Deathbites at-12

by Dick Stivers

  For all he knew he might be in the middle of a meadow. He wondered how grass could be used without showing signs of wear. He bent down and discovered he was standing on Astro Turf.

  Two men in camouflage fatigues came jogging up with a war bag in each of their hands. They moved swiftly and easily. Jackson wondered what they could be carrying that would be that bulky, that light and that important.

  The two men looked like brothers. They were both slightly under six feet, both muscular, but their facial features were different. It was obvious they were both fighting men.

  “Rough air ahead. I’ll store those,” Jackson told the passengers.

  “Like hell you will, mate,” said the one with longer hair. Then, with a flash of the devil in his blue eyes, he added, “But you could give me a bloody hand getting this crap aboard.”

  He extended the two war bags at arm’s length to the curious marine captain. Jackson reached forward, took the straps and then staggered forward. His arms dropped and the bags swung into his legs with a dull clunk. It was all Jackson could do to hold on to the bags and not moan out loud. Each bag weighed about seventy pounds.

  The other passenger placed both of his bags on the helicopter, and without removing his hands from their grip, vaulted on after them. The one with the British accent easily clambered aboard and accepted his war bags from Jackson. Jackson had to lift them one at a time.

  “Don’t know what I’d have done without you,” the passenger told him.

  Jackson looked into the mocking blue eyes and canceled his scowl. He dogged the door and hurried to the flight deck.

  “Let’s get out of here, sir,” he told the colonel.

  “What are our passengers like?” Fulton asked as he slapped the Sikorsky into maximum climb.

  The acceleration pushed Jackson into his seat before he was buckled in.

  “I met someone like those two once before,” Jackson said. “A big dark guy with icy eyes.”

  Jackson paused and shuddered.

  “Colonel, the rpm are red zone.”

  “Them’s our orders. This chopper only has to last long enough to get them to MIT.”

  “There’s no pad at MIT.”

  “That’s what I told them,” Fulton said.

  “And what was the response?” the captain asked.

  Colonel Fulton grinned. “Tough,” he quoted.

  *

  July 13, 1148 hours, Cambridge, Massachusetts

  Aya Jishin stood at the front of the bus and looked down its length, assessing what she saw. She had twenty of her Cambodia— and Moscow-trained specialists with her. The other thirty passengers were locals, recruited and trained through HIT. The specialists all sat at the front, near her. It would not do for them to mingle with the foot soldiers.

  The bus gave a sudden swerve. She fired an angry glare at the driver. He was wiping a hand on his pants and paying little attention to the road.

  He caught the glance and explained uneasily. “Whoever slit the driver’s throat got blood on the controls. It’s getting sticky.”

  “Be thankful it isn’t your blood,” Jishin told him.

  The driver looked straight ahead and did not answer. He was noticeably paler.

  Jishin was genuinely annoyed with him. What was a lit-tie blood? Did they expect to destroy a system without getting blood on their hands? Americans isolated themselves from reality to an extent her Japanese mind could never fathom. There had been only six passengers on the bus, all older people. If there had been forty-odd women and children, she doubted if these troops would have even seized the bus.

  They pulled onto the campus of MIT. Harvard was right next door along the Charles River.

  “Which building do we want?” the driver asked.

  Jishin pulled out a crumpled campus guide and shoved it at the driver. One of the buildings was circled.

  “Not many people around for this time of day,” someone observed.

  “We’re being flagged down,” the driver said.

  A workman in beige coveralls was in front of the bus, madly waving a red flag.

  “Stop and see what he wants,” Jishin ordered.

  Her internal alarms were buzzing. The campus was too quiet for midmorning.

  The driver stopped and opened the doors of the bus. The workman, a rugged blond-haired man, bounced on board as if he wanted to fight. His attitude lulled Jishin’s suspicions slightly. People who lay ambushes try not to look overly aggressive.

  “You idiot. Don’t you know you’re driving into a blast zone?” the worker demanded.

