Rain of Doom at-16

by Dick Stivers

  "Thought they had a hovercraft to Beirut," Gadgets commented. "Don't know if I want to go out in a storm in that bucket."

  "The boat," Blancanales emphasized, "is not our number-one worry."

  "Let's go." Lyons took his trunks. "If these guys try to take us, we'll take the boat."

  * * *

  In a car parked between two shacks across the road, Anne Desmarais watched Able Team board the cruiser.

  Though the young woman's visa documents listed her occupation as a Canadian journalist based in Quebec, she served the KGB as agent and courier. Her role exploited her credentials as a Canadian journalist to travel freely throughout Central America, carrying messages for Stalinist guerrillas and gathering information for her Soviet masters. These KGB-financed travels also provided the background for her articles denouncing the imperialism and aggression of the United States, while their sale to Canadian and European newspapers provided a legitimate source of income to explain the thousands of U.S. dollars she received from the Soviets.

  Desmarais had already encountered and identified Able Team through Captain Powell, the Marine officer working for the CIA in Beirut.

  On a West Beirut boulevard a month before, a terrorist group had ambushed and annihilated a CIA unit investigating a meeting between Iranian Revolutionary Guards and a Libyan diplomat. Powell, a member of the ambushed unit, had survived only by luck. But his superiors in Washington did not accept that explanation. Powell had developed a close camaraderie with the Shia militias fighting for the reform of the Lebanese government. His superiors, suspicious of all non-Christian and non-Israeli contacts, assumed that Powell's loyalty had been bought by Syrian gold. He received a blunt order to return to Washington for debriefing. Powell knew his career with the Central Intelligence Agency had ended — unless he could prove himself innocent. He had to find the assassins...

  Playing the role of an investigative journalist, Desmarais had approached Powell with the offer of a meeting with a member of the assassination squad, Oshakkar, an American Black Muslim fighting with the fanatics of the Islamic Amal gang. Oshakkar, a proponent of a heretical Islamic sect founded on racial hatred and the demand for a "New Africa" in the American South, wanted out of the gang and would trade information for dollars and a ticket to the United States.

  Desmarais supported her story about Oshakkar with photos of the ambush taken from the point of view of the killers. The photos proved she had witnessed the slaughter of the CIA unit. She also had photos of the Iranian and Syrian leaders of the terrorist group. Powell agreed to meet with Oshakkar.

  It was a trap. Iranian Revolutionary Guards kidnapped Desmarais. The gang of Iranians clubbed Powell unconscious with their Kalashnikov rifles, and he would have been captured had not Carl Lyons and his Konzak selective-fire assault shotgun intervened. Later, Powell had led a combined force of Able Team and Shia militiamen through the sewers and ruins of Beirut to rescue Desmarais.

  Though beaten and raped by the Iranians, Desmarais said she wanted to continue "on the story." She told Powell and Able Team she had overheard a conversation in Spanish between a Libyan and a Nicaraguan in which they mentioned a meeting place in Mexico. Offering this information, she persuaded Powell to allow her to accompany him and Able Team to Mexico.

  In Mexico City, a KGB squad alerted by Desmarais seized her and Powell and Blancanales. But Gadgets Schwarz had planted a miniature transmitter on Desmarais. Monitoring the transmission, Gadgets heard and recorded a conversation between Desmarais and Cultural Attache Illovich of the Soviet embassy as they plotted the deaths of Powell and Able Team.

  With the assistance of an elite antiterrorist force of the Mexican army, Able Team captured Desmarais and Illovich. However, a Mexican officer refused to allow any executions. Able Team compromised by forcing Illovich to cooperate in the pursuit. Then, to prevent the Soviet and Canadian from betraying the Americans to the terrorists, Able Team transported the prisoners north into the Mexican deserts. There they allowed Illovich and Desmarais to escape.

  Desmarais became one of the few Soviet agents to encounter Able Team and survive. Now, in Cyprus, she proved her value to the KGB. She flipped on a radio transmitter and reported in French, "Yankee travelers confirmed. Repeat, Yankee travelers confirmed. They depart on their voyage. Please arrange for transfer."

  A voice answered. "Received. Transfer dispatched."

  Switching off the radio, Desmarais watched with satisfaction as the cruiser moved away from the dock. The Americans would never reach Lebanon.

