"Wonder why you couldn't reach the contact in New Delhi on that radio," Lyons whispered with a nod to the shortwave set Schwarz was carrying.
"Something is going down," said Gadgets. "Our contact has the jitters.''
"He'd answer if Stony Man had any messages for us," said Blancanales.
"What an optimist," grunted Lyons. "All right, men. Let's do it and do it right."
Mack Bolan's Able Team broke off all conversation.
They commenced climbing the face of the gorge.
Not knowing what they would find.
19
Grimaldi brought the Hughes chopper through the low cloud cover. The clouds would mute sounds of the helicopter's approach.
Bolan and Grimaldi had donned infrared Nite-finder eye shields.
In a night action, the Executioner always tried to think like the enemy.
What was the only conceivably vulnerable point on the Farm, near the perimeter?
"Come in low over the airfield from the north," Bolan instructed the pilot.
Grimaldi tugged the stick to bring the copter in at a low banking approach.
The night suddenly boomed.
The sky lit up briefly as a blast erupted below.
As Grimaldi sailed in, Bolan heard the crackle of automatic-weapons fire and claps from two more HEs.
The chopper emerged from the clouds. Grimaldi piloted them in low enough for the Nitefinders to reveal that the assault had just begun.
The airfield shimmered in an eerie golden glow from the flaming pile of junk that had moments earlier been a helicopter on the runway.
The firelight inadvertently cast flickering illumination on two squads of commandos Bolan could see advancing on the hangars in a wedgelike formation. Two of the commandos were in the process of reloading portable grenade launchers. The six infiltrators charged across the clearing separating the tree line from the hangars.
The illumination was enough for a dozen security troops, waiting behind the hangars, to more clearly see the infiltrators and open up with M-16s.
Bolan made out two members of Phoenix Force, Keio Ohara and Gary Manning, flanking off to either side of the Farm security forces, opening fire with their automatic weapons to catch the commando infiltrators from two new angles of fire.
The commando squads hastily fanned away from each other as the barrage cut down the two point-men.
One of the invaders triggered his grenade launcher.
The side of one hangar disintegrated into a sheet of flame as bodies of soldiers rained to the ground.
Ohara and Manning directed fierce streams of automatic fire at the source of the HE. Another commando spun every which way at once as his head and guts exploded.
The three surviving infiltrators fell back to regroup.
The Hughes chopper zipped overhead with Bolan bracing himself in the open door of the bubble front.
The Executioner unleashed a rain of death from the M-16 Grimaldi always kept in the chopper.
Two of the darting commandos kept on moving, even after the stream of 5.56mm fire decapitated them, sending chunks of their skulls and brains splashing into the air ahead of them.
The third commando had time to turn and look up at the Hughes zooming by, twenty feet above his head. He had time to start tracking the Uzi upward.
But he had time to do nothing else. The downdraft from the rotors made standing unsteady.
Bolan fired another burst from the M-16, and the guy was poleaxed backward off his feet with a shocked expression and no chest.
The troops around the hangars held their fire as the Hughes climbed and pulled away.
"Swing us around the southwest perimeter and back along the eastern side," Bolan instructed the ace pilot.
Grimaldi did that. It took all of thirty seconds for the sweep, for Bolan to analyze Al Miller's strategy.
The infiltrators on the ground simply froze in place amid the shadowy shapes of trees, shrubs and changes in the terrain as the Hughes skimmed by overhead. They had no way of knowing the chopper's occupants were using infrared equipment and could clearly spot every one of them.
The strategy was clear. Miller was operating with three teams on this assault. One team hit the airfield. The other two waited until the airfield alert drew additional security troops. Then Miller's other teams would move in.
Bolan saw sporadic exchanges of fire between commandos and security patrols who attempted to intercept them. But it was too damn dark down there. Bolan saw one terrorist go down. He saw two Farm troopers spin away to the ground under hails of enemy fire.
