by Dick Stivers
He surprised the pair with two small flashes and low coughs from a silenced gun at point-blank range. For those two killers the darkness became permanent.
Pol caught up to Lyons and the pair moved quietly through the carpeted halls of the high-tech building. Their infrared goggles separated humans from background. In the infrared light they could tell whether the person was armed. Armed terrorists met a karate blow to the temple or a single 9mm parabellum.
Workers were told in whispers that the stairs were clear for now. They were told to crawl to the stairwell and get out of the fire zone.
Ten minutes of silent confusion reigned on the top floor. The trickle of evacuees became a flow. The bodies of terrorists began to litter the halls.
Then, a match flared over a body. Politician’s Uzi was leveled in an instant, but he held his fire. He could not tell what innocents might be farther down the hall. He broke into a run toward the terrorist, but the match went out and the goggles took two seconds to readjust to the lower intensity of infrared light. By the time Pol could see, the terrorist had leaped into a side room and was yelling.
“We’ve been infiltrated. Retreat. Everyone out.”
Lyons and Pol were caught out of position. They had moved forward with speed and efficiency, eliminating terrorists and helping potential hostages to escape. When the shouting began, they were separated and far from the stairwell.
Politician still could not risk the Uzi because he could not see to the end of the hall behind the goons. Terrorists burst out of a room right beside him, and he lost his infrared light in the scramble. He still had the jo tucked into the back of his web belt. He slammed the Uzi back into its clip and drew the fighting stick.
He was among the goons, sweeping and jabbing. Four went down, but eight or nine made it into the stairwell. Then the scene became lighter and he knew that Lyons was back with his infrared light. The rest of the terrorists began to crumple as silent bullets kissed them goodbye, one at a time. Pol did not dare take a weapon out without his light to identify him. He raised his hands and jointo the air.
“I see you, Rosario. Lose your light?”
“Yeah. Eight or nine terrorists are on those stairs between us and the workers.”
Lyons wasted no breath. He ran for the stairwell, leaving Pol to fend for himself.
*
Gadgets went into a crouch by the heavy door.
“Pull it open,” he commanded his guide.
She yanked the door open, keeping herself behind it. Gadgets laid a pattern of 9mm tumblers around the light. It dropped to the floor. Another bullet turned it off. Then Gadgets’s infrared goggles went back over his eyes and he charged into the stairwell. He perforated both blurs and then turned on the infrared light to check. Both were dead. He jammed a fresh clip into the Uzi as he returned to hook his guide to his belt.
When they reached the ground floor, Gadgets noiselessly detached himself from the woman and indicated for her to wait. He then went into the office area by the main door. Three terrorists spun to see who was approaching.
Squinting against the sudden light, Gadgets sprayed the area with the entire clip. Only one terrorist managed to pull the trigger on his M-16. He sprayed a neat figure eight into the ceiling as he fell backward with two manglers in his chest.
Gadgets returned to the woman. “Go to the door,” he said. “Tell them not to shoot. Then go out and tell the police to expect more workers soon.” She nodded and went.
Gadgets went back to the hall and let his eyes adjust to the faint light of the goggles before moving on. By that time the first escapees from the top floor began to appear. It took only a few seconds to start the chain going out of the building. Then Gadgets began slowly moving against the flow of refugees toward the top floor.
A voice suddenly rang out from half a floor up. “They’re on the stairs below us. Spray the stairs.”
Gadgets shoved the last two stragglers behind him. Then he pointed the Uzi upward and waited to locate the muzzle-flashes. But before the terror goons could open fire, two concussion grenades dropped from above, scattering them along the steps. Then Lyons closed in from the top and Gadgets from the bottom.
“I think that takes care of things,” Gadgets called up the stairs before coming into line with Lyons’s Uzi.
Gadgets was ambushed as he emerged from the building and stood blinking in the bright light. Arms and legs wrapped around him and a big kiss was planted on his mouth while long red hair whipped around his head.
“You’re fabulous,” the redhead he had led out of the building said in a throaty voice. “What can I ever do to repay you?”
“You got a car?”
“Yes.”
“How about a ride to the airport for myself and my friends.”
The redhead turned to a man in a gray suit who was standing a discreet five feet away.
“Have my car brought around, please.”
“Right away, Miss Anderson.”
“Did I hear, Miss Anderson?” Pol asked. “Are you related to the founder of this company?”
“I’m the founder,” she replied with a grin.
Officer Gallic came up. “One of you called Ironman?”
Lyons nodded.
“Got a call patched through for you from California. You can get it in the cruiser.”
It was Brognola.
“Wrapped things up here,” the Fed said. “Houston and Seattle are taken care of. How did business go there?”
“A couple of casualties, but better than expected. Who got Jishin?”
“Didn’t you?”
“No sign of her. Who’s at Elwood Electronics?”
Brognola’s voice sounded worried, even through the static. “Only Ti and Deborah.”
“Out.” Lyons shouted and jumped from the car.
He turned to Inez Gallic. “Run interference to the airport for us.”
