Five Rings of Fire at-11

by Dick Stivers

  Follet took the microphone from the operator and directed the interceptor pilot. “Keep the helicopter in sight. Let it get over land and away from the city, then force it down. Do you read that. Force it down.”

  “I read,” the pilot answered.

  Follet turned to the other radio operator. “Take an immediate message to all area commanders.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “An enemy aircraft has breached U.S. airspace. Further report on the aircraft will follow.”

  “Is that it, sir?”

  “That’s it. Sign it Acting Commander F. Follet. And get it out now.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Follet turned his attention to the first radio tech. “Get those two Sikorskys back here. I don’t care who this Lyons has backing him. I’ve got an enemy craft breaching U.S. airspace. I’m in command.”

  The operator tried to reach the helicopters. Follet stood behind him, smiling, dreaming dreams of being made a general.

  “I can’t seem to raise them, sir. They’re not responding.”

  As the radio man watched the red creep into Follet’s neck and face, he was glad of the hours he had spent practicing darts. He was the second best dart thrower on the base and at this moment he felt it was the only thing that stood between himself and a dishonorable discharge. Most of all, he was glad he had had the sense that had told him to throw his last match with Colonel Follet.

  “Keep trying and let me know the moment you’ve ordered them back.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Follet stormed out of communications.

  “Whew,” exclaimed one operator. “Wonder what that Lyons did?”

  “Whatever he did in the past,” the dart chucker replied, “it ain’t nothing compared to spoiling old Follet’s victory. Whoever this Lyons is, I hope he’s got the sense to disappear.”

  *

  Bill Frazer never had a chance to fire a fourth shot at the sprawling Lyons. Klansman Baker and Sam Jackson erupted from the tent like two human cannonballs. Baker hit the guy’s ankles while Jackson hit him high and hard. As the man was going down, Jackson punched him in the face.

  Lyons got up, worked the slide on the Beretta. The stovepiped shell flew clear, but he would not be confident of the weapon until he could strip and relube it.

  Kelly, Mustav and another Klansman came scrambling out of the tent. Baker and Jackson got up off the ground. Baker went and looked at one of the silenced bodies. He waved his hand to the athletes and Lyons.

  “Fade,” he spat, “out of sight before there’s a bloodbath.”

  KKK forces were already streaming toward the place where the shots had sounded. The foursome dropped and crawled away as quickly as possible. They moved until they were away from the tent, then turned to watch what was happening.

  “Quiet down,” Baker hollered over the babble of questions being thrown at him. “I’m not sure what the hell happened. Me and Terry were in the tent when Bill Frazer came and shouted for us to come out. He said he had the tent surrounded and would shoot if we didn’t.”

  “I heard that part,” a voice chimed in.

  “I told Bill to come in and that nothing was wrong,” Baker continued. “But he wouldn’t. Me and Terry were coming out when somebody shot these poor bastards. Bill was shooting away like a madman so we tackled him and knocked him out.”

  One of the guards was inspecting the hit gunmen.

  “Jonesy. He’s dead,” he said. The other two men were identified and confirmed dead. Baker and Terry both offered their guns for inspection. It was agreed — the only gun that had been fired was Bill Frazer’s.

  A voice lifted above the others. “I don’t buy none of this shit. It’s all fishy as hell.”

  The man on the ground moaned. “He’s coming around,” Baker said. “Why don’t you ask him?”

  Everyone gathered around the fallen man. Jackson and Kelly took the opportunity to crawl back to the tent and grab the guns off the dead men.

  “What happened, Bill?” someone asked.

  The reply was mumbled and incomprehensible. The fallen man shook his head, tried to clear the cobwebs.

  Suddenly he looked up. “Where’s the nigger who hit me?”

  “What nigger?” Terry asked. The question was fired too quickly.

  “I heard talking in the tent. Baker and Terry were inside. Claimed they were questioning niggers. I told them to come out with their hands up.”

  He paused to take a few deep breaths. The men began to mutter among themselves. Suspicion hung onto their voices.

  While the KGB hardman, posing as a Klansman, continued to speak, Jackson and Kelly crawled back to Lyons and Mustav. They carried the guns taken from the dead men. Once back they found positions five feet to either side of Lyons. The three kept their weapons trained on the gathering.

