War Tactic

by Don Pendleton

  He pushed through the plastic barrier and was almost blinded by the sudden increase in light. The room beyond was open, with ordinary painted walls and the remnant of wall-to-wall carpeting. A metal fire door marked Stairwell waited on this side of things, and the wooden barrier to either side angled back to a pair of hinged wooden flats that could be the door panels Lyons had been looking for. He just had to get past the last part of the tunnel, which had a kind of metal framework to make it smaller.

  Something went clunk.

  “Uh-oh,” Schwarz murmured.

  “Uh-oh?” Lyons echoed. “Did you just say ‘uh-oh’? Gadgets? What is it? What happened?”

  “Uh-oh,” Schwarz said again. He felt the metal clamps snap into place as he crawled on his stomach out of the tunnel and onto the floor of the area beyond. Suddenly his head was very heavy. A mechanism clicked. He reached up and discovered that the metal framework that had been attached to the end of the tunnel was now fixed over his head and clamped around his neck.

  He tried to rise and couldn’t. The contraption was too heavy. He grabbed on to it with both hands and shook. There was a clockwork sound, almost like ticking, but not quite. It was the sound of a mechanism that was driven by kinetic energy. He could recognize that much. Something about his struggling had set it in motion.

  The metal collar around his neck tightened.

  “Uh,” he said. “Guys? I can’t move. And I’m in big trouble.”

  “Pol, step aside.” That was Lyons’s voice. Schwarz could hear, through the transceiver connection, the sound of the bolt on Lyons’s USAS-12 being pulled back.

  “Don’t!” Schwarz said. “It could be wired to blow!”

  “Guy wires,” Lyons stated. “It’s guy wires, not detonator wires.”

  “You don’t know that!” Schwarz argued. “Guys, don’t—”

  “Shut up, Gadgets,” Lyons said. The transmission cut out, but Schwarz could hear the big shotgun laying waste to the wood of the barrier. It took what was probably an entire drum, but Lyons himself came crashing through the barrier next. From his vantage lying sideways on the floor, Schwarz could only see Lyons’s feet. Lyons’s boots were followed by Blancanales’s footwear.

  “Hi, guys,” Schwarz said.

  “Oh, crap,” Lyons swore.

  “Please tell me you didn’t say ‘oh, crap,’” Schwarz said. “That’s not good. It’s never good when you say that.”

  “This is bad, Ironman,” Blancanales said.

  “It’s moving. What’s that mechanism?” Lyons asked.

  “It’s like a wind-up toy,” Blancanales noted. “If we don’t get this thing off him… Hell, Carl, I think this is plastic explosive.”

  “Oh, crap,” Lyons said again.

  “You guys know I can hear you talking, right?” Schwarz said. “Can someone please explain to me what’s going on?”

  “That tunnel was a funnel,” Lyons said. “You had to stick your head in this to get out, right?”

  “Pretty much,” Schwarz said. “But what exactly is this thing? Why is it so heavy?”

  “It’s made of heavy-gauge steel,” Lyons explained. “Like something out of a horror movie. It’s tightening a steel cable inside that collar around your neck. I can see the cable being wound up into the mechanism. And there are two racks of plastic explosive in metal cages up top. It’s wired to hell and gone.”

  “Carl,” Schwarz warned, “I need you and Pol to listen to me very carefully. This mantrap is designed to kill us all. It traps one person, and then while you’re trying to save me before it chokes me to death or beheads me, it blows up and takes you with me. It’s designed to play on your sympathies for me. Like a sniper wounding a man and then killing the men who come to save him.”

  “Quiet, Gadgets,” Lyons growled. To Blancanales, he said, “The man most qualified to disarm this thing is the man trapped inside it. We’re going to need help.”

  “Relay?” Blancanales suggested.

  “Yeah,” Lyons said. “Relay. Get through that fire door and get the hell away from us. Put enough distance between us and you so that if this blows, it doesn’t take you out.”

  “I’m staying, Ironman,” Blancanales said. “I’m not letting you two face this alone.”