When the chopper had made a complete circle, Bolan got Stony on the shortwave.
"Striker to Stony Man."
April's voice. "Stony Man. Go ahead, Striker."
"I'm coming in from the outside," said Bolan. "Five infiltrators moving in on the main building from the southwest. They're meeting some resistance. Get them reinforced."
"I'll send Katz and McCarter. Anything else?"
"Eight more moving in from the east. Have Wade send down anyone he can spare from the front gate. I'm moving in on the eight. Over and out."
Bolan felt good hearing April's voice. What a woman.
Grimaldi did not need telling. He swung the chopper in low behind the eight figures advancing from the east.
The commandos were a thousand meters from the main house when they were engaged in a firefight with security troops.
The predawn night of Stony Man Farm crackled with sounds of armed combat, men grunting terse exchanges, the cacophony of battle echoing back from the low cloud ceiling heavy with a rain that would not come.
Shadows darted between shadows.
Flashes of gunfire lanced the thick black air.
As Grimaldi zoomed in, Bolan saw one of the commandos nailed to a tree by a blast of M-16 automatic fire from one of the Stony Man security men.
There was no sign of Wade.
Bolan was back in the doorway of the chopper when the Hughes raced over two wedge-shape squads of commandos and two other men lagging somewhat behind.
The straggling pair would be Miller and his second-in-command.
Miller was the next link in the chain. He had to be taken alive.
Bolan opened fire with his M-16 at the two forward squads. He saw four of the men caught in a withering hail of fire. The other two, and Miller and his man, scattered. Bolan lost sight of Miller behind a clump of trees as the chopper started to climb away.
One of the surviving commandos swung around his grenade launcher, aimed at the receding chopper and triggered.
The chopper rocked and spun as the night erupted for Bolan in a thunderclap of brilliance and spinning sensation.
The chopper was hit!
Grimaldi had been cruising low enough so that Bolan's fall to the meadow would jolt every bone in his body, but not enough to kill him.
Bolan came out of a tumbling roll in time to see the chopper skid to a stop in the clearing several feet away. Grimaldi was able to land the damaged aircraft, but he did not emerge from the disabled Hughes.
Bolan had lost the M-16 somewhere during his fall.
Though he still wore the Nitefinder goggles he did not take time to look for the rifle.
He unleathered his .44 AutoMag and raced toward the chopper while keeping a constant lookout for any movement coming at him. There was none. The Hughes had sustained a hit to its rear end, which was now in flames.
The fuel tank could go at any moment.
Bolan reached the bubble front and found Grimaldi slumped forward against his shoulder-strap harness. The pilot wore a nasty bruise on his temple.
Bolan unhooked the man who had saved the Executioner's hide on so many missions. Jack was breathing.
Bolan kept Big Thunder in his right fist, fanning the night as he hefted the Stony flyboy over his shoulder and jogged away from the fiery wreck.
He went twenty paces when the Nitefinders caught a figure to his left. It was the bastard who
'd brought down the chopper. The guy was swinging an Uzi around in Bolan's direction, not particularly careful to stand behind cover because he didn't know Bolan could see him.
Bolan did not slacken his pace as he brought up Big Thunder and triggered a .44 Magnum round that ruptured the guy's head into a reddish mist in the infrared goggles.
Behind them, the Hughes exploded as the fire touched the fuel. A hot invisible wall lifted Bolan and his human cargo off the ground then slammed them back down.
* * *
April Rose emerged from the "farmhouse" command post in time to catch Katz and McCarter. She relayed to them Bolan's report of the number and position of infiltrators moving in from the southwestern corner of the Farm.
"Wade's chaps need backup," McCarter grunted, snicking his M-16 into its automatic mode.
"Let's give it to them," growled Katzenelenbogen.
The two Phoenix members hustled off into the night.
April gripped her pistol. She had no intention of returning to the safety of the Stony Man communications room. The farmhouse was adequately guarded.