Able Team scrambled into the waiting Chrysler and took off after the police cruiser.
19
July 14, 1600 hours, Smyrna, Georgia
This time Jishin did not risk tipping anyone off to the raid by hijacking transportation from the airport. She hired two buses to move both the experienced foreign terrorists and the American terrorists-in-training from the airport to Elwood Electronic Industries Inc.
The buses pulled up to the plant. Two of the least certain of the trainees were left with the drivers. Their orders were to keep the drivers on the spot and out of the way. The other sixty-one terrorists divided into three groups to enter by the plant’s three doors.
Jishin went with the group that used the front entrance. There was no one in the reception area. Two lights glowed on the switchboard, showing lines in use. The receptionist’s typewriter was on and humming.
Beyond the reception area was the main office bull pen. The coffee was hot. Typewriters and copiers were on. A cigarette burned itself out in an ashtray.
“Creepy,” said one of the recruits.
The others looked around and under desks, trying to ignore the remark.
“You three start on those files,” Jishin ordered. “You four go back and cover the entry. You two see that the other teams have left their entries guarded as well. The rest of you find out where everyone’s gone.”
The terrorists scattered to obey orders.
Each of the three detailed to sort through files pulled open the top drawer of one of the upright cabinets. Each began scanning for anything pertaining to original research. The one in the middle found nothing but invoices in the top drawer. She slammed it shut and yanked open the second drawer. The three filing cabinets blew up, filling the room with sharp pieces of flying metal. Three terrorists died, four others experienced the pain of being severely wounded.
Jishin was not hit. She was already on her way to the computer room to see how things were going there. She heard the explosion and the screams but kept going. Someone would catch up with the details all too soon.
&n
bsp; She found the terrorists wandering around the computer room. They looked lost.
“What’s going on here?” Jishin demanded.
“Jobs are running. The computers are being worked but no one’s here,” someone reported in a puzzled voice.
“So what!” Jishin screamed. “Just get on with it.”
They hastily moved in on the computer keyboards and started deciphering entry codes and working at a way to acquire the classified data.
Jishin stomped out in disgust, through the security and noise barriers, to the back of the building to discover what happened to the third part of the invading force. There was a sharp cracksomewhere in a remote part of the building.
Jishin found the final third of her army frantically trying to dig their fellow workers out from under a heavy load of transformer cores and shelving.
“What do you think you’re doing?” she barked.
The terrorists stopped and looked up.
“Tanna and Brian hit a trip wire and the shelves fell in on them.”
Jishin stopped and picked up a discarded M-16. She jacked a shell into the chamber and fired two short bursts, killing the two imprisoned terrorists.
“That’s what happens to careless types. Now, move it, before I lose patience. Find out what happened to the people who were working here.”
Two messengers finally caught up with their leader.
“What do you two want?” she snapped at them.
“The file cabinets in the general office exploded,” the first reported. “We have three dead and four wounded.”
“The tape drive in the computer room also blew up,” the other reported. “We have two more seriously wounded.”
Before Jishin could react, someone yelled. “Gas!”
Jishin recognized the harsh, burning sensation of strong ammonia in her nostrils.
“Clear the area,” she barked.
In their haste to make it to the front of the building, the terrorists began to push and shove. That was when the lights went out.
There was still plenty of light streaming in the windows, but the power failure was the last straw for the already terrified killers. Their anger turned on each other. Soon fists were flying, the terrorists urgently wanting to quit the ammonia-filled stockrooms.
Jishin was still holding the M-16. She fired it into the air.
When she had sufficient attention, she spoke. “The next person I see shoving, gets shot.”
The evacuation was immediately more orderly, but Jishin was forced to tie up her time standing in the ammonia-filled room, eyes streaming water, fighting not to cough, while her troops scrambled out the single door into the other parts of the building.
The terrorists in the general office area quickly patched up their wounded, leaving the dead where they lay. There was a brief argument about which eight would carry the wounded to a bus and which four would stay behind. It was settled that all would head for the buses, three carrying each wounded.
The buses were not there.
The two terrorists left to keep an eye on the bus drivers had remained behind. Each was carefully stretched out on the parking lot, his neck broken and his weapon missing.
It was too much for three of the terrorists-in-training. They dropped their wounded comrade and sprinted away from the menacing, silent building that seemed to be functioning, but in which no one could be found. They did not make it. One of the confiscated M-16s opened up, cutting them down with three short bursts.
None of the terrorists tried to return fire. They were tasting terror instead of dispensing it. They dropped their wounded and retreated back inside the building. The last one in slammed the door and then looked in horror at the string tied to the door handle. On the end of the string was a grenade pin. In the hush, all nine survivors heard the spoon fall with a clatter. Three were killed by the blast, two more were severely injured.
When Jishin found her first contingent of terrorists, the ones she had entered the building with, they were grouped in the reception area, ignoring the wounded at their feet. They were all crouched and waving weapons around, terrified, unable to find anything to shoot at.