  “I need you to do this for me, Pol,” Lyons said. “I can’t risk firing up my phone next to this thing. The earbuds are low-powered RF, and if they haven’t already set it off, they’re not going to. But I use my satellite gear next to it and it might blow. If you don’t relay to the Farm what’s happening, they’ll never be able to help us. And if this thing goes off and doesn’t kill us, we need someone who can guide in a medical evac team. You get yourself killed over nothing and there’s no one left to do that. Now take a photo of this damn thing and send it to the Farm.”

  Blancanales obviously didn’t like it, but he did as he was told. Schwarz heard the man activate his smartphone then walk slowly to the fire door.

  “Carl,” Schwarz said, “go with him.”

  “You shut up,” Lyons said. “Don’t make me tell you again.”

  “I’ve got Barb on the line,” Blancanales said as he exited into the hallway beyond. “Patching you through now.”

  “Ironman?” Price said. “What’s happening?”

  “Pol has just transmitted a picture of a bomb to you,” Lyons stated. “That bomb is strapped to Gadgets’s face. There’s some kind of horror-movie shenanigans happening here and the thing is slowly choking Gadgets to death.”

  “Possibly beheading,” Schwarz put it in. “You’re glaring at me right now, aren’t you? I can hear you glaring at me.”

  “I need to know how to disarm it,” Lyons told Price. “And I need to know fast.”

  “All right,” Price said. “Give me a minute to talk to Bear.”

  “Go fast, Barb,” Lyons said.

  Neither of them spoke for a moment. “Ironman,” Schwarz said. His breathing was labored now. The cable around his neck was digging into his skin and starting to affect his ability to breathe.

  “What is it, Hermann?”

  “Don’t,” Schwarz said. “Don’t call me that. You make me think I’m going to die like this.”

  “You’re not going to die,” Lyons promised. He snapped open his knife. “I’m going to disarm this bomb as soon as Barb comes back on.”

  “Carl,” Schwarz said. “Listen to me. I’m not taking you with me. Please, man. Just go. Go behind the fire door, take Pol and get out of this death-trap building.”

  “If you weren’t wearing an explosive bear trap on your head, I would slap you for suggesting that,” Lyons said. “Wait for Barb.”

  “I’m dead in a couple of minutes anyway,” Schwarz said. He was fighting the urge to swallow, knowing it would make everything worse if he tried. “Please, Carl. I need you to go.”

  “You die,” Lyons said, “then I die, too.”

  “We’ve helped a lot of people,” Schwarz said. “I’ve had a good run. I don’t need company for this, Carl. Please. Don’t make me responsible for your death.”

  “We’re not done,” Lyons stated.

  “It can’t go on forever,” Schwarz said. “Sooner or later, time was going to catch up with us. How many missions have we gone on, Carl? How many ops? Sooner or later, time has got to catch up to us all. I’m okay with it, brother. I really am. Please. Just leave me here. Let me die knowing you and Pol got out.”

  “Shut up, damn you,” Lyons said.

  “Ironman… Are you…are you crying?”

  “The hell I am,” Lyons said.

  “Carl,” Price said. “Cut the wires in this order. Red, green, yellow, gray. Do not cut the brown wire. Repeat, do not cut the brown wire.”

  “Avoid the bad brown acid,” the Able Team leader muttered. “Got it. What happens if that order is wrong?”

  “Bear says the device will explode,” Price told him.

  “Well, that’s not all bad,” Schwarz said.

  “But not before it c
uts off Gadgets’s head,” Price added.

  “Okay, it’s all bad,” Schwarz said.

  “Get ready,” Lyons warned.

  Suddenly the sound of gunfire in the stairwell reached their ears. Blancanales’s M-4 chattered away, rattling the fire door like a drum. Empty shells pelted the metal with musical rhythm.

  “I have contacts in the stairway!” Blancanales shouted. “Blackstar men coming down!”

  “Keep them off me!” Lyons said. “I need enough time to get this thing off. Barb! Barb! What about the lock? What about the collar around Gadgets’s neck?”

  “Cut the wires,” Price said. “Once you’ve stopped the bomb, you can wedge something between the cable and the lock to disengage it. Bear says the plans for this thing were in RhemCorp’s computer.”