She turned and jogged back to the grounds on the other side of the house where Phoenix Force member Rafael Encizo was covering Aaron Kurtzman and his men in their final repairs of the sabotaged satellite unit.
The rattle of gunfire and an exploding HE broke the darkness.
She advanced on the tight circle of men and equipment several meters behind the farm building.
April sensed movement to her right.
Crouching, she whirled and fired the Magnum in a two-handed grip. She clearly saw the figure of a commando and heard the sound of a bullet slapping open flesh and bone, and a grunt of expelled breath and the rustle of deadweight tripping backward to the ground.
They were getting close. This one must have circled around from the eastern squads engaged by Bolan and Grimaldi!
April Rose continued cautiously toward Kurtzman, Encizo and the others to see what she could do.
McCarter and Katzenelenbogen came upon heavy fire when they were about one thousand meters from the house.
They found three of Captain Wade's security personnel pinned down and exchanging fire with the enemy across a clearing of dogwood. One security man was sprawled in a lifeless clump where he fell, a dark pool of blood around his head.
"Colonel Phoenix got one of them, sir," a lieutenant reported to Katz. "I think two of them split off to circle around us or the house. That leaves three across that meadow, and we're too damn pinned down to budge or do anything but hold them up."
Katz plucked a grenade from his utility belt.
"The pot needs stirring," he told the soldier who was not outfitted with grenades.
"Give it to 'em, mate," growled McCarter.
The Briton had pitched himself onto his belly alongside the soldiers and was returning fire at the two blasting commandos across the clearing.
Katz pulled out the pin with his teeth. He flung the explosive with his prosthetic right hand. The grenade sailed true. The Phoenix team members and soldiers ducked, covering their eyes.
Ten seconds after the pin was pulled, the HE ruptured the night in a dazzling flash of fire, smoke and roar that flung the shredded remains of two commandos high into the air like the remnants of rag dolls chewed up and discarded by a playful pup.
One commando emerged from behind a rise in the terrain and opened fire with his Uzi. Two of the Stony Man soldiers grunted and were flung back, the tops of their heads blown away.
McCarter, Katz and the lieutenant opened fire simultaneously.
The commando burst apart under the sheet of automatic M-16 fire as if drawn and quartered.
* * *
Bolan set down Grimaldi's unconscious form at the base of a towering oak. Jack was still out of it, but he was wearing a .45 bolstered cross-draw at his left hip. He would be okay once he came to. Until then, this appeared to be a safe spot for the stricken pilot.
As Grimaldi had been setting down the Hughes, the rattle of gunfire in the night seemed to Bolan to have closed in toward the main house of the installation.
Guided by his infrared eye shield, Bolan started off through the night in the direction of the farmhouse, across another rolling and dipping ten acres.
He had to find Miller.
Alive.
Who had ordered this attack?
Bolan intended to find out from the commando merc boss.
One way or another.
The Executioner traveled soundlessly for about twenty meters when his peripheral infrared vision caught sight of an Uzi-toting commando who thought he had enough cover behind a tree.
Bolan fired. The .44 headbuster tore through skull-bone and brains and snuffed another existence. The dead commando was kicked back from behind his tree by the impact of the slug. He slammed into another tree behind him. Then he pitched forward to the earth and did not move. The Executioner moved on.
* * *
Al Miller could tell his men were being blasted apart by the way the gunfire in the distance, punctuated by a grenade blast now and then, died off to nothing. The farmhouse and the crew around the outbuilding where the satellite repairs were taking place had not yet been attacked. That meant trouble.
The commando leader and Kagor crouched on a knoll northwest of the farmhouse and the cluster of people.
Miller observed the repair crew — a big bear of a man, a Latin American and some soldiers standing guard — and debated the best way for him and Kagor to hit them. Then they could pull out to the west and would have a good shot at getting away even if the hit teams were in tatters.
