He flipped his selector switch to Missile.
The AS.11 was a stubby little guided antitank missile with big square fins nearly as wide as the missile was long and had been soldiering on with innumerable product improvements since 1953. It was long obsolescent, but the sky-blue, bullet-shaped, wire-guided weapon was equal to the day’s task.
Dragonslayer rose over the low, rambling, castle-like oasis compound. Her nose dipped accusingly at the two horrified mortar teams. Mortar men scattered in all directions. Grimaldi pressed the trigger on his joystick and the happy little blue missile hissed off of its launch rail trailing its guide wires.
In a fit of good sense the French had designed their airto-ground missiles with the option of antiarmor or antipersonnel rounds, depending on the situational requirements. Grimaldi aligned the stabilized, image-intensifying sight over his right eye with the missile’s spotting flare. He ignored the pop and rattle of rifle fire against his fuselage and kept his crosshairs squarely on the missile, guiding it to the pallet of 82 mm mortar rounds sitting between the two mortar tubes. The AS.11 slammed into the thirty projectile pyramid of mortar rounds and its 5.72lb Type 140AP59 contact-fuzed fragmentation warhead detonated.
Grimaldi veered Dragonslayer away as the pile of mortar rounds went up like a monstrous string of firecrackers and the center of the compound began disappearing in orange fire. He slid south where the vehicles were parked. Armed men were running to the vehicles. The Stony Man pilot flicked his trigger to Guns. Beneath the gunship’s right stub wing a GIAT 554 30 mm cannon locked and loaded a round. The oasis had a small clearing that served as a vehicle park. Within were parked a gold Mercedes armored limousine, two Toyota Land Cruisers, a Jeep and a Unimog truck. The cannon was on a fixed mount so Grimaldi simply pointed his helicopter. Two men had leaped into the Jeep and were starting to pull away. He gave his trigger a short squeeze and Dragonslayer shook as five 30 mm rounds streamed from the muzzle of the cannon. The Jeep flew apart in satisfyingly small smoking parts. The pilot slowly rotated his aircraft on its axis, methodically putting bursts into each of the parked vehicles, none of which was up to the task of surviving multiple hits from 30 mm HE shells.
The Mercedes spit gravel and surged in reverse for the dubious cover of the palm trees. Grimaldi flicked his selector to Missile and a second AS.11 shrieked from its rail trailing smoke from its rocket engine and red fire from its aiming flare. The Mercedes slid beneath the shelter of the palm plantation. The pilot eyeballed the twin tire ruts the limousine left behind and sent his missile beneath the palm fronds. A fireball blossomed below and the golden hood of the Mercedes scythed skyward.
The helicopter spun back on the oasis. The majority of the bad guys had very conveniently taken firing positions along the western wall to fire at Phoenix Force. He aimed Dragonslayer along the wall’s axis and held his trigger down. The western wall and the men manning it were blasted apart as Grimaldi walked the jack-hammering aircraft cannon along its length.
He spoke into his mike. “Phoenix One, this is Phoenix Flight. You are clear to advance. Do you wish the compound demolished?”
“Negative,” McCarter responded. “We want to try to take the sheikh alive and retrieve data. Phoenix Force advancing. Commence mop-up and be prepared to bring up supporting fire.”
“Roger that, Phoenix One. Beginning mop-up.”
Scores of armed men were streaming away from the compound and beating it for the trees. Phoenix Force couldn’t survive if the enemy regrouped and made a suicide charge across the open, and Grimaldi wasn’t about to let them mass their ground fire up in his direction.
Grimaldi flicked his selector to Rockets. He had the further choice of single shot, rippling fire or all-at-once salvo. He elected for ripple fire and squeezed the trigger. A volley of 68 mm SNEB rockets began flashing from the Brandt 36 tube double-rocket box beneath the chopper’s left wing. Grimaldi kicked his collective and lazily tilted Dragonslayer from side to side like a porch swing as the rockets whooshed away, delighted with the graceful arc of rocket dispersal the maneuver produced.
The palm plantation bore fruit to fragmentation and fire as the thirty-six French general-purpose aerial rockets exploded beneath the trees and harvested human targets.
