goons hidden behind those crates rose and began chattering away with Uzi submachine guns and a collection of automatic pistols and AR-patterned rifles. Their own barriers got in their way; the crates were broad enough across that they could not get an angle of fire low enough to take out Phoenix Force.
Gary Manning rolled himself up against the base of the wedge of crates.
McCarter tossed him a pair of door poppers.
Manning pressed the buttons on the mounds of plastic explosives and tossed them over the barrier.
The poppers, without a resisting surface to direct their explosion, tore apart the gunmen on the other side of the crates. As the explosions were ripping them to pieces, Manning rolled up and leaped over the barrier. From that vantage, he aimed the mouth of his 40 mm launcher down the line of squirming, writhing Blackstar men and pulled the launcher’s trigger. His shotgun round made ground meat of anyone still moving and of several bodies that were already on their way to assuming room temperature. When he was certain of his handiwork, Manning rolled off the barrier wedge and to the other side. There he stood among the blood and the bodies, his Tavor ready, his finger on the modular assault weapon’s trigger.
“Clear,” he said calmly.
The big Canadian helped his teammates over the barrier. Once there, they stalked on, through the opposite hatchway and to the entrance of the catwalk. Out there, the flames and smoke were thick. Dead bodies, the results of the initial run on the rig, were everywhere. From their position they could see the power-generation pod. It was intact, as it was supposed to be.
“Thank heaven for small favors,” McCarter muttered. “Come on. Let’s rush that catwalk. The faster we’re across it, the safer we are. If we get hung up, they’ll pick us off.”
“I’ll take the lead,” Manning said. He shucked open his launcher and loaded another shotgun round. “Anything gets in our way, I’ll play battering ram with this.” He hefted the Tavor and launcher combination.
“Right, lads,” McCarter said. “Go!”
They hit the catwalk with their boots pumping and the metal walkway clattering under their feet. “Watch those access points,” Encizo warned. “Left and right. Watch them, watch them!”
His warning was either well timed or simply prescient. Pirates with machetes and pistols began to boil up over the walkway ladders. They were followed by black-uniformed mercenaries with AR rifles. The Phoenix Force commandos flattened themselves against the catwalk and began hosing the ladders down from above, walking their Tavors left and right. Men died. Other men fell, screaming, to the churning, bloody waters of the South China Sea below. At least one man lost his hands to a spray of bullets and screamed as he dropped down each rung of the ladder, trying and failing to grab on with the stumps of his forearms.
“We can’t stay here!” McCarter called out. “They’ll swamp us if we let them bog us down on the catwalk.”
“Grab on to me!” Manning said. “Grab my belt!”
McCarter immediately saw what the big Canadian was after. He reached out, holding and firing his Tavor with one hand while hooking his hand in Manning’s belt with the other. His teammates did the same, forming a human chain, staying flat against the catwalk so the enemy’s guns couldn’t effectively target the commandos. Encizo grabbed one of McCarter’s boots. James took hold of Encizo’s ankle. Hawkins grabbed on to both of James’s feet.
Gary Manning began to pull.
Staying as low as he could, grabbing hold of the metal grate that was the walkway, the giant Canadian strained against their combined weight. The veins in his forehead and neck stood out. His face turned beet red.
Holding his Tavor in front of his body like a spear, he dragged himself for all he was worth, switching the rifle from hand to hand as his fingers got tired, resting each side in turn.
Slowly, so slowly, Phoenix Force was being dragged across the catwalk.
His teammates had Manning’s back, firing their weapons over the edge of the catwalk, keeping the approaching enemy at bay and thinning the numbers of the attacking herd in the process.
Manning reached the other end of the catwalk. Once he was over the lip of the railing, he was reasonably safe from enemy fire that came from below. He began grabbing each teammate in turn, hauling them bodily off the catwalk, throwing them past him and to safety from the opposition’s bullets. When the last member of Phoenix Force had been thrown free, Manning took out his portable torch. He looked at McCarter for confirmation.
“Go ahead,” the Briton said. “We won’t be going back that way and, if we have to, we can have Jack ferry us over once the landing zone is clear.”
Manning nodded. Several of the enemy fighters were now climbing up onto the catwalk from the access ladders. The Canadian ignited his torch and began melting the two points of connection holding the catwalk in place. The welds were thick and heavy. It was taking a lot of time to cut through them.
McCarter stepped up and started shooting. He brought down the nearest of the approaching gunmen, spilling them over the catwalk with his rounds.
“It’s going,” Manning said. “It’s going!”
The catwalk unmoored from the section of oil rig on which Phoenix Force crouched.
One of the Blackstar men who had climbed up to the top of the walkway had time to reach out with one hand and scream. “No!”
“Yes,” Gary Manning said, giving the entire catwalk a shove. Metal bent. The massive walkway, with nothing to hold it in place, started to collapse under its own weight, taking the men on its ladders and the hapless Blackstar mercenary with it. The screaming mass of humanity and metal landed in the South China Sea below.
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