After the helicopter had been downed — at least Miller now had a good idea where John Phoenix was! — Miller and Kagor had circled around to the north, cutting over short of the Stony Man airstrip and carefully moving west until they reached the knoll.
Miller cursed his bad luck. But he had been in hot-spots such as this one and walked away.
Well, maybe not this hot, he thought. Not if Phoenix was still prowling around out there in the night.
Had Phoenix been killed when the chopper crashed?
Miller had a hunch the big man was damn near indestructible!
Kagor, crouched next to Miller, motioned with the snout of his Uzi at the men around the outbuilding.
"What the hell are we waiting for?" he demanded in a whisper. "Looks like we're alone on this one, Top."
"We could still have some backup. Some of the boys could've slipped through. Okay, let's hit this bunch. Be careful, K. Careful for that goddamn Phoenix."
"Phoenix?" snickered Kagor. "He was kil — "
Kagor was interrupted by a stutter of Uzi fire across the clearing from where Miller and he lay watching.
Miller swung his infrared binoculars to see one of his own commandos rattling off the steady stream of hot lead at the circle of people around the sabotaged satellite unit. Miller saw one Stony Man trooper fly back until he fell, as if tripped. The others scattered, except for one Hispanic down there with an M-16.
Miller placed the man from the intel his contact inside the Farm had furnished: Rafael Encizo, member of Bolan's Phoenix Force.
The commando started to dodge back for cover when Encizo swung around his M-16.
The commando made it halfway to the shelter of some trees when Encizo loosed a burst that pulped out the commando's back and turned his run into a stagger that became a fall into hell.
The bearlike man — Kurtzman, thought Miller — emerged from cover and returned to his work.
"Take them now," Miller hissed.
The attention of Encizo and the others was drawn to the direction from which the commando had just opened fire. The group's unprotected flank was toward the knoll that hid Miller and Kagor.
The mission can still be saved, thought Miller. This bunch are sitting ducks. They're already dead, only they don't know it. Two or three grenades into the farmhouse, and we pull out.
Without leaving their cover the two rem
aining merc commandos sighted their Uzis on Encizo, Kurtzman and the other Stony Man people.
Miller and Kagor opened fire.
And more death blistered the night.
20
When the twin volley of Uzi rapidfire sprayed its death hail at Kurtzman and the others, Mack Bolan was halfway from the tree line of the clearing around the house to where the repairs were being done near the outbuilding. The ambushers were hidden from Bolan's infrared line of vision.
The pair were not aware of Bolan's approach.
This would be Al Miller and his second-in-command! Bolan was sure of it.
Bolan the nightscorcher jogged around to their flank.
He saw several things at once.
He saw a Stony Man security soldier and Aaron Kurtzman crumple to the ground as Uzi gunfire ripped them apart.
The soldier fell and did not move.
Kurtzman looked badly hit. He was thrashing around. Some of his crew rushed to help him.
Rafael Encizo had lightning reflexes. The Phoenix Forcer swung around his M-16 and fired at the knoll where the ambush had come from. The slugs from the M-16's automatic fire ricocheted off dirt and trees, but the firing from the Uzis had already stopped.
Bolan saw two commandos dart from their cover and dash west an instant before Encizo opened fire at where they had been.
Bolan started to head off Miller and his companion. He would blow off an arm or a leg if he had to, but he would stop those two and take them alive, and they would talk. Bolan hoped like hell that Kurtzman hadn't checked out for good.
Before he could close in on the retreating commandos, Bolan also sighted Captain Wade. The Stony Man security officer caught sight of Miller and the other commando in the distant lights from the farmhouse.
Wade stood in their way and brought up the M-16.
"Captain Wade, hold your fire!" snapped Bolan.
Too late.
The commando leading the way — it would have to be Miller, thought Bolan — heard the shout, saw Wade and died.
Wade gave Al Miller a figure eight of gut-shredding lead that lifted him off the ground, spun him around while he was airborne and slammed him facedown into his own blood.
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