War Tactic

by Don Pendleton

  The barest of pressures against his shin stopped him.

  Lyons froze. He looked down, realizing what was happening. The Blackstar men weren’t terribly experienced, from what he’d seen of them in combat, but they had known enough to reduce the variables they were facing. The guards posted in Lyons’s stairwell had been perfunctory. What the Blackstar goons were counting on was that this end of the building was wired. As he crouched, examining the tripwire he almost hadn’t noticed, he could see light glistening along several other wires. A forest of trip lines had been laced through the office area, each connected to a black satchel that he assumed contained a heavy payload in explosives.

  Just how high were they planning to blow this place?

  “We’ve got a problem,” Lyons said through his transceiver. “I can’t get any farther from this side of the building, not without blowing the whole thing. We’ve got enough high explosive packing this floor to drop the building on our heads.”

  “We’re still trying to get through the stairwell on our side,” Blancanales said. “Something weird is definitely going on. They keep throwing men at us.”

  “Rhemsen!” Lyons growled. “They’re covering Rhemsen’s escape! If he’s here, if he’s in this building, that’s his way out. I’m betting there’s a helicopter on the roof. No other reason they’d fight so hard to keep us from going up there.”

  “We can hold them in the stairwell,” Schwarz suggested. “Thanks to the bottleneck, it wouldn’t even take both of us.”

  “All right,” Lyons said. “Pol, hold that exit, bottle them up down there. Gadgets, break off, meet me out front. We’ve got to find a way to target the roof. Maybe there’s a fire escape or something.”

  “Affirmative,” Schwarz said, all business now that a mission objective was at stake.

  Lyons backed away from the wired offices, raced back through the wreckage on the manufacturing floor, crossed into the front lobby and ran back out the front. Once there, he could hear the rotors of a chopper spinning up. He could also hear the distant gunfire from inside the structure as Blancanales kept the Blackstar thugs contained in the stairwell.

  “We’ve got to move fast,” Schwarz urged. “They’re going to get the idea to circle back through the offices, down and around, and flank Pol, if there’s any way to get past the trip wires. The explosives might be remote-detonated. No way to know.”

  “They’re green,” Lyons said, “given the degree of training mercs like these usually have. But, yeah, that’s going to be obvious even to them. Do we have anything that can take down a chopper?”

  “Nothing air-to-air,” Schwarz said. “We could try the grenade launcher.”

  Lyons looked at the truck, then at the parking lot, then back at the angle to the roof of the building. “Will grenades blow the charges on the second floor?”

  “Not if it’s C-4 or Semtex,” Schwarz answered. “Without the detonator signal, an indirect impact won’t do it.”

  “Trip wires,” Lyons said. “A piece of wreckage hits those and they might blow.” He went to the Suburban and grabbed the grenade launcher from the back. “Gadgets, back us up.” He then stepped on the running board. “Pol,” he said through the transceiver, “lay down some fire and get the hell out of there. We might need to knock the building down”

  “Fair enough,” Blancanales returned. As Schwarz fired up the truck and Lyons climbed onto the running board again, Blancanales came barreling out of the building.

  “Hurry!” he shouted. “They’re right behind me!”

  Blancanales had time to hop on the opposite running board. Schwarz stomped the accelerator and sent the big truck rolling backward through the parking lot. As the helicopter started to rise from the roof, Lyons began firing off grenades at a forty-five-degree angle, trying to punch them up and over and into the roof. The first of the grenades had yet to land when the hammer of God flattened the roof of the building.

  “Holy—” Schwarz started. Whatever he was about to say was lost in the shockwave as the building was obliterated from the top down. Smoking wreckage flew through the air, pocking the lot with fragments of mortar and cracking the paving. Schwarz managed to steer the truck in and around the biggest of the falling chunks, avoiding major damage to the Suburban. Smaller pieces of the building dented the hood and roof and left another crack in the windshield.

  “Damn it,” Lyons said.