  Two hundred kilometers of the Mediterranean Sea separate Cyprus from Lebanon. Somewhere in that stretch, their voyage would end.

  * * *

  Lyons saw the flashing light. Standing alone in the storm, a plastic tarp draped over him, he saw the light flash in repeating sequences of dots and dashes. The distant boat broke through the ocean swells, the light appearing in the darkness, then disappearing as the boat carrying Lyons dropped into a trough.

  Though he could not decipher it, he recognized the flashing as a code. He turned to the steamed windows of the passenger cabin, saw the blurry forms of his partners. Blancanales and Gadgets had their shipping trunks open. He saw the vague outlines of Blancanales's M-16/M-203 disassembled on the white sheet of the bed. Gadgets was leaning over his trunk, organizing weapons and gear.

  Lyons opened the door and leaned inside. "There's a ship signaling."

  "What are the Greeks doing?" Blancanales asked. His hands moved in a blur, reassembling his weapon.

  "I'll check."

  Outside again, he heard voices coming from the pilothouse. Lyons looked up and saw shadows moving on the fogged windows. Reaching under his coat, he checked his modified-for-silence Colt Government Model. The awkward pistol rode under his left arm in a customized shoulder holster. In the small of his back, he wore his standard Colt Python, loaded with X-head hollowpoints.

  Half-hidden by the cargo tarp, Lyons crept up the companionway to the pilothouse. The swaying and bucking of the cruiser as it broke through the swells threw him against the steel wall. But his shoulder striking the ship made only one more creak in the cacophony of rattling and shuddering and crashing sounds. Lyons moved slowly to the top of the companionway, then pressed his back against the pilothouse.

  The Greeks were speaking. One voice originated in the pilothouse, another from a radio. The radio voice issued commands. The other argued and cursed, but finally went quiet. In the darkness of the ocean, Lyons saw that the distant light no longer flashed.

  He heard the Greek crew talking inside the pilothouse. Then someone crossed the floor and the door banged open.

  Two men in raincoats hurried down the companionway, one carrying a pistol, the other a shotgun sawed off to a pistol grip with eighteen inches of barrel.

  Lyons's hand went to the pocket radio in his coat.

  He pressed the transmit key in a rapid series of clicks: the team code for alert.

  Below him, the Greek with the pistol entered the cabin. The man with the shotgun followed. Lyons waited. He heard nothing — no shots, no fighting, nothing. Finally, his hand-radio buzzed.

  "What goes with these bozos?" Gadgets jived. "Don't they know to knock? Rude dudes!"

  "You got them?"

  Blancanales answered. "The one that speaks English says a ship is threatening them. They're to hand us over or get sunk. Is it coming?"

  "Yeah, I see it out there. I'm going up top. I'll take it over. Come up when you can."

  "Got it."

  Dropping his black plastic camouflage, Lyons slipped out his silenced Colt and snapped back the slide to chamber the first hollowpoint of the extended 10-round magazine. Then he swung down the left-hand grip lever. Throwing the door open, he grasped the selective-fire Colt with both hands and stepped inside.

  A crewman at the wheel stared at the American without moving. The Greek at the radio made his final mistake in reaching for the tiny automatic on the table.

  Three .45-caliber hollowpoin
ts smashed through his chest and throat, a mist of blood spraying from his mouth. He fell back against the shelves of maps and technical manuals, his hands rising toward his wounds but never touching the blood-spurting holes. Dead, he fell forward, his legs kicking in a last spasm.

  Stepping to the radio table, Lyons took the 9mm pistol and pocketed it. The other Greek kept his hands on the wheel, but stared, fascinated and sickened by the sudden death of the radioman.

  A voice came from the radio in Greek, barking short commands. Lyons didn't touch the radio. The voice continued, rising to a shout.

  As the white brilliance of a searchlight swept the cruiser, Blancanales rushed into the pilothouse with the M-16/M-203 and the American-made Kalashnikov. A bandolier of 5.56mm mags and 40mm grenades crossed his chest.

  "Take all this." Blancanales passed the Kalashnikov and a handful of ComBloc mags to Lyons. "I'm going to try to bluff them off."

  Glass exploded. Wind and freezing rain filled the interior of the pilothouse, then the machine gun on the other craft flashed again. A tracer streaked through one shattered window and out another.

