Wilson, Gar - Phoenix Force 05 - The Fury Bombs

by Anonymous Author

  IN THE FARMHOUSE, Seamus Riley glanced at the clock on the mantel and checked it against his watch.

  "Forty minutes, lads," he said.

  "They're not payin', Seamus," said the man who had been the electrician in the Atlanta raid. A television set flickered in a corner of the room. In the kitchen, one man sat at the table, listening to the local radio station, waiting for a news bulletin.

  "Don't worry. They'll pay tomorrow," said Riley. "They'll have to pay tomorrow."

  "Forty minutes," he repeated.

  The sheriff's cars ferried the Phoenix Force agents to the state road.

  "The telephone company is ready?" asked Yakov.

  "Right," said the sheriff. "They'll wait until he makes the call to Los Angeles then kill the line."

  "There may be two or three calls," Yakov reminded him.

  "They know. They'll give up to a minute beween them."

  The Phoenix Force team moved into the field, which was waist high in grass and wild clover. Weapons held high, they pushed through the grass.

  Within a hundred feet they were ankle-deep in water; the woods were still two hundred yards away. The five men broke through the obstacles, shoes filling with water and picking up layers of mud, their breath whistling from open mouths and nostrils.

  Nearly fifteen minutes passed before they reached the woods; the last twenty yards was dry land. They slipped into the wood lot, andthe going became easy despite heavy under-brush.

  They reached the sugaring-off shack. One wall of the structure had collapsed, the roof sagging to form a trough that held an inch of rainwater. The underbrush had taken over the clearing and leaf mold was heavy underfoot.

  Keio and David kicked through the mold that had drifted through the open side of the shack. Keio found rotten boards with his third kick. He dropped to his knees and pulled them apart; they broke in his hands. They were wet and heavy with mold. He shone his flashlight into the black hole and spotted the bones of small animals scattered over the bottom.

  "Something has made this a home," he said. "A fox," said Gary. "Maybe a raccoon."

  "There's a ladder," said Keio, "but it looksrotten."

  "Who goes through?" said David. "Who stays on top?"

  Keio jumped into the hole. The lair stank of its former owner, but it seemed empty. He shone the torch into the tunnel.

  "It still seems sound," he said.

  Gary jumped, landing in a crouch. Rafael came after. David looked at Yakov and shrugged.

  "I guess we're elected to go over the bloody, top."

  Yakov lowered bags of grenades, clips of extra ammunition, Ingrams and Rafael's Skorpion. Keio shouldered the M-16 with its grenade launcher attached.

  "How much time?" asked Gary, burdened.

  "Ten minutes," Yakov said from above.

  "Let's get the hell moving," Gary said.

  Yakov and David stayed by the hole just long enough to see the three agents disappear into the tunnel, Gary first, followed by Keio then Rafael. They bent low to enter the opening and then were gone. The remaining two men set out through the woods at a dogtrot, intending to reach the edge and be set up well before the others could reach the exit at the well.

  Gary's load brushed the plank sides of the tunnel as he moved forward, the bright beam of his flashlight picking out the trail. The tunnel still seemed sound, although small piles of dirt had filtered through cracks.

  In the middle, Keio felt the pressure of the ground bearing down on him from above. He felt the walls pressing in on either side. It was unfamiliar, frightening. He had never known claustrophobia. He heard the labored breathing of the others and fought to keep panic from blowing his heart to abnormal size. One foot in front of the other, ignore the darkness, keep eyes on Gary's back.

  The tunnel opened into a circular chamber about eight feet across. Walled with stone, it narrowed as it rose to the roof, out of sight overhead.

  It was the well. Gary straightened and easedthe kinks out of back and leg muscles. The others did the same as he shone the light on the well's cover. It was ten feet over their heads; the opening above was no more than three feet across.

  The well was dry. There was no indication it had ever been filled with water. A wood ladder stood against the wall, but it was rotten; the bottom rung split away from handmade nails when Rafael tested it with his weight. The ladder was useless.

  Keio shrugged out of his burden and bent. Gary did the same and stepped onto Keio's back and then his shoulders. His hands waved as Keio slowly straightened, until he could reach one of the planks.

  According to the sheriff, the well was two feet or more above ground, but a century of drifted dirt and debris had raised the ground level around the circular wall. Gary moved a plank and dirt showered down, filling his hair and face and mouth.

  He spit it away and brushed a hand across his face as Keio grunted under the dirt and strain. Gary pushed the plank to one side. Rising cautiously, he looked out at the back of the house. He moved another plank and held onto the lip of the well with both hands.

  "Closed up tight," he said. "Shades drawn on every window. Van is still by back porch."

  He looked down. "Give me my Ingram. I'm going to make a move for the van."

  Rafael handed up the weapon, and Gary slung it over one shoulder. Keio moved beneath his shifting weight. Gary grabbed the lip of the well again to save himself from falling, then went up and out, shoulders knocking the planks farther aside and starting a new rain of dirt.