  “Blast zone?” The driver was genuinely perplexed.

  “Like they told you at the gate — no one on campus until the blast is set off.”

  “What blast?” The driver was almost whining.

  Jishin was almost convinced, until she locked eyes with the man. His face was surprisingly controlled for a long-nose, but he could not totally hide the recognition that flashed behind his eyes. He raised his yellow hard hat to the Japanese terrorist.

  “The blast that’s just about to happen,” he told the driver. Then he leaped off the bus.

  Attention was distracted by the smashing of the rear window of the bus. The glass fell inward on the American terrorists-in-training, followed by two hand grenades.

  Jishin forgot all about the workman and threw herself into the laps of two terrorists in the front seat. She yelled, “Grenade!” while she was in the air.

  The blasts made mincemeat of much of the local talent, but did nothing to the professionals at the front of the bus. Being thoroughly trained professionals, they held their seats while the survivors from the back of the bus pushed and shoved in their desperate haste to get off the rolling death trap.

  Jishin regained her feet and barked commands. “Weapons out and look sharp. Throw yourselves flat and return any fire. Don’t push each other, push that smart ass out there.”

  Her hoarse, drill-sergeant voice brought them short. It was evident that they still had more fear of Jishin than they had of grenades. M-16s were readied and cocked. The trainees left the bus and hit the close-cropped lawn like trained infantry. They spread and started to return the machine-gun fire that cut into them from the corner of a nearby building.

  The driver started to leave his seat. Jishin pushed him back roughly.

  “Fool! Don’t you go running out into an ambush. Get this thing out of here.”

  The driver took no more convincing. The bus took off, careening around the orderly but deserted drives, heading for Cambridge traffic. On board were Jishin, twenty Communist-trained terrorists, seven dead terrorists-in-training and three who were so wounded that they had been unable to leave the bus. The professionals used knives to silence those three as they sped from ambush.

  *

  July 13, 1002 hours, Atlanta, Georgia

  Lyons had had to jog almost two miles before finding a telephone. His return to the window was cautious. He noticed that the window was down. He walked up to it slowly. Four terrorists rushed him. Lyons caught the motion out of the corner of his eye.

  The first thug to reach him came from the left. He ran straight into a spear hand to the larynx. The terrorist lay down and drowned in his own bloody

  Lyons side kicked the idiot diving at him from the right. The man’s low flight took him straight into the whipping boot. A loud snap sounded as the man’s neck broke.

  The impact put the Able Team warrior slightly off balance, causing him to spin ninety degrees before he could put his foot down and brace himself. By that time, the last two were on top of him — one wore brass knuckles, the other had a small blackjack. Lyons jerked his head to one side. The brass knuckles painfully scraped one ear.

  Lyons backed up quickly, trying to separate himself from the attackers. The goon with the brass knuckles attacked. His flurry of blows bruised Lyons’s forearms and opened a cut on his cheek. Lyons suddenly lashed out with his foot. The fighter with the knuckles coolly twisted and took the kick on the
thigh, lashing out with a jab as he did so.

  The scrappy blond deflected the jab with a punch to the forearm. He then saw that the other terrorist was circling to come at him from behind. Before the man could move in behind him, he launched a swift assault against the animal with the knuckles. He advanced with a series of kicks. His enemy managed to dodge one and deflect one, but a third kick crashed into open ribs, sending the goon staggering.

  Lyons whirled on the blackjack wielder just in time to drive his knuckles into the back of the hand wielding the weapon. The goon tried to score with a backswing, but had his hand hit again. A shout of agony escaped his lips, but he hung onto the sap.

  Lyons then stepped to one side and spun around. His other opponent nearly bowled his ally off his feet as he charged right past where Lyons had been. Carl hurried the charge with a boot to the calf.