  “That guy is messed up.” Schwarz choked on his words. He could feel his vision starting to fade to orange. Spots began to float in front of his eyes.

  “Really, Gadgets?” Lyons said. He began cutting wires. Schwarz couldn’t see which ones. “Those are your last words?”

  “I…love you…guys,” Schwarz said.

  “Last wire!” Lyons announced. “Explosive disarmed. I’m going for the collar.”

  Schwarz couldn’t make words anymore. His vision tunneled then turned to nothing. He began to hear everything as if from the bottom of a well.

  And then he couldn’t hear anything at all.

  It was a good run, he thought, before the nothingness took him.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Mhusa was fast—faster than McCarter would have thought possible in so large a man. Somehow he anticipated what was coming, and when McCarter’s burst of 5.56 mm fire ripped through the air above his head, he was not there to be hit. McCarter moved forward, pressing his advantage. The pirates around Mhusa were a disorganized lot. Some had left their rifles on the floor nearby or misplaced them altogether. The heavy firepower these men had used to take the freighter was nowhere to be seen, and might even have been discarded above-decks somewhere. As McCarter advanced on Mhusa, the one-eyed giant fled in and around his own men, allowing the Briton to take down one after the next.

  A few of the false-uniformed pirates managed to get off return fire, but James, hidden somewhere in the hold, started sniping them while on the move. He had disappeared from McCarter’s side as soon as the Briton started firing, using mobility and the plentiful cover to become a vengeful wraith hunting the pirates. McCarter watched for incoming bullets, but three times out of every five, when he went to neutralize one of the opposition, a bullet from the unseen James and his Tavor took the gunman first.

  Mhusa finally ran out of crew members, but not before he had managed to get to the crowd of hostages. Grabbing one of the men wearing an explosive vest, he pushed the hapless Filipino in front of him, shielding his body. The black man was armed with a machete on his belt and a pistol in his waistband. The pistol was an old Hi-Power copy, its finish worn off to bare metal. The pirate leader showed rotten teeth when he smiled, holding the barrel of his pistol to his prisoner’s head.

  McCarter stopped firing. Crouching on one knee, he surveyed the hold. James was invisible, concealed somewhere, probably drawing a bead on Mhusa at that very moment. The variable was the vests. If Mhusa was willing to negotiate, maybe they could end this.

  The sound of a gunshot rang out. James, through the transceiver link, reported, “Found a straggler. Neutralized. There are a few sentries scattered around the hold. I stabbed one and now stalking a third. Will report.”

  “You do that, mate,” McCarter said softly. He stepped into the cleared area at the center of the hold, keeping his rifle out and away from his body with one hand. Carefully, he lowered the Tavor to the deck.

  “I will blow them all up!” Mhusa shouted. “I have the remote trigger. It is stuck to my chest. It reads my heartbeat. Kill me and the bombs blow!” With his free hand he ripped open his shirt, showing an electronic device of some kind taped to his chest with medical tape.

  “More of RhemCorp’s handiwork, no doubt,” said James’s voice in McCarter’s ear.

  “Stand by, mate,” McCarter muttered so that only his transceiver could pick up his words. “Line up a shot right on that thing, if you can.”

  “Affirmative,” James acknowledged.

  McCarter moved closer to where the African and his hostages waited. The crew members wore a resigned look. McCarter had seen that look before, on both prisoners of war and condemned men awaiting execution. It was all too common among those who had resigned themselves to the inevitability of the end. That was something the Briton struggled to accept: the inevitability of his own end. Who could say how long any of them had? That was why it was so important to fight for what was right while you still had the time to do it.

  “I am Mhusa,” the black man said. “These crew are my prisoners. You will leave now or I will kill them all.”

  “Blow those vests,” McCarter countered, “and you die, too. I don’t know as you strike me as the self-immolating type, mate. But then, you don’t come over all Chinese, either, do you?”

  Mhusa laughed. His uniform was ill-fitting, far too small for his big frame. The boots he wore were obviously his own, not Chinese issue. They, too, were worn, scuffed, and even open at the toes where the seams had split. These pirates didn’t live all that well. It was a fact of life as a predator. You could prey on others to make your way, but it would never be a life of ease.