Dragonslayer rose a hundred feet. Smoke oozed from the crater that used to be the compound courtyard. It was summer and most of the palms had a thick underlayer of dried fronds. In the plantation well over half of the trees were burning like torches. Very little moved in the oasis.
“Ready for fire support as needed, Phoenix One.”
“Affirmative, Phoenix Flight, we are moving in.”
MCCARTER SURVEYED the carnage. Phoenix Force approached in two loose pairs, McCarter and James from the front while Encizo and Hawkins moved in through the burning palm trees. The oasis was a hellzone. Bodies lay everywhere. Nearly every man with a bullet wound was dead. Those burned and torn by shrapnel moaned and choked on the black smoke billowing through the trees.
“Fix bayonets, lads.”
Phoenix Force hung razor-sharp steel from the ends of their rifles. McCarter held up a fist and they all halted and took a knee. “Phoenix Flight, what have you got?”
Dragonslayer made slow circles of the oasis one hundred feet above. “No movement, Phoenix One.”
“Gary?” McCarter asked.
Five hundred yards back Gary Manning scanned with the ten power telescope of his Longbow sniper rifle. “Nothing’s moving.”
Phoenix Force moved in on the compound. The gate was blasted apart, and the front door was open. McCarter pulled the pin on a frag grenade and the cotter pin pinged away. “Fire in the hole!” He lobbed the grenade through the open door and stepped aside. Yellow fire flashed as the grenade detonated and the expanding sphere of shrapnel sent razor-sharp bits of steel hissing back out the door.
McCarter entered the compound. The power was off and smoke and dust filled the interior. He flicked on the tactical light attached to his weapon and played it around the foyer. It was typical Middle East architecture and formed a series of squares. The outside was very plain with few or no windows. Within, the rooms were very open and tall, and turned inward to face the courtyards. Narrow halls connected them. The oasis had been a stopping point on the trade routes through the desert since Medieval times. Parts of the compound were undoubtedly hundreds of years old. McCarter scanned the room. “Clear.”
James came in, followed by Encizo and Hawkins.
Grimaldi spoke over the tactical channel. “I’d say at least a dozen men ran back inside when I began my attack run.”
“Thank you, Phoenix Flight. Roger that.” McCarter moved forward. Part of the room’s back wall was missing. The room beyond it was nothing but rubble, and the courtyard opened onto a smoking crater. He had seen the secondary explosions when Dragonslayer had unleashed on the mortar teams and the conflagration had sent fire forty feet up into the sky. The four walls surrounding the courtyard were demolished. Clay and brick construction were remarkably unresistant to high explosive.
“Movement!” Hawkins shouted.
Across the crater a man appeared in the ruined room beyond, with a long tubular object across his shoulder.
“RPG!” Encizo roared.
The men of Phoenix Force threw themselves down as the rocket whooshed from its tube and sailed across the open. The rocket trailed smoke and fire as it flew into the room and slammed into the back wall. Hawkins was instantly up and firing his grenade launcher in response. The grenade detonated in the darkness beyond the rubble of the cracked-open compound. A ragged war cry rose up from the enemy.
“Allah akhbar!”
More than a dozen of the sheikh’s men charged through the rubble with their bayonets fixed and their AK47s spraying on full-auto.
“Phoenix Flight!” McCarter snarled across the link. “Immediate fire support! Anything in or east of the crater is hostile.”
“Roger that, Phoenix One!” Grimaldi responded. “Keep your
heads down!”
The war cries of the Saudis was drowned out by a sound like vast canvas sheet tearing as 30 mm cannon shells hammered down into the killing bowl of the mortar crater. Direct hits tore men in two and separated limbs from torsos. In almost the same instant the rounds continued to hit the ground and detonate. The high-explosive rounds ripped what remained into red mist.
The charge ended exactly two and a half seconds after it had begun. Smoking steel shell casings rained down, clattering across the killing field.