  Lyons pulled back to Mustav. “Get everyone out of that tent. Fast,” he whispered. Mustav nodded.

  A voice cut the night air.

  “Somebody’s got Jonesy’s Colt!”

  The man who had not been buying Baker’s story from the beginning grabbed the former lawman’s shirt. He put a handgun to Baker’s chin.

  “You’re lying,” the hardman spat. “You’ve got a second to come up with the truth, assho…”

  His words were chewed by the bullet fired by Carl Lyons. The Able Team sharpshooter had hoped like hell that his gun would be able to give him an accurate shot. He had hoped like hell and then he had acted. He’d had to try, it was their only hope. The Beretta’s bullet pounded the man’s face to a bloody pulp. He dropped in an instant. Baker had bought a little bit of life.

  Lyons lifted, eyes searching for the KGB mole, searching for Bill Frazer. He was the chief danger. The scene was highly explosive, and Frazer was the fuse.

  A bullet from a perimeter guard tugged at his ear-lobe.

  He cursed the bastard, then killed him with a burst to the chest.

  “Machine-gun the niggers before they overrun us.” Frazer’s voice boomed over the chaos. “Machine-gun the niggers.”

  Lyons sprinted to intercept the KGB killer. His cut thigh fired shots of pain through his entire lower body. He ignored the pain and pressed on. His battle senses working overtime, he heard, between violent tugs of breath, a slow-flying twin-prop plane going overhead.

  There was sporadic firing from the perimeter. Lyons was close enough to see muzzle flashes coming from the gate and the west side of the prisoners’ tent. Athletes, knowing it was a matter of kill or be killed, were picking off anyone who was prepared to carry out Frazer’s orders.

  Just ahead of him, Lyons saw the KGB goon raise his automatic to bear on the tent. Lyons fired on the run. The shot took the mole from behind, entering at the base of the skull and driving, plowing its way through the brain. Bill Frazer, once a KGB mole, dropped to the ground, now dead. His blood and brains mixed in a gory concoction on the battleground.

  Lyons stopped and reversed his ground. He headed back toward the tent where Jackson, Mustav and Kelly had been held. Behind the tent, Baker was shouting to make himself heard over the yapping and confusion.

  “There’s some sort of crack response team inside our camp right now. They’re after the hostages and the goddamn Commies.”

  “As long as we’ve got the hostages, we’re okay,” another Klan member yelled.

  “Bullshit,” Baker said. “As long as we’ve got the hostages we’re at war.”

  “I say we kill the Commies that conned us,” another said.

  “Most are dead,” Baker said, nodding at the dead men on the ground.

  Lyons heard the chopping-air sound of a copter landing. He figured it was about a half-mile off.

  “Listen,” Baker reasoned, “I’ve been told if we release the hostages, we’ll be disarmed and sent back to L.A. with the athletes. They want the KGB ringleaders, not us. We’re small potatoes.”

  A bullet snapped at Lyons, barely missing. He turned to shoot, but automatic fire from outside the perime
ter cut the gunner to shreds.

  The rest of Able Team had arrived.

  The KKK members continued arguing. The shooting had nearly stopped, save for the odd person acting on a nervous impulse. Lyons stood covering the scene with a Beretta. Anyone made a wrong move, he would personally make them pay.

  The argument seemed to be going nowhere. Most believed they had been conned by KGB moles, but a course of action could not be decided upon. They knew a small but powerful team was in the camp, and they knew many athletes had acquired guns and were ready to fight. The death toll would be high, but… could anybody be trusted to set them free? If not, they would fight.

  “Jesus,” a voice said. Lyons looked to his left. Lightning Sam Jackson was striking. Slowly he moved toward the mob of Klansmen. He tossed his captured handgun to Lyons and walked on with his hands in the air. “People gonna die if you don’t quit pissin’ around,” he said to the Klansmen. Lyons couldn’t believe his eyes. In all his years of wars, never… The big boxer strode right into the pack and started playing arbitrator. With his quick tongue he was negotiating for his side, their side, Able Team’s side — for peace.