  “Dead guy!” Schwarz shouted as he pulled to a stop.

  “What?”

  Schwarz pointed to a smoking human body as it finished its arc through the air and landed wetly on the pavement in front of them.

  Lyons walked over to the dead man and nudged the corpse with the toe of his boot. His teammates joined him. High above the building, they could now see a helicopter receding into the distance.

  “There goes Rhemsen,” Blancanales said.

  “We’ll get him,” Lyons promised. He took out his secure satellite smartphone and stabbed at it a few times with his thumb. “How do you make the camera work on this thing?”

  “You’re bad at phone,” Schwarz said.

  “‘Bad at phone’?” Blancanales repeated. “Is that what the kids say these days? It’s not even really a sentence.”

  “Just…whatever. Somebody take the guy’s picture and send it to the Farm,” Lyons grumbled. “He’s wearing what’s left of a suit. That means he wasn’t Blackstar or, if he was, he was somebody in charge.” The dead man was Asian. The expression on his face was one of utter horror. His eyes were still open, staring at nothing.

  Schwarz stepped in and snapped the shot. “We’re going to want to let Barb and Hal know that we just blew up a building on American soil.”

  “That was not my fault,” Lyons said. “Rhemsen blew the building. The first of the grenades didn’t have a chance to set anything off before it went up.”

  “You think this guy was still alive when they blew up the building around him?” Blancanales asked. “Couldn’t have liked him too much.”

  “No honor among treasonous scumbags, I guess,” Lyons said. He hit the quick-dial for the scrambled line to the Farm. It did not take long for Barbara Price to answer.

  “I’m here, Ironman,” she said. “What have you got?”

  “Trouble,” Lyons replied. “Lots and lots of trouble.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  “What have we got?” McCarter asked. He was crouched in an alley in Calapan, the passageway formed by two strips of shops in a run-down commercial area of the city. The overhead wires were very thick here, a dizzying array of telephone and power cables that could not have been more chaotic if they had been deliberately laid out for maximum chaos. From where he was watching, the Phoenix Force leader could see what was either a shoe store or a cobbler—he was a little rusty on the local lingo—a discount electronics place, three or four little bodega-type eateries and what he took to be a Laundromat.

  Calvin James and Rafael Encizo were across the street, using the stripped frame of an old Citroën for cover. Gary Manning and T. J. Hawkins were behind McCarter, covering the way they had come, making sure nothing snuck up behind them. It had been a very difficult afternoon, moving from house to house and steering clear of the civilian population while dodging patrols of professional gunmen in black battle-dress utilities. Several times they had been engaged by the hostile force, and several times they had inflicted heavy casualties on the enemy to facilitate a withdrawal. But they were running out of new area to cover. The black-ops group, whatever and whoever they might be, were clearly herding their quarry into gradually smaller areas. McCarter didn’t like that at all. He was starting to see some of the same shops and landmarks as the enemy drove them into the smaller piece of real estate.

  As for the Filipinos, they were clearly very angry. McCarter would put money on the notion that somebody higher up in the government had decided to divert all military and police presence. The locals had been instructed, by officials higher up in their body politic, to cooperate wi
th McCarter’s team, to accommodate Phoenix Force’s presence. But of course they wouldn’t like it, and now that Filipino troops had been killed in a battle the Filipinos would see as imported by foreign interests, they were looking to see some justice done.

  Specifically, they were probably figuring that both sides of whatever private war this was—the black-clad shooters and the smaller squad that McCarter knew as Phoenix Force—would winnow each other’s numbers, making them more manageable once Filipino security forces decided to step back in. Hell, odds were good that the black-uniformed men would wipe out Phoenix, leaving only one group of hostiles to be dealt with. That wasn’t what McCarter thought of the situation, of course. But it would be how the local powers would see things.

  Normally, withdrawing support and allowing two hostile forces to go at each other in a residential neighborhood would seem reckless, even depraved. But somehow the word had spread through this and the adjacent neighborhoods, by whatever means the locals had of communicating with each other, and warned them to clear out. Perhaps a word to someone on the street from someone in the military or police was enough to get that signal out and through the neighborhoods.

