Wilson, Gar - Phoenix Force 05 - The Fury Bombs

by Anonymous Author

  Another youth came running down the stairs. "Eamon, the church is afire!"

  "Upstairs, lads!" said O'Bannon. "Move! We haven't a chance if we stay here!"

  They rushed the stairs and disappeared. The sound of small arms joined the hellish concert. Fire licked the edges of the hole. The cellar was warming rapidly. The kerosene stove had been knocked over, spilling liquid flames onto the dirt floor. They licked at the table, caught hold and sent a fire finger up the leg, blistering the paint. The puddle of burning kerosene reached the corner of the box of grenades.

  McCarter lay on his face. The dirt of the floor felt deathly cold against his cheek. He wormed his way forward. Working his knees under hisbelly, he managed to push himself up to a kneeling position. He settled back on his heels.

  The centuries-old wood of the church burned like tinder. Already the fire roared above. Flames ate their way through the cracks between the floorboards of the church, licked at them from underneath and joined together.

  McCarter listened to the battle, knowing he was trapped. He had no way out.

  12

  LATE-APRIL SUNSHINE threatened the San Fernando Valley with the heat of midsummer. From Reseda Boulevard eastward the smog settled in early, filling the eyes and choking the lungs of the people who lived in Van Nuys and Studio City, Panorama City and Glendale. The area became engulfed by a yellow green haze of smog. By noon, the Air Quality Management District Board called a first-stage smog alert for the first time that season.

  In Burbank, a delivery van wheeled out of an alley behind a block of stores, weaving erratically as it bumped into San Fernando Boulevard and turned south. Brakes squealed in anger as the van cut off a car. A Harley hog sliced out of traffic and roared around the van, the biker glancing sideways to give the driver the finger. He blinked.

  "Sweet Jesus!"

  The bike swerved as the rider took a second look then quickly fed gas to the bike. He cut off two cars and reclaimed a lane in the crowded street. He then checked the mirrors on hishandlebars. The van was three cars back, the windshield blank.

  There was no driver! The van was being operated by remote control. And at the control was a lunatic who worked for another lunatic, Seamus Riley.

  The van continued its trek. It motored along, reaching a block that contained an eight-story parking garage and, beside it, a twelve-story office building. A pedestrian bridge crossed from the sixth story of the garage to the office building. On the north side of the building, was a branch office of the Colonial-Far Eastern Bank of California.

  The van, running the crazed course it was given, veered abruptly and bumped over the curb, nearly hitting a man standing at a bus stop. The van sped across the plaza, through flower beds and scattering pedestrians.

  People shouted. People ran for their lives. A woman screamed, snatching a small child out of the way. The van crushed the corner of a temporary plywood bandstand, set up for lunchtime concerts. The van then stopped with its bumper against the front door of the bank.

  A woman had just pushed the door open to leave. The collision with the van knocked her back into the lobby. She gathered air into her lungs to protest but had no time to exhale as a ton of dynamite in the van exploded with an ear-shattering bang.

  The fireball filled the area, melting the shardsof plate-glass that still hung in their storefront frames, scorching everything within the shops and turning it to lumps of carbon.

  In the bank's lobby, the explosion shredded ceiling tiles and tore carpeting away from the concrete subfloor in strips that flared like candlewicks. The tellers' counter slammed back against the wall, trapping a dozen dead bodies. The half-dozen desks used by the manager, assistant manager, loans officers and the new-accounts clerk were blown against the back wall. And so were the bodies of the men and women who manned those desks.

  Every window in the three blocks facing San Fernando Boulevard was blown out, glass falling into the streets. There was instant madness as drivers tried to react; cars in front of the office building were thrown across the street by the force of the blast, while the next ten seconds saw dozens of collisions between cars driven by panicked drivers. Windows were cracked in the loading-gate area at Hollywood-Burbank Airport, half a mile away, and in more than a thousand other buildings. The blast's muscle flex was felt in Glendale and in Sunland, in Hollywood and North Hollywood, across half the Valley.