  Lyons knelt and watched Jackson. He had the boxer’s Browning Hi-Power. He placed it between his knees, ready to grab it in an instant. Then, he field stripped the Beretta, his fingers carefully checking each part. He removed grains of sand with his fingernails as he put the parts back together. It wasn’t the sort of strip down the gun really needed, but it would have to do.

  Lyons kept the reassembled Beretta in his fist, but tucked away the silencer. The time for delicacy had long passed. Dawn was slowly creeping onto the horizon.

  “Lyons,” a woman whispered.

  Babette jogged over to him, keeping low. She was laden with most of his gear. Lyons stood and quickly donned his web belt and two bandoliers. The M-16/M-79 felt reassuring in his hands. The Able Team member’s eyes never left the group that now surrounded Sam Jackson. Whatever it was the boxer was selling, the Klansmen seemed to be buying. Lyons listened while trying to locate Pol and Gadgets outside the perimeter.

  Suddenly an automatic rifle opened up from just outside the compound, raking the group around Jackson. Lyons swung toward the muzzle flash. Another gun spoke. In the split second that followed, Lyons could hear the bullets impact on a human body. He searched for the source. The second gun carried the slower, more deliberate voice of a Stony Man modified automatic. An unknown had fired into the compound and an Able Team member had instantly answered.

  Standing next to the compound, Blancanales shouted. “Enemy forces closing in. Everyone out this way. It’s a trap.”

  The Ingram spoke again. From the same spot, Gadgets let out another word. “Hurry!”

  The encampment was thrown into a state of confusion.

  Lyons sprinted toward the group sprawled in the sand around the mouth of the tent. Two KKK members were dead, both having taken bullets to the chest.

  “Prop up that wire and get out that way,” he yelled, pointing in the direction where he had heard Schwarz and Blancanales calling from.

  Lyons handed the Browning back to Jackson. Jackson summoned Mustav. “Get your buddies moving this way,” he instructed. “Let’s go.”

  Another automatic weapon began emptying into the compound. Answering fire blasted from several places, but it was the authoritative boom of a twelve-gauge that silenced the killer automatic.

  “It’s your goddamn men firing at us,” an angry Klansman shouted as he attacked Lyons. The Able Team member feinted a move to the right then quickly countered with a kick at the man’s testicles. He connected and the man went down in a heap of agony.

  “Listen, asshole,” Lyons said, grabbing the fallen goon by the shirt. “If my men were firing this way — with me standing here — I’d personally cut their hands off.” Lyons pushed the man’s head back to the pillow of sand.

  The display had been both impressive and convincing. Lyons’s quick action and the immediate response from the athletes had given the Klansmen a course to follow. Their only other option was to die in a state of confusion. Both blacks and whites threw themselves on their stomachs and crawled under the wires. Pol stood at the opening, giving instructions to each person who crawled through. Gadgets led the column toward the helicopters.

  Babette moved up beside Lyons.

  “Search this area quickly, then get out,” Lyons said. “I’d never want to have to defend this place. I swear it was set up not to be defended.”

  Lyons glanced up to the horizon. Dawn was coloring the landscape. The first light of morning silhouetted the dunes to the east.

  “We’ll be sitting ducks in five, ten minutes. Get four people to help you. Make that search as fast as possible.”

  An enemy voice shouted in alarm. “They’re escaping…”

  It was cut off by a single shot.

  Lyons ran to the area where everyone was escaping. Baker stood over the body of another dead Klansman. “They got another,” he said. “Everyone else’s accounted for. Doubt we’ll ever make it out though.”

  “Paratroopers haven’t had a chance to get organized,” Lyons said. “We’ll…”

  A sudden burst of fire dug sand beside them. One member of the enemy had come close enough to kill. Lyons pointed the combo weapon at the muzzle flash and sent a stream of tumblers in a four-leaf-clover pattern. The next sound from the desert was that of death. The enemy’s vocal cords struggled with the fact that half his chest had been blown away.

  Lyons heard a mild groan even closer to home. He looked down at the ex-cop, the KKK man who led the revolt against the KGB moles. Baker had stopped a bullet. He was dying slowly. Lyons moved over to the Klansman. Blood was trickling out the side of his mouth, down his chin. He gazed up at Lyons, a glazed look in his eyes.

