Cairo Countdown at-5

by Dick Stivers

  Cairo Countdown

  ( Able Team - 5 )

  Dick Stivers

  The U.S. maintained a top-secret air-force base in Cairo. And it operated right out of the international airport!

  Suddenly a terrorist rampage threatened to reveal the covert American presence in egypt. No known intelligence agency could risk exposure to break this attack on one of America s biggest secrets. Therefore, in the name of Mack Bolan, come in Able!

  But the terrorists had crack killer-teams of their own— and they would not hesitate to use them…

  Dick Stivers

  Cairo Countdown

  Dedicated to the eleven American agents whose reconnaissance flight was downed by the Russians in 1958. The men parachuted onto Soviet territory and were captured in the outskirts of Yerevan. The lost airmen have never been recovered by the United States.

  1

  Dust blurred the parallel lines of lights. Engines whining, the unmarked, black-painted U-2A/B spy plane taxied onto the center runway of Cairo International. Inside the cockpit, the American pilot — wearing an oxygen suit stripped of all insignia and marks of manufacture — spoke into his microphone, “This is Executive Underwriters’ shuttle jet requesting permission for takeoff…”

  “Permission granted,” an accented voice told him. “Crosswinds of five kilometers per hour. Visibility three kilometers.”

  “No problem. On my way up.”

  The engine noise rose to a shriek, and the spy plane rolled forward, gathering speed. The Pratt & Whitney J75-P-13 engine generated 17,000 pounds of thrust, pressing the pilot back against his form-fitted seat. In seconds, the landing-gear wheels left the smooth asphalt of the runway. The hundred-foot-wide wings flexed in the slight crosswind.

  Gaining altitude, the pilot banked to the east. The flight would take him first over the Gulf of Suez, the Sinai, Saudi Arabia, then Iraq to the Shatt al-Arab, where the armies of Iraq and Iran fought their vicious war of attrition. The high-altitude photos and electronic surveillance would allow the intelligence agencies of the United States to assess the casualties and destruction of the latest battle between the Iranian fanatics and the Iraqi defenders.

  Below the spy plane, the lights of Cairo spread across the desert. The pilot watched his radar screens for any possible commercial flights crossing his flight path. Three blips appeared simultaneously, shooting upward from the slums circling the metropolitan center.

  “This is Executive Underwriters’ shuttle to Executive Center…”

  Even as the pilot spoke, he died, a Soviet-made SAM-7 heat-seeking antiaircraft missile exploding in the exhaust vent of his engine.

  Flaming debris that had been an American pilot and a top-secret multimillion-dollar aircraft fell to the Egyptian desert.

  *

  “We had a unit watching the place when they sent up the rocket,” Bob Hershey told the agents assembling in the living room of a luxury home in the Cairo suburban quarter of Heliopolis. Hershey, a middle-aged CIA officer, had the look of a college athlete gone gray. He wore slacks and an undershirt. He spoke to the agents as he slipped on a tailored Kevlar vest and pressed the Velcro closures.

  “It’s an old apartment house,” he continued. “We’ve got the place circled.”

  “We’re going to take them?” an unshaven agent asked.

  “Damn right. I sent Hopper and McGraw out there — they were the only other guys on duty. Told them to tail any of the crazies who leave. We’re waiting for our liaison team now.”

  “You call all the discos?” an agent joked as he checked thirty-round Uzi mags.

  “Didn’t need to, Parks. I gave Sadek a pager. Got sick of calling nightclubs and apartments and whorehouses. Now we got direct communications with our playboy prince…”

  The men laughed despite the tension. Then headlights swept the draperies as tires screeched around the circular driveway. Car doors opened, slammed closed.

  “Speak of the devil…” Hershey said.

  The four CIA men turned as Salah Abul Sadek burst through the room’s double doors. A ranking officer of the Egyptian secret police and liaison to the CIA soldiers operating in Cairo, Sadek wore a lavender disco suit with a matching wide-brimmed hat. One of his men, in a wrinkled gray suit, followed him, a folding-stock Kalashnikov slung casually over a shoulder.

  “Yet another attack?” Sadek asked in his British-accented English. “It was that airplane, am I correct?”

  “One of our jets as it left the airport,” Hershey told him.