Phoenix Force rose and moved across the blasted earth of the courtyard. Hawkins stooped and picked up a human head. He took out his Palm Pilot and quickly began thumbing through file photos. Since their mission was against a known Saudi terrorist supporter they were on the lookout for terrorists who might be hiding out with the sheikh. “Thamud Fazran. Wanted for terrorist acts in Iraq. One of those guys who had a hard-on for beheading people.” Hawkins grunted with black humor at the head. “Positively ironic.”
He tossed the head into a shell crater and Phoenix moved on, sweeping from room to room. The irony grew deeper as they came to a room that was empty except for a video camera on a tripod, a black banner on the wall and a mattress with butcher knife lying atop it. Someone had dropped a dime on the sheikh, telling him he was going to have visitors, and Phoenix Force knew the room had been set up for them. They passed a sumptuously appointed room that was obviously the sheikh’s master bedroom.
McCarter frowned as he looked at the carpet-lined walls and silk divans and couches. They were running out of compound. “All right, I’m betting a strong room or spider hole. Tear the place apart.”
It took only moments. Encizo ripped up the carpet and found a hatch in the corner of the room. McCarter squatted on his heels. The hatch was a square, white-painted steel plate. A recessed handle pulled up to open it and the screen of a touch pad electronic lock blinked up at them. The Cuban sighed. “Gary’s our demo guy, but I’m betting that hatch is rigged to blow.”
“Rip up the floor around it.”
The men of Phoenix Force put their bayonets to work and pried up the wooden floor. The top of the tunnel was just below the floor and it appeared to be a concrete tube. McCarter lined up his compass with the six feet of exposed concrete. He smiled as he sighted down it. The tunnel appeared to be heading due west of the compound, toward rock formations that would provide cover for an escape. McCarter thumbed his mike. “Phoenix Four, you should be expecting company presently.”
DIRT RAINED DOWN as Jaspari heaved open the hatch. He was sweating from his stooped-over flight down the dark concrete tube and he wheezed from the effort of opening the hatch against the sand and dirt that covered it. He pulled his bulk up into the sunlight, shakily waving his carbine around in a covering circle and, with profound relief, found himself alone in the rocks. He sat by the hatch trying to catch his breath. Smoke rose eastward from the blasted oasis. It was impossible, yet here, in the kingdom, in his very own place of strength, the Yankee crusaders had come for him. Five men on camels had brazenly attacked him, and pulled forth a gunship from only God knew where. Truly the Great Satan helped them.
Jaspari was a man of great faith, but in many ways he was also a very practical man, and he knew that the Great Satan, like God, most often helped those who helped themselves.
He would have to help himself now. How the infidels had accomplished this was thought for another time.
The Americans had a gunship, and he couldn’t run from it. However, a Mach 2 Saudi Arabian fighter jet from Prince Sultan Air Force base could arrive in twenty-five minutes. With all the troubles in the Middle East several flights of F-15E fighter-bombers were always on standby. Gunships and helicopter transports from Red Sea bases could arrive well within the hour. All that was required would be a member of the royal family calling on the royal family emergency frequency saying his oasis was being attacked by Israeli commandoes.
Harith smiled. All he had to do was to make a phone call and stay hidden in the rocks for a few minutes. The sheikh took out his cell phone and flipped it open.
A voice spoke from the rocks behind him. “Excuse me, Your Excellency. Lose the phone.”
Jaspari spun, firing his AKSU carbine. Bullets whined and sparked off the rocks. His Russian carbine suddenly locked open as the 30-round magazine exhausted itself on full-auto.
A man rose up out of the rocks. He was big, dressed in desert camouflage and festooned with weapons. The sheikh’s most immediate concern was the long black rifle with the powerful telescopic sight the man held loosely in his hands. “Lose the phone,” he repeated. “And lose the weapon.” The big Westerner smiled and nodded in a congenial fashion. “I promise you that you’ll be fairly treated.”
Jaspari dropped the cell phone and the empty carbine.
The man nodded. “Thank you, Your Excellency. Now if you’ll—”
“Allah Akhbar!” the sheikh screamed. His dagger hissed from its sheath. He raised it overhead and charged forward, intent on martyring himself.