  The city had that feel to it, as though a web of street people and personalities held it together. However it had happened, McCarter was grateful. It meant that they would not be tripping over civilians and endangering innocent lives while fighting for their own. But it did not bode well for the political pressure that would be brought to bear on Hal Brognola. Just one more burden for the man who held them all together. How the big Fed took that weight, day after day, McCarter honestly didn’t know.

  “It looks like a two-man advance patrol,” James reported from across the street. He was watching through a monocular, keeping close tabs on the black-uniformed gunmen. “They’re headed this way. I just saw one of them use his radio. Didn’t look like he spoke long enough to be giving the main force this position. Probably just an all-clear while they fan out to look for us, try to prod us in whatever direction they’re making us go.”

  “You caught that, eh?” McCarter asked.

  “Hard to miss,” James said. “I don’t like feeling like cattle being led to slaughter.”

  “I heard that,” Encizo said.

  “I tell you what I’m tired of, mate,” McCarter added. “And that’s not knowing who it is that’s hunting us. Fair bet to say these aren’t pirates. Not a peg leg or a parrot among them.”

  “You thinking what I’m thinking you’re thinking?” James asked.

  “I’d like to take some prisoners, mate,” McCarter said. “Think you and Rafe can oblige?”

  “Let me confer with my partner here and see if I can get him to go along,” James said.

  “Me being so difficult and all,” said Encizo.

  They didn’t have long to make arrangements, as the two enemy gunmen were already approaching. They didn’t need much time. Phoenix Force had worked together for so long that they hardly needed to speak. Each man on the team knew his role and understood how to get his job done.

  Encizo and James flattened themselves against the dusty road. The automobile frame was up on blocks, giving them enough room to scoot under it. Once underneath, both men positioned themselves on either side of the wreck. Now it was a question of timing…and luck.

  The men in the black BDUs carried M-4 carbines with the latest high-tech accessories. Their web gear was also very modern. Whoever these men were, they were well equipped. The patrol was coming very close to the stripped car now. At the last moment, the two men both broke to the right side of the car, which was closer to where James was hiding compared to Encizo’s vantage.

  The men were staggered slightly, and as they passed what was left of the Citroën, two black hands shot out from underneath it, quick as rattlers. James grabbed one ankle and yanked for all he was worth. The abrupt motion ripped the legs out from under the two men, forcing their limbs to bend out in a way that few men—save for those flexible enough or trained sufficiently to perform splits—could comfortably sustain. They toppled. One of the men was wearing a helmet that wasn’t strapped down and he lost it as he fell; he also cracked his skull very badly on what little there was of the pavement.

  “Go, lads, go!” McCarter said. The rest of Phoenix Force fell in behind him as they crossed the street, quickly, to avoid being seen if any more of the hostiles were moving at the end of the street. Together, the five men of Phoenix Force grabbed the two prisoners and moved to the opposite alley mouth, then past it, and finally into the empty storage room of a vacant bodega. Hawkins had scouted the location earlier and reported the front of the business boarded up, the windows painted over. It was a perfect temporary hiding spot, although it wasn’t a place they could stay for long. The more time they spent in the city, the greater the chances they would be caught and incur casualties. McCarter intended to make sure that did not happen.

  Once they were inside the storage room, Hawkins took up station at the door, his rifle ready. There were some dusty old folding chairs piled in one corner. Encizo went to the pile, taking out the top one and setting it up. Manning placed the first man, the one who had retained his helmet, in the chair and held him there with viselike grips on the man’s shoulders. James, for his part, eased the second prisoner to the floor.

  “I think I broke this one,” he said.

  “Come again?” McCarter asked.

  “I think he’s got a concussion,” James said. “Or worse. He hit his head pretty hard. Not looking so good.”