  “The bastards! Will it never stop? Does your embassy have a statement for the newspapers?”

  “That’s the ambassador’s worry.” Hershey slipped on his suit jacket, tucked Uzi mags in the coat’s wallet pockets. “What we’re going to do is stop those fanatics. Tonight.”

  *

  Wind banged a Coca-Cola sign. Dust swirled on the street’s stones, the wind from the desert carrying litter and the stink of the slums. Three Fiats followed an alley-narrow street through a district of shops and tenements. Yellow light spilled from the windows. One neon sign, Arabic symbols in electric blue, marked a shop.

  In the lead car, Hershey spoke into his hand radio. “Park here.”

  Holding his Uzi under his suit coat, he left the car. He gingerly stepped through the piles of garbage and broken glass in the gutter, stopped at the end of the street. Parks and Sadek left their cars to join him. Hershey looked around the corner, pointed. “There.”

  Only stones and twisted metal remained of the first structure on the street. The second building, a shop with a second floor of rooms, leaned visibly, ready to fall. Beams scavenged from the wreckage of the collapsed building braced the leaning wall. Light showed in a corrugated sheet-metal hut on the roof of the tenement. Hershey pointed to a battered truck parked on a sidewalk.

  “There’s our surveillance. Hopper and McGraw are down on the other end. Those crazies with the rocket launcher are still in there.”

  “What about the people around here?” Parks indicated the dark shops and windows of the streets. “We go in and someone opens up shooting, and we’re in an international incident.”

  Hershey sneered at his aide. “Maybe you want to call the police? They killed an American pilot tonight. We’re going in there hard and fast. Sadek, any of the city police show up, show them your identification, keep them back. I want to take prisoners. Maybe we can break this group tonight.”

  “Certainly.” The Egyptian slapped dust from his lavender nightclub finery.

  “Hopper, McGraw,” Hershey said into his hand radio. “Four of us are going in. You ready?”

  “Yes, sir,” an agent answered.

  “Everyone else stay in your cars, keep the engines running. Acknowledge.”

  Several voices answered. Hershey turned to Parks. “Load and lock. I’m going first.”

  “Sir, I don’t like this. We’re exceeding our authority in a very questionable situation. Anything could…”

  “I don’t give a damn what you think!” Hershey raged. He keyed his hand radio. “Hopper, McGraw, go for the door.” He turned to his aide. “You’re transferring back to Langley, Parks. I won’t have losers on my staff. But tonight you’re following me.”

  Not waiting for Parks, Hershey left the shadows. He strode across the wide street paved with stone and patches of asphalt. Fifty yards away, two other Americans in conservative gray suits walked through the light of a street lamp, their right hands under their coats to conceal Uzis.

  Parks snapped back the cocking handle of his Uzi, checked the thumb safety. He turned to the Egyptian liaison officer. “Wish us luck, Sadek.”

  “Inshallah, American.”

  One step into the street, Parks saw blood spray from the bac
k of his superior. Hershey flew back, high-velocity AK slugs ripping him. Parks threw himself to the stones as slugs cracked past him. He rolled, scrambled back as autorifles fired burst after burst.

  A rocket shrieked from one of the tenement’s windows. The surveillance truck exploded in a flash of flame. Backed into the cover of a doorway, Parks saw Hershey struggling to raise himself from the pavement. Down the street, McGraw tried to drag Hopper to shelter. Another rocket streaked from the tenement. The two CIA soldiers disappeared in the blast, only rags and shredded flesh remaining of their bodies.

  The lavender of his disco suit glowing in the light of the flames and street lamps, Sadek sprinted into the street, the pistol in his hand popping shots at the riflemen. Parks watched AK slugs spark off the stones as the Egyptian grabbed for Hershey. Then Parks lifted his Uzi, fired burst after burst through the windows of the building across the street. He aimed at the shadow of the man with a rocket launcher. He held down the trigger. Nine-millimeter slugs from his Uzi pocked the old walls, shattered glass.

  Sadek grabbed Hershey’s arms and dragged him over the pavement. Parks tore another thirty-round magazine from his coat pocket. He jammed it in his Uzi. Firing wild, he sent bursts through windows and into the sheet metal of the tenement’s rooftop shanties.