  At the edge of the woods, Yakov and David saw Gary emerge from the well, move in a crouching run that carried him to the van. He dropped flat against the ground and rolled under the van. He stayed there thirty seconds before he rolled out again. Rafael peered from the well.

  Gary signaled and Rafael came out. He turned back to take weapons from Keio, then leaned over to give Keio a hand. Gary crouched beside the van, the truck between him and the house. Rafael and Keio joined him. They hugged the wall, keeping below the line of thewindows.

  SEAMUS RILEY had picked up the telephone. He'd dialed the number of a telephone in the warehouse near Union Station in Los Angeles and listened to the instrument ring three times before he hung up. He redialed immediately.

  In the warehouse, the telephone rang twice, then one of the government agents had lifted the instrument and hit the cutoff button. Riley heard the interrupted ring, followed by the hum of an open circuit. He'd let the receiver dropinto its cradle and turned with a smile to the others.

  "It's done, lads. Let's have the news."

  The TV and radio were turned up. The men gathered in the two rooms.

  Five minutes passed and no news.

  Ten minutes passed.

  The television and the radio continued with normal programming. The terrorists eyed one another uneasily.

  "Something's wrong," said Cavan Coakley. "There should have been a bulletin by now."

  Scowling, Riley spun around and picked up the telephone. He held it to his ear, ready to dial another number.

  "The instrument is dead!" he said.

  In that same instant, windows smashed and grenades rolled into the kitchen and the dining room.

  Fire blossomed and men screamed against the noise. They staggered through the smoke, those who were still on their feet, and caught up weapons. The terrorists turned to fire at the windows as the front and back doors simultaneously were blown out by Gary and David. Seconds later the Phoenix Force agents leaped the curtain of fire and poured into the house, sending a hail of steel-jacketed death that tore through walls, fractured furniture into splinters the size of toothpicks, turned flesh and blood into pulpy masses of gore.

  Rafael hit the floor in a rapid shoulder roll,coming up on one knee, his Ingram M-10 spraying 9mm destruction that pitched two terrorists into hell. Gary blasted another Irish rebel before the man could work the bolt of his assault rifle. David's M-10 exploded with a tongue of orange fire that churned a fourth killer's chest into a bloodied mess. Anothe
r Irishman tried to bring his gun into play, but Yakov's Uzi cut his backbone in two before the man could squeeze the trigger.

  A startled terrorist panicked and literally threw his AK-47 at Keio Ohara when the weapon jammed. The tactic was so stupid and unexpected, it worked. The Russian-made rifle knocked Keio off guard and hit the Ingram from his grasp.

  However, Keio reacted immediately. Before the Irishman could follow up his attack, Keio leaped forward, his body rocketing across the room, one leg extended in a flying side kick. The bottom of his boot crashed into the terrorist's face, snapping his head back with such force that vertebrae popped.

  The terrorist fell, his neck broken. Keio nimbly landed on his feet beside a large arm-chair behind which another Irish terrorist cowered.

  The terrorist was still stunned and disoriented by the explosions that had signaled the assault, but he still had enough wits left to draw a .38 Smith & Wesson from its holster as he rose to face Keio.

  The Japanese warrior was far faster than his adversary. His left hand shot out and caught the Irishman's wrist, pulling the gun toward the ceiling. The revolver roared and a .38 slug punched into plaster above their heads. Keio's right hand seized the man's pistol and twisted it from his grasp. With a roar of rage, the terrorist tried to throw a punch with his free hand, but Keio suddenly rammed a karate empi stroke to the hardguy's armpit, his elbow striking the nerve center at the subaxillary bundle.

  The Irishman gasped and convulsed from the paralyzing blow. Keio's left hand swung a shuto chop under the terrorist's breastbone. The man groaned and his knees buckled. Keio Ohara was not finished with him yet. The tall Japanese held his opponent's wrist with one hand and used the other to lock the man's elbow in a straight-arm bar. Then he pivoted sharply, pulling the terrorist with him by the captive arm and abruptly drove the man face-first into a wall. The Irish thug slumped to the floor, leaving a trail of bloodstains on the wallpaper.

  "That's Riley!" cried David. "He's headed for the stairs!"

  Seamus Riley coughed, choking on the stink of cordite and the smoke of the grenades. All around him his men were dying. The cause was lost, but the battle was not over.

  The Americans would pay!

  New York City would pay!

  22

  GARY HEARD DAVID'S CRY and spun to see Rileyfighting his way up the stairs.

  The Canadian moved after him. Riley was his. He headed for the stairs with Ingram in hand.

  Fire licked at the walls in the dining room, caught in the ruptured upholstery of the couch and an overstuffed chair. It poured new clouds of smoke into the room, choking billows of fog that burned the eyes and strangled the lungs.