  Lyons snapped back the cocking handle of the Kalashnikov. "Forget the talk, Pol. Put a grenade into that."

  Rounds from Gadgets's CAR assault rifle pinged off the searchlight, shattering the lens. The light flashed and dimmed to black. The machine gun, either a U.S. .50-caliber or a Soviet 12.7mm weapon, answered with a burst. The cruiser shuddered with the impacts, the heavy slugs tearing through steel like paper. Lyons motioned for the Greek on the floor to stay there. Then he flipped up the night sights of the Kalashnikov, aimed and fired.

  He could not see where the slugs hit. Fighting the lurching of the cruiser, he held the three tritium glowing dots on line with the flashing muzzle of the attacker's weapon. A ricochet sparked from the pedestal-mounted weapon. Lyons snapped off a series of 2— and 3-shot bursts. Then the heavy weapon of his attacker whipped upward, dying hands firing a long, wild burst into the sky.

  Blancanales fired across the thirty meters of water to the faint lights of the other craft's wheelhouse. The searing chemical flame of white phosphorous sprayed the side of the shadowy craft, burning away the darkness, revealing a motor yacht. Wood and plastic flamed.

  "Hit them again!" Lyons shouted. He sighted above the fire. His bursts of ComBloc-caliber hollowpoints raked the windows of the yacht.

  Autorifle muzzles flashed as gunmen returned the fire. Slugs hammered the steel cruiser, ricochets zinging through the pilothouse. Blancanales fired again and white light illuminated the interior of the yacht. Lyons sighted on a silhouette and fired a burst.

  Against the white fire, the twisted silhouette became a man with an arm bending at a new joint, then a casualty as he fell into the ocean. The yacht veered away, white light and flames visible through the back windows. A form climbed a ladder to the top, where the machine gun spun on its mount. Lyons and Gadgets fired simultaneously, the storm-sway throwing off their aim. The climber finally fell backward to the rear deck.

  Blancanales fired again and scored with high explosive. Shrapnel ripped the interior of the wheel-house, killing or wounding everyone inside. The yacht pitched and heaved as it circled, the controls jammed in a right turn. Flames leaped from the shattered windows, the wind whipping away black smoke.

  "We'll get the survivors..." Blancanales motioned for the Greek helmsman to slow the cruiser and turn back.

  On the yacht, two men struggled with an inflated raft. Lyons sighted on them, lining up the three tritium dots, and fired. One man fell, the other staggered backward off the yacht. The wind threw the torn and deflated raft into the water.

  "What survivors?" Lyons asked.

  Able Team's cruiser continued eastward, leaving the flaming hulk behind.

  6

  As the eastern horizon grayed with the first minutes of day, the coastal cruiser eased up to a jetty and bumped to a stop against a pier of timbers and old tires. Workers left a fire and extended a long gangplank to the deck. The surviving Greek crewmen secured the gangplank as the first man wheeled aboard a pushcart.

  Lyons saw trucks on the beach. Militiamen with rifles slung over their backs crowded around another fire. Beyond the beach, Lyons saw only gray, snow-splotched hills.

  Blancanales spoke quietly to one of the Greeks. "There'll be no problems if you just let us walk away."

  "No problems, no more problems. We have enough problems."

  The Greek looked at the machine-gunned pilothouse. Along one side of the cruiser, innumerable slugs of various calibers had punched through the steel bulkheads and doors. Seeing a laborer with a pushcart, the Greek jerked up one of Able Team's heavy trunks.

  "Here. Take to beach. Hurry."

  The Greek pointed to the other trunks and suitcases, then the pushcart. The worker — dressed in thick winter clothes with a heavy wool cap pulled down low on his face so that only his beard and eyes showed — put the trunk on the pushcart, grunting with the labor. But when the Greek crewman walked away, the worker looked up at Lyons.

  "What you got in here, specialist?" The worker asked. "Dirty tricks?"

  Lyons recognized the voice. "Powell!"

  "Hey, it's the Marine," Gadgets said, his voice low. "Looks like tough times since you quit the Agency."

  "I'm back on the payroll. But I ain't here to lift weights. Get your stuff on the cart so we can move. Looks like something happened to this boat."