  Another terrorist with a rocket launcher appeared on the roof. The terrorist leaned over the wall and pointed the RPG at Sadek and Hershey. Parks fired without sighting his weapon. Slugs chipped the stone, hammered the corrugated shack behind the terrorist as he ducked back, the rocket flashing across the road to slam into a building.

  Stones showered the men. A rolling cloud of dust enveloped the street. Parks saw his one chance to survive, took it, sprinted through the cloud. The ancient dust was acrid in his fear-dry throat.

  Dodging around the corner, he fell over Hershey and Sadek. The Egyptian was fumbling at the officer’s wounds. The agents who had stayed in the cars — the two CIA men and the Egyptian with the folding AK — dragged Hershey into the cover of a shop entry, ripped open their superior’s jacket. One man tore open a packet of field dressings. Parks looked at Hershey, saw an entry hole above his left eye, then saw the vast hole in the back of his head.

  “Forget it, he’s gone. Bring up the cars, we’ve got to get out of here.” He keyed his hand radio. “Any of you that are still alive, report. Report.”

  No one answered.

  *

  Shouting praises of Allah, the voices of his warriors shook the concrete of the warehouse. The Libyan technician turned up the volume of the tape recorder. He listened to the instructions of the American officer, then the shooting and screaming, the rocket explosions, the fear and panic as the infidels died.

  “Any of you that are still alive, report. Report.”

  Only silence answered the American.

  Omar laughed. “That is all?”

  “Then they communicate by encoded radio. With the other spies in their embassy, I think. I will have the courier take the tape to Damascus.”

  “Good, good.” Omar left the electronics room, strode down the corridor of offices to the cavernous central area of the warehouse. He paused before stepping farther.

  Looking at himself in the glass of an office window, he straightened his tie, the button-down collar of his shirt. He brushed lint from the gray wool Italian-tailored suit his role forced him to wear. He hated the clothing of the foreigners. Yet his assignment required a “modern” appearance. His daily routine as international banker and part-time diplomat to the Europeans required the imported tailored suit and shirts, the gold rings on his fingers, the American watch on his wrist, the Mercedes sedan. All served to delude the degenerates of Cairo, foreign and Egyptian.

  He brushed back his hair, smoothed his eyebrows. Glancing sideways at his sharp profile, he imagined his face on the televisions of the world.

  If Allah wills… No! If Omar el-Riadh wills! Allah acts through his warriors. The will of Omar and Allah shall be one in conquest and empire.

  With a final glance at the immaculate grooming of his reflection, Omar stepped out onto stairs. He stood looking down for a moment on his warriors assembled in the warehouse.

  His warriors. Arabs and Africans. True followers of Allah from Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Libya. Front-line Palestinians who had tired of their leaders’ empty promises. Volunteers from Chad and Angola.

  Some of the men now tended to the reloading of the trucks carrying the Soviet SAM-7 missiles. Concealed in the interior of trucks, the missiles could be fired by the driver or by remote radio command. Other men, the warriors who had killed the Americans, cleaned their weapons, talking loudly and laughing while their comrades crowded around. Like himself, his warriors wore costumes: the rags of the fellaheen, the polyester of the urban poor, the foreign styles of the bourgeoisie.

  They saw him, turned as one to their leader. Voices shouted out praises of Allah, Mustafa, Omar and Khaddafi. His men flourished their rocket launchers and AK-47 rifles. Omar raised his arms. The voices faded to rapt silence.

  “Warriors! Praise Allah!” he called.

  He had to wait for the shouts to fade again.

  “Tonight Allah gave us victory over the cursed foreigners, the infidels, the American dogs of Zion. It is only one victory of many. Their spy jets shall fall in flames, the dog mercenaries of Israel and Satan shall fall beneath the swords of Allah, their cities shall be reduced to dust.

  “You, the warriors of the one glorious Creator shall be above all others, you shall be honored by all peoples. You shall be princes over the people.

  “You, the front-line warriors of the holy jihad shall walk on the rotting flesh of the Israelis and the Americans; you shall erect the Mosque of Victory on a mountain of bones; the world shall be your empire.”