  Both men swung to face him. This time they were both on the same side of their intended victim. Lyons rapidly closed in on the terrorist with the brass knuckles, giving him no time to get set or to think. He intercepted a straight jab by grabbing the wrist with his right hand and locking the elbow with his left. He gave a hard pull, levering one opponent into the other. The moment the two thugs collided, they lost the match.

  Lyons was instantly upon them. He dropped the terrorist with the brass knuckles with a short, sharp kidney punch. The killer with the blackjack received a foot stomp that ended his useless life. The other left the world after taking a blow to the temple.

  Lyons walked around the building until he found where the power cables entered. His job was clear cut — get Deborah away from about forty armed terrorists and do it before they could react and kill her.

  He pulled the Colt Python from the holster in the small of his back. It was not his usual gun. He had chosen a simple four-inch barrel, .357 Magnum. He could not spare the pocket space for rapid loaders. The bulk would have shown, but he did have extra ammunition distributed around his pockets, about twenty extra rounds. It was not much, but it had to be enough.

  He fired two 200-grain bullets into the power transformer that served the building. While the transformer arced and died, he replaced the two spent shells with live rounds. He then walked to the front of the building.

  The front quarter of the ground floor was just that — a front. Step two was to remove these naive types from the battle zone.

  Lyons put a hand to his cheek. It was still oozing blood. He wiped the hand clean, first on his forehead and then on his shirtfront. By that time he was passing the large display window in the front of the building.

  The WAR volunteer workers were bustling around because the electric typewriters and the copier no longer worked. They stopped bustling and stared when a blood-smeared monstrosity kicked in the display window and strode over the broken glass, gun in hand.

  The only person in the office who was not suddenly frozen was a redheaded secretary outside the manager’s office. She produced a .25 Bauer automatic with her right hand, while reaching for a concealed buzzer with her left. A single, lead mind stopper canceled the intentions of both hands.

  “You have thirty seconds to get out of here,” Lyons shouted.

  All took the hint.

  Lyons went through the empty manager’s office to the door in back. He knew his first stop had to be the firing range in the basement. There he could arm himself and cut off the access to the guns and supplies of ammunition. The brig or cage was not far from the range. That would be the next step. He figured that would be where they had put Deborah.

  He reached the stairs to the basement without incident. However, James Saint and two of the imported terrorists came out of the firing range just as he reached the bottom of the steps. Saint was not slow. His first glance at the gun-toting, blood-smeared apparition was sufficient.

  “Get him,” Saint commanded.

  Saint backed his command with a flying dive through the door to the firing range. His two henchmen did not have guns in their hands; Lyons did. The two terrorists never had guns in their hands again. The first was still trying to get a hand under his shirt when the 200-grain Magnum went through the hand, through the shirt and through the terrorist, removing three inches of spine from his back.

  The second killer managed to produce an ancient Astra 400 from his side pocket before a bullet made mush out of his face.

  Lyons scooped up the unfired Astra. He hoped the 1921 model automatic would not blow up in his hand, but he needed every shot he could find. Before following Saint into the firing range, he paused to recharge the Colt.

  Before he could continue, he heard Deborah Devine shout. “Carl. Not in here. It’s a trap.” Then she screamed. The voice came from the brig area of the basement.

  At the bottom of the steps there was a small hall off which opened three doors. One went to a storage cupboard and was always locked. Another was for the firing range and the third was for a utility room, which contained the cage.

  “I heard you. Thanks,” Lyons called out.

  Then he hit the door.

  The ruse had worked.

  Six of the hard-core terrorists were in the room with the cage. They all had M-16s. When Lyons called that he had the message, they went into motion to pursue him. When the door swung inward, it caught one terror goon in the face. The other five were all in motion and not set. They never had a chance to get set.

  Lyons fired both the revolver and the automatic, one from each hand — twelve bullets. Each ambusher had his ticket to hell punched twice.

  Deborah was curled in the cage. Her clothing was torn and there were some cigarette burns on her back and buttocks.