  “Forgive…” he said, and then death snatched the sentence from his mouth.

  Dawn had opened up a small patch of sky, but the dunes surrounding the encampment and the camouflage netting held the dark. Lyons scoured the perimeter, looking for those paratroopers who had managed to make it that far, that fast.

  *

  Gadgets Schwarz crawled over the last sand dune between the line of retreat and the helicopters. There was enough light to outline each person scrambling after him over the sand. They would be ideal targets for anyone coming across their flank.

  Years of being on constant alert had conditioned the warrior in Gadgets. He knew time had sided with the unknown enemy, but he did not run and hail the copters. Instead, he approached cautiously.

  The two Sikorsky H-76s were sitting side by side. Gadgets signaled for those behind him to wait. He skirted the choppers; in the small space between them he saw the two pilots being interrogated at gunpoint by four rough-looking gunmen.

  Gadgets hurried back to the line of Klansmen and athletes. He whispered terse instructions. Armed men disappeared right and left, circling the choppers. Gadgets approached the enemy from the side, keeping the nearest Sikorsky between himself and the enemy. Ten feet from the large helicopter he went to his stomach and crawled under the low belly of the machine.

  Mustav’s booming voice filled the air. “Drop the guns or die!”

  Reacting with a speed that spelled long training, two of the enemy seized the pilots and held .45s to their heads. The other two dropped into battle crouches, ready to return enemy fire. The quickness of reaction, the lack of spoken commands — it all added up to mercenary.

  Gadgets, still under the belly of the copter, still out of view, pulled the silenced Beretta from its holster. He took a two-handed prone position, lined the sights on a head and waited.

  *

  Carl Lyons could now see the barbed wire across the prison camp. Except for those searching the inside of the camp, everyone had departed. He could make out Pol, waiting by the wire, facing out, scanning the horizon. On either side of him stood Zambian athletes, alert, looking for the enemy.

  Seconds dragged through Lyons’s body like
barbed wire dragged over flesh. Time was running out. He looked at a blood-red desert.

  “Everyone’s left but us.” The voice startled him. He turned to see Babette approaching him. “So far none of the athletes have been killed. Some Klansmen, but no athletes.”

  “Let’s keep it that way,” Lyons muttered.

  Kelly, Babette and Sam Jackson slid under the razor wire while Pol and Lyons covered their escape. Pol was the next to drop to the ground and put himself under the flesh-shredders. Lyons was the last to go. He was up to his chest in the dirt and wire when the area lit up like noon.

  16

  The pilots were vital, essential if the athletes were to escape death in the desert at the hands of a mercenary extermination force. If the four gunmen managed to extend the hostage situation for three or four minutes, the athletes, the Klansmen and Able Team would be wiped out. Still, Gadgets could do nothing but wait. Wait for the right moment.

  From behind him, back near the camp, the Able Team electronics wizard saw a flash that lit up the sky. Gadgets refused to take his eyes off the enemy.

  The waiting paid off. One of the killers looked up at the light, another shouted to the athletes and Klansmen at the dunes.

  “Throw down your arms or your pilots buy it.”

  While the goon was shouting, Gadgets sent three bullets in to destroy the head of the other hostage holder. The gunman dropped to his knees, then dropped onto his face, tasting sand only an instant before he tasted death.

  Gadgets quickly swung the whispering gun to sight on the second man, whose gun barrel was wavering near the head of the pilot. That killer’s speech ended with a 9mm exclamation mark in the temple. He dropped to a sandy death beside his buddy.

  Suddenly the dunes were alive with gunfire. The pilots had the good sense to hit the turf. One of the remaining mercenaries stood his ground and fired, dropping a Klansman with a wild shot to the upper leg. The mere was buried in bullets.

  The remaining guncock had gone down with the pilots. The two men wrestled with the gunner, forcing his weapon into the sand. Gadgets carefully lined up the shot, taking great pains to save the pilots. He fired. Bull’s-eye. Blood marred the man’s forehead. The goon’s skull was cracked open by a 9mm beanbreaker.