by Dick Stivers
“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.”
“Where is this place?” Grimaldi asked. As the coordinates and street address came in he fed the information to the flight computer. He then punched in a few numbers from his own head. While waiting for the few seconds it took the computer to respond, Grimaldi eased the throttle forward. The modified Rockwell T39 Saber liner screamed its delight and thrust Grimaldi and Lyons into the backs of their seats.
“I didn’t think this can could peel air like this,” Lyons said.
Grimaldi grinned. “Had the J603s replaced with a pair of J57-55s. They’re both Pratt and Whitney’s, but these afterburning turbos have more than twice the thrust. I’ve been looking for an excuse to see what this tour bus will do.
“You boys willing to hit silk?” Grimaldi asked.
“Lot safer than going joyriding with you,” Lyons grunted back.
Grimaldi laughed and then spoke into the microphone. “Revised ETA for Elwood. I repeat, for Smyrna, not Hartfield, twenty-three minutes from now.”
“Where are you landing?” Brognola demanded.
“I’m not landing, just dumping the freeloaders,” Grimaldi replied.
“From a jet!”
“If you speak nice, I’ll give them parachutes.”
Brognola squawked but his faith in his men quickly overcame his skepticism. He knew they would need every second and every bit of concentration to do the job.
“Good luck,” he said. “Signing off.”
Already Lyons could detect a slight tremor in the plane. Grimaldi’s casual manner was gone as he focused his full powers of concentration on keeping the quivering plane under control.
“Listen carefully,” he told Lyons. “We have no time to go over this. I can’t leave the controls or try to communicate again.
“I’ve been wanting to try this jump thing ever since I started flying this baby. You’ll find chutes in the rear port locker. Get into them fast. When I cut all the power, get the door open. It opens inward. Be careful, it’ll try to pull you out, even though I’ll depressurize first.
Lyons slapped Grimaldi on the shoulder.
“See you at the airport,” he said. Then he made his way back to Pol and Gadgets. “Scramble,” he told them. “Gather up any ammunition and weapons you can carry. We jump in ten minutes.”
Politician and Gadgets looked at each other. Lyons kept right on going and started pulling parachutes from the rear locker.
“He means it,” Gadgets concluded.
He and Pol scrambled in their special flak jackets and started filling pockets with gun clips. Each warrior strapped on a web belt that held more gear. Lyons checked his Colt Python, which he holstered without its sound suppressor on his right hip. He slung the Atchisson Assault shotgun across his back before strapping on the parachute.
Politician grabbed the M-203, a combination M-16 and M-79 grenade launcher. He stored the grenades in a chest pouch. He looked and saw that Lyons had removed the sound suppressor from his Colt. Pol did the same thing with his 93-R before putting it in a breakaway rig on his left shoulder.
Gadgets had an Uzi clipped to his left leg and a 93-R under his left arm. He left the silencer on his weapon. He had radio gear strapped to his chest and a parachute on his back.
Lyons checked all the fastenings for Gadgets.
“What’s coming down?” Politician asked. He was checking Lyons’s chute to make sure it was on properly.
“Place called Elwood Electronics,” Lyons answered. “Grimaldi’s computer says come down in a vacant field a quarter mile away and head due west. It may be under terrorist attack by the time we get there. We’ve got to try and find some scientist named Lao. Brognola wants her delivered to Stony Man.”
“How do we identify her?” Pol asked.
“Beats me,” Lyons answered. He was inspecting Pol’s harness by that time.
The engines wound down from a scream to silence. They immediately went to work on the door, pulling it in and sliding it back.
“Remember,” Lyons shouted over the noise, “all of us out in eight seconds. Pol first, Gadgets, then me.”
Just then the plane nosed upward and lost speed. The three fighters had to hang on to bulkheads and seats to keep from being shoved to the rear, past the opening.
Lyons slapped Politician on the shoulder. Pol was already holding on to both sides of the doorway. One hard pull and he was gone. Gadgets placed both hands on the tail side of the opening and peeled himself through. He was barely clear of the opening when Lyons pushed off from a seat with both feet and dived through the door after him. Lyons pulled his rip cord almost immediately. He knew the other two would delay for several seconds, using the variation in timing to spread themselves out.
As his shroud lines began to play out, Lyons glanced at the plane. It was motionless above him, almost standing on its tail. Then suddenly it slipped to one side and twisted, falling like a broken toy. Soon it was well below the jumpers. As the wind speed increased, the nose began to lead the rest of the plane. Then the two huge tail jets flamed in and the machine was in a power dive. From above it looked as though the mad air jockey had managed to pull the black bird out of its dive with only a few hundred feet to spare.
3
July 8, 1530 hours, Smyrna, Georgia
The attack on Elwood Industries went off like the well-planned military campaign that it was. The only thing that separated it from actual war was the fact that heavily armed, well-trained thugs were going up against unarmed civilians.
At precisely 1530, three trucks stopped on the three access roads to Elwood Industries and set up roadblocks. Men in coveralls halted traffic and told drivers there would be a half-hour delay while a crew located a large gas leak.
At 1532, a man and a woman in a stolen telephone-company truck went down an access hatch and cut the lines to Elwood Industries and all the neighboring plants. When an off-duty security guard stopped to pass the time of day, the man and woman took turns practicing their karate blows. Then they stuffed the body into the access space and replaced the hatch cover.