After much bullying and commanding, Aya Jishin got the nine quaking terrorists to move and join the group in the computer room. They arrived at the double glass windows and looked into the soundproofed area just in time to see two grenades go off. The defensive grenades threw wire throughout the room, killing six and injuring several more, but the blast did not destroy the tempered glass of the viewing windows.
A close-up view of their companions being lacerated with thousands of pieces of wire was too much for the already cowering terrorists. They dropped their weapons and ran for the nearest door.
The group that had encountered the high concentrations of ammonia gas had cleared their eyes. It had taken much sponging and washing, but they were ready to continue their conquest of Elwood Electronics.
Then suddenly an M-16 started to chatter, spraying bullets into their ranks. The terrorists dived for whatever cover they could find and brought their own weapons up. They were all set when their fleeing companions charged through the room on their way to the door. All nine were cut down before the terrorists realized they were shooting their own people.
When the terrified goons began to stampede, Jishin went after them. She saw the M-16 that provoked the firing. It had poked out above one of the sound-suppressing ceiling tiles.
“The enemy is above you!” Jishin yelled. “Watch the ceiling.”
They responded immediately, chopping the tiles over their heads with .223 tumblers. Then they leaped on anything available, ready to establish a beachhead in the new war zone.
The sound of a low-flying jet boomed overhead. Jishin’s battle instincts flared. A quick count told her that eighteen able-bodied troops were after the sniper or snipers in the crawl space. That was more than enough. Aya Jishin took off to find the other terrorists and move them outside to meet a new threat.
*
Lao Ti and Deborah Devine had had a busy afternoon. They had kept machines running, freshened coffee in cups, lit cigarettes and left them in ashtrays, coming back later to butt them and mess the ashes, and done many other small things to make the building look as if it was in use. Ti knew their survival required a psychological edge.
They also booby-trapped files and planned their own movements and routes to pick off the stragglers without exposing themselves to counterattack.
When the terrorists finally arrived, Deborah and Ti found themselves working like a well-trained team.
Ti waited in the crawl space for some of the traps to cause confusion. Deborah slipped outside, jogged over to the buses and easily took out the two amateur guards. After that, it took very little persuading to convince the bus drivers that they should leave.
Deborah then picked up the guards’ M-16s and spare clips. Able Team had left weapons as well as grenades and explosives behind, but Deborah and Ti both preferred the psychological effect of using the enemy’s own weapons against them.
Deborah delivered one weapon to Ti and then returned to the parking lot and waited for the wounded to be delivered to the buses, which were no longer there.
Ti heard the file drawers blow up. She was already in position over the storerooms. When someone hit a trip wire and the shelves collapsed on top of the goons, she dropped the bottles of ammonia where they would do the most damage.
She then had managed to slip into the reception room and rig the grenade booby trap while the wounded were being carried to the parking lot.
Ti had also dropped the two grenades into the computer room, timing the blasts to occur just as the frightened terrorists arrived from the office area. She then had to scramble into position to start the shooting war between the two groups of terrorists. She had not counted on one side being so frightened that they dropped their weapons. Her psychological war was more effective than she had imagined.
When Ti heard Jishin shouting that the enemy w
as above, she knew she had lost more than her psychological edge.
Deborah Devine was outside the building. She witnessed the breathtaking stall of the black jet and the parachute exit of Able Team. Her rapt attention was broken by the sudden charge of terrorists out the loading doors of the building.
She quickly faded from sight. She had only one full clip of ammunition for the M-16 in her hands. The terrorists were already spreading around the perimeter of the parking lot, preparing a trap for the parachuting fighters.
Able Team was drifting on a beautifully controlled descent, headed straight for the largest open space in the parking lot.
Deborah could not wait while they dropped into the trap. She charged, determined to wipe out as large a circle of killers as she could. At the least, the gunfire would attract the attention of the jumpers.
Two terrorists were crouching in long grass. When Able Team was on the ground, the two killers would have a choice field of fire. Deborah emptied the clip from her M-16 into the pair. She stopped and snatched up the dead men’s assault rifles.
Two more terrorists were crouched behind a parked car. Half a clip of tumblers taught them to dance before dying.
Deborah continued at a dead run, not daring to stop.
Three terrorists had their guns pointed at her. She dived into a ditch with tumblers crackling over her head. Jishin and three more killers were there, waiting.
Deborah reacted immediately. She swung her rifle butt into the face of the first terrorist, knocking him backward into one of his companions. Jishin was on her like a flash, plucking the rifle from her grip. Jishin then caught the wrist that was still outstretched and did a circular twist, levering the arm behind Deborah’s back.
A sudden shove and Deborah Devine found herself staggering into the exposed area of the parking lot with no cover and no shelter.
Bullets riddled her body.
*
As soon as Jishin had shouted, Lao Ti sprinted for another area of the crawl space. She flipped a ceiling tile out of place and found herself over an empty office. She carefully lowered herself and hung by one hand while she replaced the tile. The shooting had stopped. The goons would be cautiously poking into the attic at this point.