  "We'll tell you when we're out of here."

  They muscled the pushcart up the plank. As they wove through the stream of workers unloading the cargo, Powell kept his face down. Lyons waited until they neared the trucks before explaining.

  "We got intercepted. They told the crew to hand us over. We took the boat and wasted the other one."

  "Any idea who it was?"

  "Maybe Soviets. Probably Agency. Only the Agency knew we'd be on the boat."

  "Any prisoners left to question?"

  Lyons laughed quickly and cynically. "Any more jokes? Let's talk business. We called you because we're ditching our Agency connections. We're on our way into the Bekaa..."

  Now Powell laughed. "Hey, crazy guy. I'm your contact man."

  "What! Why didn't they tell us that?"

  "Washington called weeks ago and told me to start prepping for a shot into the Bekaa. But they wouldn't say with who or when. Knew it had to be something to do with the Iranies we wasted in Mexico and I asked about you all, but the Agency kept saying it was Need to Know Only. They finally called me yesterday and told me a team would be coming in. But until you called from Nicosia, I didn't know it would be you."

  "Those clerks..." Lyons sneered.

  "If I'd known it was the Three Cowboys of the Apocalypse, I could've mounted a real production. Let's get your gear into the truck." Powell threw open the doors to a panel van. "But the real problem is the Syrian situation. I don't know if we'll be able to get into the Bekaa now. We should've done this a week ago. Now, I don't know..."

  "Syria?" Blancanales asked as he lifted cases. "What now?"

  "Something's gone wrong with Hafez Assad, the president of Syria. He was scheduled to appear in Damascus and he didn't. Maybe he had another heart attack. Maybe he died. Army units loyal to him circled the city and took positions on the highways. This isn't for sure, but there are reports of his troops fighting with the Defense Forces, which are the troops of his brother, who figures he's next in line to be president."

  "What is it? A royal family?" Lyons asked. He got into the van and sat on a trunk. "One prince fighting another for the throne?"

  "Not royalty, just a gang of warlords."

  "What's the difference?" Lyons snapped back.

  "A few hundred years. Maybe Hafez is dead, maybe not," Powell said, helping Gadgets. "The fighting's going on but it might not be Hafez Assad against Rifaat Assad. That's the problem. If it's not the Assads fighting, who is it? Might be Ali Haidar, the brother-in-law of Rifaat. Maybe he's decided to be president."


  "A brother-in-law?" Lyons shook his head at the politics. "What about the sister? Maybe she wants to be the queen?"

  "Who knows what she wants? It could be the Muslim Brotherhood again. Or maybe the Shias or..."

  Blancanales interrupted. "How does all this affect the mission?"

  His hands on the truck's doors, Powell stopped. He looked to the east. "Listen..."

  On the highway, over the sound of tires on the wet asphalt, they heard artillery. Powell leaned forward to Hussein and spoke in Arabic. The Lebanese driver passed him a battery-powered am radio. Powell spun through the dial, listening to snatches of Arabic and French and English. Some stations programmed rock and roll, others the music of traditional Islamic society. Powell listened to one announcer intone a solemn monologue in Arabic.

  After a minute, Gadgets asked, "So what's he saying?"

  "Another storm's coming. More snow."

  "What about Syria?" Lyons asked.

  "This radio can't bring in the Damascus stations. When we get to Akbar's, I'll listen in on what's coming out of Syria. That'll be interesting."

  "I thought Syria was a controlled society," Blancanales commented. "If there were a coup in progress, would the regime allow news broadcasts?"

  Powell laughed. "Who's talking about news? It's the jive line that I got to hear. Or the absence of jive. The music changes for a coup. If Hafez is dead, it'll either be upper music or downer music. If it's a serious coup, there'll be patriotic songs, military marches. If it's a veryserious coup, you might hear shooting on the radio. Heard that one time. Deejay's rapping right along, playing pop rock and bebopping, then it's a Shootout in Studio RKO."

  The political speculation helped pass the time in the back of the closed van. The travelers heard traffic noise and distant shellfire outside. After an hour and three stops at checkpoints, the van descended a steep ramp and a steel door clanked shut behind it.

  Opening the doors, they stepped into an underground parking garage. Bare lights ten meters above their heads illuminated stacks of open shipping crates.