  Some thought it was the beginning of World War III. Others thought it was an earthquake. All felt the terror of the blast.

  The rolling fireball scoured the plaza, killing every pedestrian on the block. The pedestrianbridge to the garage cracked, shifting nearly six inches. The concrete side of the garage was scorched black, a blackness that spread as it rose.

  Other persons, blocks away, were knocked flat, or even thrown into the street—some dying under squealing tires. The fireball was the only visible force of destruction, but the blast carved a six-foot-deep crater out of the ground. The van, except for odd bits and pieces, had vaporized.

  Two survivors were found on the fifth floor, a few more on the sixth and many more on the other six floors of the building. But even the twelfth floor had its casualties: people crushed beneath tumbling bookcases and collapsing ceilings, trapped behind desks thrown against walls. Others, bleeding and in shock, died waiting for rescue. A descending elevator was blown apart at the seventh floor.

  The Army of the People's Republic of Ireland had struck, and in spectacular fashion.

  They had not waited seventy-two hours.

  KEIO OHARA stood on a pedestrian overpass, watching the frantic scene below.

  Sirens screamed in the distance. Fire trucks and ambulances hooted, the clamor of the air horns rising in register as they raced nearer.

  A blue-and-white police helicopter chattered noisily overhead, airfoil kicking up dust andgarbage. The wind tore at Keio's hair and he squinted against the dust devils.

  A dozen highway-patrol cars blocked the six lanes of the freeway, stopping dead the usual heavy L.A. midday traffic. The bottleneck reached back into the Hollywood Hills, a mile away, and congestion was heavy on the intersecting Pasadena and Glendale freeways. Occupants of the vehicles leaned through windows or stood in the narrow lanes between cars, staring at the disaster.

  Beyond the barricade of cruisers, the freeway was empty except for cars and victims involved in a dozen accidents, and three fire trucks that had made it onto the roadway by entering via the next exit ramp. The fire trucks pumped streams of water into the office tower above, where black columns of smoke billowed into the sky.

  Keio had arrived on the scene twenty minutes earlier, pausing only for a hasty conference with the Burbank deputy police chief who had taken charge of the command post that had been set up in a secondhand bookstore. The previous night, after receiving instructions from Stony Man, Keio had come to Los Angeles to coordinate local search efforts. The chopper overhead had brought him from L.A. police head-quarters.

  Emotions seething, he watched the scene. He felt a hatred so powerful he knew it could not be contained.

  Scores, perhaps hundreds, of lives lost.

  A twelve-million-dollar building destroyed.

  The building was owned by the bank, which used it as its regional headquarters, but there were six floors of other tenants, fifty or sixty other companies in no way connected to Great Britain; companies whose only crime was to be on the scene, in a war zone.

  Insanity.

  Madness.

  A cop got out of a patrol car and called out: "Ohara!"

  Keio took a last look at the freeway and ran to the car. He accepted the microphone and thumbed the talk switch.

  "Ohara."

  The radio crackled noisily, making the dispatcher's voice hard to understand. Keio listened carefully then looked at the cop.

  "How close is El Toro Marine Air Station?" "That's down in Orange County. Sixty or seventy miles."

  Keio glanced at the circling chopper. It had dropped him on a res
idential street on the far side of the freeway, and now waited to carry him wherever he wanted to go. He relayed his instructions through the dispatcher, returned the microphone to the cop, then started to run across the walkway. Before he reached the other side, the chopper veered off, heading for the landing place.

  "El Toro Air Station," Keio yelled to the pilot as he hopped into the bird's belly.

  "Right!" said the pilot, shouting to be heard over the racket of the airfoil. "We're on our way!"

  Keio put on headphones and the noise was cut to an almost bearable level. As the chopper passed over the city of Los Angeles, he listened to the police band. Most of the reports were about the bombing. Thus far, one hundred thirty bodies had been removed from the streets surrounding the office tower and from neighboring buildings.

  Keio stared down at the unrolling city—sixty small towns in search of an identity. Thirty minutes later the housing developments ended, and they were over the open land of El Toro Marine Air Station. Another five minutes and he was on the ground, climbing into the cockpit of a Harrier VTOL jet.