  “Go through his pockets,” McCarter ordered. He turned to the other man, whose eyes were wide with fear. On the man’s load-bearing vest was a logo that, now that he could read it while he wasn’t being shot at, McCarter recognized. “Bloody Blackstar,” he said. “That’s who you’re with?”

  “You can’t do this to me,” the prisoner protested. His name was sewn to his uniform: Alan. McCarter assumed that was a surname and not that Blackstar had decided to treat its employees with easy familiarity.

  “You’re an American?” James said, looking up from the unconscious man.

  “You’re damned right I am,” the prisoner said. “Alan, Michael K. I demand to speak to someone from the United States Embassy. I have rights!”

  “You’re adorable, mate,” McCarter said. He let his Tavor hang by its single-point sling, took his Browning Hi-Power from its holster and made a show of press-checking it to make sure a round was in the chamber. Then he jacked back the hammer and put the barrel of the pistol under the man’s chin. “Now, let’s look at the realities of this situation, Alan, Michael K. We’re both foreign nationals on Filipino soil. The locals aren’t very happy with us, thanks to the mess your boys made. And, well, there’s the little problem that you lot are a bunch of cowardly murderers who don’t care who you kill. I mean, that’s what you do, right? Pull triggers for money. Cash for kills. Isn’t that the Blackstar way?”

  “You got nothing on me,” Alan said.

  “I think you’re not quite getting it, friend,” McCarter said. “I don’t need to ‘have something’ on you. The only thing I need to have on you is this weapon. And if I choose to put a bullet through your head, well, nobody is going to miss you, least of all me.”

  “I’d listen to him,” James added. “I’ve seen him murder helpless victims before.”

  McCarter had to force himself to keep a straight face. To Alan, he said, “Oh, right. That reminds me.” He pointed the Browning and fired a shot at the body of the fallen man.

  James flinched, put two fingers against the man’s neck and shook his head. “You finished him, man. He’s dead.”

  The Briton turned back to his prisoner, who was now staring in open-mouthed terror. This Alan character didn’t realize that, from where he sat pinned by Manning, he couldn’t really see the body of his friend. McCarter had fired into the floor, not into the unconscious man. These Blackstar characters might all be first-rate bastards, but that didn’t mean McCarter was just goin
g to go around murdering people in cold blood. Of course, that was exactly what James was trying to make Alan think was going to happen. McCarter almost chuckled. He could not remember the last time he’d played “good cop, bad cop.”

  James muttered something about dragging the body out of the room. He very carefully lifted the unconscious man, keeping his body between Alan and Alan’s partner, and moved the “body” into the main area of the shop. McCarter, meanwhile, holstered his gun and took out his knife. It was time to ramp up the tension.

  “What are you going to do with that?” Alan demanded. He had started to sweat profusely. McCarter allowed himself to feel sad for the men of Blackstar. It certainly hadn’t taken long for this particular employee to crack.

  “You didn’t actually think I was going to let you go that easily, did you?” McCarter said. “A bullet is quick, mate. A flash of light, some pain you don’t really have time to register, and suddenly you’re looking at your uncle Steve in the fires of hell, comparing notes on all the sins you committed in life. Or maybe there’s just nothing ever again. Either way, it’s like throwing a switch. You don’t get that.”

  “What do you want? What do you want? Tell me! I’ll talk!”

  “Oh, I know you’ll talk, friend. But I don’t want you to talk. I want you to scream.”

  “Just tell me what you want to know!”

  McCarter smiled. The poor lad was ready to spill it. “Tell me everything you know about what happened here. Your mission. The circumstances that led to it. Hold back nothing.” He waved the combat knife under Alan’s nose. “If you tell me everything, maybe I’ll even let you keep most of your skin.”

  Alan’s shoulder slumped. Manning pressed harder, keeping the pressure on both figuratively and literally. The prisoner winced. “I just work for Blackstar. They said there was a squad of half a dozen men, tops, operating here in the city, and that it was our job to bait them and eliminate them.”