The Elwood building was surrounded precisely on schedule, at 1540. Two minutes later, three teams of four men each went into the building by its three different entrances.
At the front entrance, the receptionist’s smile died when she saw the two M-16s and the double-barreled shotgun carried by the three terrorists who followed Aya Jishin. Jishin’s hands were empty, but that did not make her look any less menacing than the others.
“Where do I find Lao?” Jishin demanded.
The receptionist turned white.
Jishin grabbed her arm, held it over the edge of the desk and broke it with a single blow.
“Where?” Jishin asked.
“The end of corridor three on the right,” the receptionist screamed.
“That’s better,” Jishin said and strode out of the reception area, leaving her henchmen to kill the receptionist.
The one with the shotgun blasted her face into gory bits.
Jishin found corridor three and marched grimly to the end. Gunshots sounded elsewhere in the building. Doors in corridor three began to open and heads poked out of doorways.
“Get back in your offices,” Jishin shouted.
A fat balding man stepped out in front of the striding terrorist.
“What’s this all about?” he demanded.
“Just do as you’re told,” Jishin ordered.
The man did not move.
“I demand an immediate answer.”
Jishin had been forced to come to a halt by the fat form blocking her way.
“What do you do here that you can demand anything?” Jishin countered in her hoarse voice.
The man grinned in the knowledge of his own power. “I’m the vice-president and the comptroller here. And who do you think you are?”
“Then you aren’t a researcher?”
“You seem slow to get the message.”
“Then we don’t need you,” Jishin told him. Her fists blurred and the fat man screamed.
For a moment the only sound that could be heard in the corridor was the whack, whack, whack of fists smashing meat. The vice-president and comptroller slid down the wall, leaving a streak of red. He died in a large heap on the floor.
Doors slammed. Jishin was alone in the corridor, except for the three terrorists who had followed her into the reception room.
“Go down this hall,” she told them. “If the person is a researcher, leave him for me, if not kill him. Move.”
They moved, grinning in anticipation of more targets for their weapons.
Shots sounded from another portion of the building.
“George,” Jishin commanded, “tell those trigger-happy slobs to wait until you’ve sorted them before they start shooting people who don’t resist.”
George lowered his shotgun and went to obey orders. He was clearly irked that he had to put aside his work to straighten out the amateurs.
“Don’t you two start without me,” he barked at his fellow jackals.
The door at the end of corridor three was locked. Jishin used a front kick to smash the catch. The door swung back with so much force that the knob smashed the plaster wall. A diminutive Oriental woman looked up from one of the electronics workbenches. She seemed more curious than startled. Jishin tried to place the country of origin, but could not. The small woman looked Vietnamese.
“Where’s Dr. Lao?” the terrorist leader demanded.
Although the small face retained its Oriental calm, Jishin detected a flicker of amusement in the eyes. The hands continued to solder small parts.
“Dr. Lao’s busy and doesn’t wish to be disturbed,” the woman said. Much to Jishin’s surprise, the English had the accenting given by Japanese.
Jishin had her concentration broken by a heavy dose of firing somewhere in the buildin
g. If those long-noses did not learn discipline soon, she would kill them herself. A deep boom derailed her train of thought. She knew that nothing her forces carried spoke with such authority.
She reached into a coverall pocket, pulled out a compact communicator and hit the red broadcast button.
“Is the perimeter patrol on channel?” she asked.
“Perimeter patrol leader here,” the small unit answered almost immediately.
“We’re under attack. Move the perimeter force in-for backup,” Jishin ordered.
“Move in, roger.”
She did not bother acknowledging, but put the communicator back into her coveralls.
“Roger,” she snorted to herself. “Baka!”
The small woman overheard the muttered “fool!” and laughed. “It must be terrible to attract such incompetent people to serve such a worthy mistress,” she sympathized. Her Japanese was so heavily inferior addressing superior that it was insulting.
A mere technician would never have thought to use language in that sarcastic fashion.
“Youare Dr. Lao,” Jishin stated.
“So I am,” the woman agreed.
Jishin strode to the computer terminal in one corner of the lab.
“What is your access code?” she demanded.
“None of your business,” Dr. Lao told her in a quiet, calm voice that was still faintly tinged with amusement.
Jishin sighed. “I suppose I must do some persuading.”
She walked around the edge of the workbench and approached Lao. Lao slid off the stool she was using and stood waiting. She seemed expectant, not alarmed.
Jishin noticed the relaxed stance, the careful placement of the feet. She knew she was meeting a martial artist, but was uncertain of the art practiced. The style hardly mattered. Someone that frail was not going to be able to block ashotokankarate blow.
Jishin launched a feint at Lao’s head, followed by a fist to the chest. It was nothing fancy, but it would serve to demonstrate that nothing could stop a well-launched blow.
The chest was not there. The fist went by the slim woman. There was a tug on Jishin’s sleeve, her forward momentum increased and she stumbled into a wall. She straightened up and shook her head. Now she knew the fighting style. This small twerp was about to die because she trusted aikido. Useless bunk, it meant standing around and waiting for the other person to attack.