  As he boarded, the pilot gave him thumbs-up and Keio settled his six-foot frame in the cramped cockpit. He was traveling without luggage and without weapons, except for his own lethal hands and feet. Trained in kendo and judo, holder of a black belt in karate and student of all martial arts, Keio was a human time bomb. Walking into a confrontation never worried him. He could take care of himself.

  The pilot reached Stony Man Farm and set the jet fighter down within the circle marked on the helicopter pad.

  Rafael Encizo was on his way by jet to Stony Man from Kelly Air Force Base, San Antonio. When Rafael reached Stony Man Farm he was hit with the news: the truth of the crash of the C-130 had been discovered.

  "The balloon just went up," Yakov told Rafael. "We know what the terrorists meant when they called themselves the fury bomb. They're nuclear."

  Rafael uttered a prayer that was equally a curse, and crossed himself.

  "Also, David's been taken."

  Madre de Dios! "What do we do?" he asked. "We take him back."

  13

  THE LEADERS of the Army of the People's Republic of Ireland had gathered in the living room of an abandoned farmhouse in Chenango County, New York. The owner had gone broke because of high interest rates and runaway inflation. Three of the four nearest farms were no longer operational.

  Seamus Riley had rented the house as a base for his Irish insanity.

  Riley, Liam Clune and three other men watched the evening news on a 13-inch color TV. Story after story reported about the California bombing.

  "In a bulletin just handed me," a stone-faced newsreader intoned, "it says the death toll in the Burbank bombing has risen to one hundred eighty. It is a major tragedy. The nation is in shock, our people in mourning."

  Commercials rolled on. Riley smiled at the brutal effectiveness of the news. But none of the five men spoke, still waiting for the announcement of whether their demands would be met. The last commercial dissolved, and the TV anchorman returned.

  "In New York today, a spokesman for the fifty companies chosen as targets of the terrorists' extortion demands announced that follow-up letters have been received, repeating the original demands."

  The station switched to a news conference. Cameras zoomed in on a forty-year-old man in a rumpled suit standing before a battery of microphones that bore the logos of major television and radio stations. Heads bobbed as photographers jostled to gain vantage points. Several reporters shouted out questions.

  "Mr. Lowell!" a reporter fired at the beleaguered spokesman, "are the companies going to pay?"

  "Absolutely not! Representatives of the companies have been meeting since yesterday. It had already been agreed that no payments would be made. The companies remain united in their decision—they will not give in to extortion."

  "The idiots!" Seamus Riley slammed a fist against the arm of his overstuffed chair. "The bloody fools!"

  "Seamus," Liam said. "Listen, he's sayin' more."

  The spokesman held up his hand, trying to still the rattle of the reporters. At last they quieted enough for his words to come through.

  "Ladies and gentlemen, please! Please. Thank you." He gripped the edges of the podium.

  "I have been authorized to announce that thecompanies involved are offering a reward of one million dollars for the capture of the leaders responsible for these outrages!"

  Bedlam again; the picture jumped, showing the ceiling of the room for an instant as someone jostled the cameraman.

  The station returned to the newsman in the studio.

  "The offer of a one-million-dollar reward for the capture of the leaders of the terrorist group calling itself the Army of the People's Republic of Ireland is most unusual. The normal offering of such a reward stipulates that it will be paid upon the arrest and conviction of the perpetrators of a crime. We now return you to the news conference for an update."

  A haggard looking roving reporter came on camera. "We do have further details of the reward offer," she said. "As you heard earlier, the companies have banded together to offer one million dollars for the capture of the leaders of the Army of the People's Republic of Ireland, but that is inaccurate, the reward is just for the leaders. It is estimated that between one hundred fifty and two hundred men took part in the raids, and there is a further reward of ten thousand dollars for the arrest and conviction of any of those men. However, let me repeat, the million-dollar offer is for the capture of the leaders."

  The station then cut to a "promo," promising sports and entertainment news had not been forgotten in the chaos over the attacks.