  “God, am I glad to see you,” she gushed.

  Lyons just nodded as he charged the Colt once more. He put it back in its concealed holster and then released her. While he tended to the guns, Deborah did a quick-change act. She peeled her torn clothing and took pants and shirt from the body that was closest to her size. It was a common-sense action, done quickly and efficiently.

  Lyons’s eyes reflected a rare warmth when he handed her two of the M-16s. In return, she gave him a smile — shaky, but genuine.

  “What’s next, boss?”

  “Next, we close this joint down.”

  There was no argument, no discussion of the odds, no mention of referring the decision up the chain of command. She merely nodded, checked the clips on both rifles and waited for further instructions.

  “A large group are holed up in the firing range, waiting for us,” Lyons told Devine. “We can’t attack and we can’t get out of here past them.”

  “So?”

  “So find some black tape on the workbench.”

  While Deborah sifted through the clutter on the workbench, Lyons got two cans of Coke from one of the coin machines.

  “No tape, but there’s some black spray paint.”

  “It will have to do. Blacken these as fast as possible.”

  He tossed her the cans of Coke.

  “Just the right size for Israeli grenades,” she commented.

  “Let’s hope they think so.”

  Deborah was back within a minute. The cans dripped paint across the floor and down her left hand. Both fighters held their cocked automatic rifles ready to fire with one hand.

  Lyons took a slippery can of pop in his left hand and put half a clip of .223s through the opposite door.

  It took only five paces to cross the hall and kick the door to the firing range open the rest of the way. Both fighters launched their blackened cans of pop through the door, paused one second and followed.

  There was a strangled cry. “Hand bomb!”

  When the warriors stepped into the room, every killer’s eye was still fastened on the soaring cans of Coke.

  Deborah emptied one M-16 in a sweeping motion that cut across every standing terrorist in the room. She then ducked behind a gun cabinet and started to pick at individuals.

  Lyons fired short bursts, taking out Saint and the terror goons he felt most
dangerous. He used the half clip and then a full clip with lightning-fast selective shooting.

  The battle of the firing range was over before most of the participants were aware that it had begun. Devine and Lyons looked at each other and then at the clutter of bodies. There were ten goons who would never again kill a computer scientist. Lyons opened a cabinet and lifted out a batch of clips for the M-16s.

  When they left the firing range, Deborah carried three loaded autorifles. Lyons carried six, five of which were slung on his right shoulder.

  Two curious faces looked down the steps to the basement. Both faces vanished in a spray of red. The sound of weapons’ fire outside the firing range brought one student to the door of the dojo. Lyons saw him and waved him over. The curious student came over and received a single shot through the eye. At the same time, Deborah stepped through the doorway to the karate-training gym and took out the rest of the class.

  The mop up was quick, brutal. No one was left in the terrorist wing of the WAR building. By the time it was finished, the sound of a siren was near. Someone from the front part had telephoned the police. Lyons and Deborah dropped the M-16s and left the building by a fire exit.

  13

  July 13, 1313 hours, Smyrna, Georgia

  Hal Brognola was in the chief executive’s office at Elwood Electronic Industries, talking on the telephone. Whatever the conversation was about, he did not appear pleased. In his ashtray were the remains of his last cigar. It had been bitten in two. When Lyons and Deborah appeared in the doorway, his frown deepened.

  Lyons flopped into a chair and indicated one for Deborah.

  “How many got away?” Brognola said into the phone. “How the hell did they get booked onto flights so fast? Shit!” Brognola paused and thought for about five seconds. “I’ll have to call back. Carl’s just come in and has something to report. Give me a telephone number. Okay. I’ve got that. Stand by.”

  Brognola hung up the telephone. He again picked up the receiver and dialed a number inside the company.

  “Ti, can you get in here right away. Carl’s just come in and things have gone sour in Boston. On second thought, find some chairs and coffee, we’ll come to you. We’re probably going to have to include your computer in this conference.”