  The stairs were on fire. Riley leaped over the top riser as Gary plunged after him, beating at the flames that tried to consume his clothes. He saw Riley fall to the floor, and then the fire flared before him.

  Gary broke through the flames, the fire frustrated by his wet clothing. He found the hall empty.

  Riley, you son of a bitch, Gary thought, where the hell are you?

  Ingram ready for action, Gary kicked in the first door and found a bathroom filled with smoke from the fire in the kitchen below. Thefloorboards were growing hot, beginning to smolder.

  He backed into the hall, heard a noise and spun.

  The noise came from a window frame, cracking under the heat of the fire that had caught in the walls. Gary moved to the next door.

  It was a bedroom, which held army-surplus beds, set up for Riley's army. It was also empty.

  Gary moved to the next room.

  BELOW, THERE WERE A FEW SURVIVORS, theAtlanta "electrician" among them. He staggered from the house under Rafael's watchful eye and collapsed on the lawn, choking. His face was covered with soot and his hands were marked with third-degree burns; he was slipping into shock.

  Yakov came up to him. "The bomb!" he said. "Where is the New York bomb?"

  The electrician looked up, shook his head. "It's in the World Trade Center, but you fools are too late. It's blown."

  "We cut the phone line!" said Rafael.

  "It makes no difference. There's a backup, a radio switch. Seamus has the radio in his bedroom. It's too late."

  The Phoenix Force agents whirled and looked at the house, which was a mass of flames. "Gary's up there!" said Rafael.

  "And so's Riley," said Yakov.

  GARY KICKED IN ANOTHER DOOR and foundanother fiery bedroom. He started to turn back, then heard coughing. He moved into the room and saw Riley on his knees on the far side of the bed. The Irishman gasped for breath, trying to drag air into his tortured lungs; but the air was overheated, too hot for human life. Another minute and it would be too late for either of them.

  "Riley!"

  The Irishman looked at Gary and lunged toward the radio transmitter on a dresser. Gary held down the trigger.

  Nothing happened. The Ingram misfired.

  Choking with smoke, sobbing with frustration, the Irishman tried to reach the transmitter as Gary threw aside the Ingram.

  The gutsy Canadian then dived headlong across the bed, grabbing Riley's head in mid-flight and smashing it into the corner of the dresser.

  Manning quickly scraped himself off the floor, ready for any fight the man could muster. But Riley was stunned. He slowly rose, dazed and beaten. Blood poured from a large gash in his skull.

  Smoke filled the room. Flames jumped menacingly. Manning knew the fight was now centered on survival: he had to get the hell out of the fireground.

  Leaving the dazed Riley, he rushed to the door. The way was blocked with raging fire, ripping at the wood of the old house. He staggered back, hands up to protect his face from the burning horror. There was no way out through the inferno.

  There was one way out of the building.

  Manning grabbed Riley with two hands and placed the man in front of him. Riley put up little struggle, the life pulsing from his skull.

  Using the terrorist as a shield, Manning rushed the second-floor window and crashed through. The fire roared after him; Riley screamed in front of him. The terrorist leader's face was riddled with shards of splintered glass.

  Riley died the second he hit the ground, the weight and force of Manning pounding down on top of him. The Phoenix Force agent felt the life being crushed out of Riley, then his head struck soil and darkness reigned.

  EPILOGUE

  MACK BOLAN sat in the War Room at Stony Man Farm, relaxing, listening to Hal Brognola's account of how Bolan's Phoenix Force defused the Fury Bomb. Bolan wore a satisfied smile, and he listened with pride.

  "Manning took the only route out of the fiery hell," Brognola said, excitement riding the waves of his voice as he wrapped up his report. "He grabbed Riley, used him as a shield and sailed through the window.

  "Riley, the guys tell me, died instantly, his frame flattened like a goddamn pancake." Brognola emphasized the point by smacking his hands together in a violent clap.

  Bolan watched as the big Fed sucked deeply on his stogie. Concern entered his voice.

  "We're damn lucky, Hal, that Gary's okay."

  "We sure are," Brognola agreed. "The doctors told me he'd be back on his feet in a week—and bitching long before then."

  A strange silence enveloped the room as Bolan and Brognola let their thoughts roam; both men thought about Phoenix Force.

  Phoenix Force, like Able Team, was an extension of Mack Bolan the man, and Mack Bolan the freedom fighter. Each time that extension was thrown into combat, Mack Bolan lived, breathed and battled with them in spirit. When victory was attained, Mack Bolan felt proud.

  Bolan's and Brognola's thoughts broke at the same time. The two longtime friends looked at each other, knowing full well what the other had been thinking.

  "Phoenix Force," Brognola said. "Five good men."

  Bolan nodded, smiled and underlined the truism.

  "Five damn good men."

  05 - The Fury Bombs