  "Turn if off!"

  The leader glowered at the screen while the picture shrunk into a dot and faded. None of the other four dared break the silence.

  "The fools." Riley's voice was flat, dead. "I warned them. I gave them a chance."

  "What do we do now, Seamus?" Liam asked.

  "Perhaps we should call it off," said another.

  "Call it off?" said Riley. "It's a bold soldierof freedom you are, Cavan Coakley."

  "They won't pay, Seamus," said a young terrorist.

  "We'll not see a penny."

  "If the Brit companies won't pay, Doyle MacGrew, we will collect from someone else."

  "Who, Seamus?" said Liam, not hiding his worry.

  "The Americans, Liam."

  The others said nothing, but the turmoil in their thoughts showed on their faces. Liam Clune could see that none of them liked it. But even he dared not speak in opposition, for fear of the violent nature of the man beside him.

  "We have the bomb," said Riley. "We'll give the Americans one chance to see that when Seamus Riley speaks, he means what he says. One chance, and this time they will listen."

  He pulled himself from the chair, stood there staring at the dead television.

  "But the price has gone up," said Riley. , "Liam, the photographs taken when the warheads were removed from the missiles, I want them. And Cavan, a new letter, this time to the President of the United States and the leaders of Congress. Send copies to the television networks, AP, UPI and the major newspapers—The New York Times, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, the lot of them."

  "And what do we say this time, Seamus?" Coakley asked.

  "We say that we have four atomic bombs. The photographs will be proof of that. Unless the money transfer goes through as ordered, one bomb will be exploded in the heart of a major city. Give them forty-eight hours. And another bomb each forty-eight hours thereafter, until they come to their senses and do as we say."

  "How much are we asking?" said Coakley.

  "A good sum," said Riley. He smiled. "A round sum. One they will easily remember. One billion dollars."

  14

  RAFAEL ENCIZO AND KEIO OHARA met at Stony Man Farm. The two Phoenix Force agents clasped arms briefly; they had become good friends during their fights against the forces of terrorism. They were in the War Room with Yakov
.

  April Rose appeared, an attractive one-woman welcoming party, carrying a tray that held coffee for Rafael, a cup of Japanese green tea for Keio.

  "We may have a line on David," said Yakov. "Things are breaking for us. The IRA factions have sent an offer of help—they took a vote and most decided they resented Riley's taking the war to America."

  "Nothing yet on the terrorists in the raids?" asked Keio.

  "Nothing," said Yakov. "It's incredible, but a hundred fifty men have vanished from the face of the earth."

  "They had safehouses ready," Rafael said. "They're smart enough to stay buried—this man Riley is smart enough to keep them buried."

  "We're still working on that aspect," said Yakov, "but for now it's in the hands of the police. They're far more capable in such matters. They can mount a search with hundreds, if necessary, thousands of men. Gary is in Sussex looking for Riley and the stolen warheads."

  Keio raised an eyebrow; he had not been briefed on the latter. Katzenelenbogen filled him in quickly and he nodded.

  "They are truly crazed and very dangerous. Nuclear weapons do them no good unless they are willing to use them."

  "This Riley bastard may be just that crazy," said Rafael.

  "I hate to split our forces," said Yakov, "but we don't seem to have much choice at the moment. You two are going to Ireland to find David—Brognola has an Air Force fighter jet ready for the flight."

  Rafael glanced at a table, covered with weapons: two Ingrams; an Uzi; side arms that included John Phoenix's preferred Beretta and Rafael's own favorite gun, the 7.65mm Vzor 61, the Czech Skorpion. There was also a grenade launcher, Startron night sights by Smith & Wesson and ammunition for everything. The weapons that could be broken down for transport had been. The others waited storage in two field packs that lay open on another table.

  "We don't know what you'll be facing,"said Yakov. "Be ready for anything. Your liaison in Belfast is a Major Dickman of the British army and Inspector MacMurray of the Royal Ulster Constabulary."

  Rafael nodded, then he and Keio moved to the table to prepare the packs.