As the curved blade flashed down for the kill, Manning sidestepped and dropped to one knee. He swung his thirteen-pound rifle around in a low lazy arc and cracked the twenty-eight-inch, stainless-steel barrel across the sheikh’s shins. The man screamed in agony as white fire shot up his legs and his feet went numb. His legs collapsed beneath him and the dagger went flying as he fell into the dirt.
“American pig!” the sheikh howled.
The big man sighed. “I’m Canadian.”
“Bastard!” The sheikh clawed for his fallen dagger, and Manning kicked it away. The sheikh screamed in renewed outrage and lost his English as the big Canadian sat on him and began speaking into his radio.
“Phoenix One, this is Phoenix Four. Package is secure.”
McCarter’s voice came back over the receiver. “Roger, Phoenix Four. Phoenix Flight will make pickup while we finish mopping up the compound.”
“Affirmative, Phoenix One. Phoenix Four sitting tight and awaiting extraction.” Manning sat on the squirming man as the sun beat down on them. He sipped lukewarm water from a tube that stretched around from his camel-back water pouch as Dragonslayer thundered toward him. “Yo, Jack, where the hell is Able Team again?”
“Last I heard they’re in the Antilles, living in the lap of luxury, picking up Dutch girls gone wild, and drinking Jamaican beer.”
Manning heaved a heavy sigh.
It was a line that often blurred, but Able Team tended to get the American local sphere actions while Phoenix Force took the more international missions. By Manning’s reckoning, that meant that whenever a mission called for going to vacation destinations such as the Cayman Islands, Hawaii or the Mexican Riviera, Able Team got the job. On the other hand, for example, if the mission called for riding giant stinky beasts across sun-blasted desert, street fighting in the rain in Dushanbe, Tajikistan, or for perhaps running hither and thither naked through Greenland’s frozen tundra, Phoenix Force was going to get the nod.
“The Dutch Antilles.” Manning drank body-temperature water that tasted like plastic. “Assholes…”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Bonaire, Dutch Antilles
“Well, looky here.”
Akira Tokaido looked up from his laptop. “What?”
Tino Tenari was sitting with his chair backward a few feet from the open window, watching the violated financial institution up on the hill through a spotting scope. “There’s someone new coming into Infinite Financial.”
“Oh?”
Tenari grinned. “Dude, you need to check out the geek seductress.”
“What?” Tokaido rose reluctantly from his laptop and peered through the scope. “Wow.”
She was hot. He watched as she took off her suit jacket in the tropical heat and threw it back in the limo. Her red hair was plaited into a single braid down her back. The sweat plastering her blouse to her body accentuated her curves. “Wow.”
“Uh-huh.” Tenari nodded happily. “I dig
the little square-frame-black-glasses action.”
Tokaido took his eyes off the woman and looked at her two companions. He noted the black T-shirts, ponytails and complexions of people who rarely saw the sun. All three were carrying laptop cases, computer gear bags slung across their shoulders. “Those guys are geeks.”
“Yeah, Eurotrash geeks,” Tenari agreed. “What she’s doing with those pencil dicks is beyond me.”
“They’re a cybernetic team.”
Carl Lyons walked into the room. Bonaire was a very small island with very little to do other than party and soak up sun. They were on standby to anywhere, so partying was out. Lyons had established surveillance on Infinite Financial for lack of anything better to do. “What have you got?”
Tenari raised his bulk out of his chair. “You got a new group arriving at Infinite. Akira has them pegged as cybergeeks.”
Lyons squinted through the scope, checking the legs on the redhead. “Nice.” He took a long look at her two companions as they entered the gutted bank. “Police already investigated. Bank officials already came and investigated. So, the question is, what do these geeks want?”
Lyons turned and stared hard at Tokaido. “Did you get detected?”
“Uh-uh.” He was adamant. “No way.”
Lyons turned to the massive blacksuit. “T?”
“I don’t know from computers, Chief, but I watched the kid at work.” Tenari shrugged. “And he was slick, man. Like shit through a goose.”
Lyons frowned and jerked his head back at the bank. “So what are you telling me?”
Oceans of Fire Page 13