  Omar el-Riadh raised his arms to the steel and concrete of the ceiling of the warehouse. “The prophet foretold of our victory. Allah himself guides our swords.”

  The words came in one roar from all the assembled terrorists, “Allah Akbar!”

  2

  Racks of weapons covered one wall of Andrzej Konzaki’s laboratory. Oak workbenches at wheelchair height lined two other walls. Heavy machines spaced throughout the floor area — a lathe, a drill press, an hydraulic press, a band saw, grinders and buffers — gave the large room the look of a factory. Windows viewing the farmlands and mountains around Stony Man dominated the fourth wall.

  While Konzaki put the tiny wheel of a Foredom polisher to the chamber of a modified Atchisson assault shotgun, Carl Lyons surveyed the collection of weapons. He took an MP-40 “Schmeisser” from the rack. Swinging out the wire stock of the World War II submachine gun, he put it to his shoulder, sighted through the window to a distant mountainside. Returning the weapon to the rack, he scanned the other rifles and submachine guns and heavy automatic weapons — American, British, French, German, Soviet, ComBloc. Obsolete and modern, the weapons represented the recent history of the world, war after war after war consuming the resources and technological genius of nations, wasting their wealth, maiming and murdering their young men. Devices of tragedy.

  But marvelous and fascinating. He took a 1903 30-06 Springfield from the rack, snapped back the bolt to check the magazine and chamber. The weapon’s steel shone with oil. In World War I, a soldier had won the Congressional Medal of Honor with the later model of the 30-06, the P-16 Enfield. His deadly, unrelenting rifle fire had convinced a company of German troops that they faced an overwhelming enemy force. And they had. One American with a rifle. That one soldier, Sergeant York, accepted the surrender of one hundred thirty-two Germans and marched them to the rear.

  “A thousand-yard killer,” Konzaki called out. “Put a nine-power scope on that and you could hit a target on the horizon.”

  “No doubt about it.” Lyons returned the old rifle to its place.

  “And I’m working on over-the-horizon capability,” Konzaki joked. “Come look at this Atchisson. It’s ready to test.”


  The black metal-and-plastic assault weapon looked like an oversize M-16 but fired 12-gauge shotshells semiauto, three-round bursts, or full-auto bursts. A box magazine held seven standard or Magnum rounds. Lyons had used an Atchisson in the Amazon, when Able Team and their Xavante allies fought Khmer Rouge slave-raiders. In three vicious, no-quarter firefights, in the rain forest, on a moonlit river, in a warlord’s fortress, the Atchisson meant the difference between victory or death.

  “This one has a fourteen-inch barrel and a telescoping stock.” Konzaki pressed a lever and pulled out the tubing of the buffer-spring stock assembly to full length.

  Lyons took the Atchisson, tried the weight and balance. “Like a CAR-15.” He jerked the padded buttplate against his shoulder, tried a snap-aim on the band saw. Then he pressed the release lever, slid in the stock and held the gun at waist height, assault style.

  “Lighter than the other one,” he commented.

  “Less barrel, less plastic and steel, more titanium,” Konzaki said. “The rate of fire and the shot patterns created by the short barrel give the weapon an awesome potential value in an urban firefight. After I read through the debriefing reports of the Amazon action, I went ahead with this SWAT version.”

  “What that Atchisson did to people and things… You just would not believe it.”

  “Yes, I would,” Konzaki replied, his words sober, without enthusiasm or humor, simply stating a fact. “And I also went back to work on the Berettas.”

  Konzaki palmed his wheelchair’s thin tires in opposite directions, spinning the chair about. Rubber squeaked on the concrete as he propelled himself the length of the workbench. He skidded to a stop at a cabinet.

  For a moment, Lyons hesitated. In the long last morning of horror in the slave-city of the Chinese plutonium lord, Lyons had cursed the Beretta. The silent 9mm autopistol required perfect head shots for an instant kill. Underpowered to avoid the crack of the bullets breaking the speed of sound, the slugs had failed to knock down the enraged, adrenaline charged men that Lyons had faced. As if trapped within a nightmare, he had shot men again and again, spraying bursts of lightweight subsonic slugs into their chests and faces only to see the men continue toward him. It had been the fifteen-round magazine of a Beretta 93-R that had saved Lyons from death.