  “I am ready to die,” Mhusa said. “Can you say the same, little man?”

  “Little?” McCarter said, bristling. “Here now, big man, there’s no call to be insulting.”

  Mhusa’s grin split his face even wider. “I tell you what, little man,” he said. “I can be sporting. For every time you best me, I will release one of the men. Six chances. I give you six chances. If you can free them all, I let you have them. You may take them and leave this place.”

  “David,” said James’s voice in the Briton’s ear, “he’s setting you up. Don’t do it.”

  “I can handle it,” McCarter said quietly.

  “What is that?” Mhusa said. “What is it you wish to say to me?”

  “I said, I can handle you,” said McCarter more loudly. “Let’s dance.”

  “No, no,” Mhusa said. “It is, as you might say, not good. Not good. Here.” He went to one of the bodies on the deck. “I think you have killed all my men—”

  There was gunfire from somewhere in the cargo hold. That would be James, eliminating stragglers. There were two more bursts and then a single shot.

  “All clear, David,” said James. “I’ve swept the hold. He’s got nobody left down here.”

  “Rafe, T.J., Gary,” McCarter said in his transceiver. “Check in.”

  “Upper deck secure,” Manning said. “We are clear. I repeat, we are clear.”

  “Looks like you really are all alone,” McCarter said to Mhusa. The big black man’s expression crumpled. Obviously he had been feeling tricky. McCarter doubted the party here belowdecks had been a trap. It simply wasn’t effective enough. Much more likely, the pirates had decided to retreat to what they thought was relative safety, then booze it up while things somehow magically worked themselves out above-decks. Mhusa, not being a complete idiot, had posted guards to rove the hold. And he had probably thought these guards would take out James and McCarter when the Phoenix Force men least expected it. Now, he was realizing he would have to make good on his deal.

  Mhusa managed to approximate his former smile. He would tough it out, now, all bravado. He released his prisoner, pushing the terrified sailor toward the knot of prisoners, and walked over to one of the dead, uniformed corpses. From the dead man’s belt he took a machete that was as long as his own. Then he took his Hi-Power and placed it on the dead man’s chest.

  “I will come back for that,” he said. He turned and, almost casually, tossed the dead man’s machete to McCarter. The Briton snatched the blade out of the air. Examining it in his f
ist, he looked at the maker’s mark. The weapon had come all the way from South America. It bore the name of a famous South American manufacturer, known for its low prices and high quality. Well, if he was going to die fighting a pirate duel with a machete as his weapon, at least he wouldn’t die for want of a decent blade.

  “Can you take him?” McCarter whispered.

  “Negative,” said James. “I can’t get an angle on his chest. If I don’t hit him right in that transmitter, it’s no dice.”

  “Stand by,” McCarter said.

  “Who do you talk to, little man?” said Mhusa. “Do you pray to your god to deliver you from death at my hands?” The giant African slid the machete from its sheath at his waist. He hefted his own blade and took a few practice swings. “Do you know the old African proverb that says, ‘Only a fool hones his machete to a razor’? I am such a fool. My blade is sharp enough to shave the hair from your face…and the face from your body.”

  “Then let’s do this, mate.”

  “That is correct,” Mhusa said, laughing. His laugh came from deep in his massive chest. It was throaty and resonant. “I am the first mate of Yanuar Wijeya, my captain for these many years now. It is for him that I am here. And it is in his name that I will kill you.”

  “Why be loyal to a man like that?” McCarter said. He began to circle, slowly, to his left, holding the machete in front of him, low and at the ready. He tested its weight, its balance, as he did so. It was an unfamiliar weapon, but he was no stranger to blades. “What has he done for you? I can’t imagine there’s a whole lot of honor among pirates and thieves.”

  “What would one such as you know of honor?” quipped Mhusa. “Captain Wijeya picked me up out of squalor. I was a man without purpose when he found me in a bar in Manila. I was at the end of myself. I was ready to die. In fact, I am dead. I died in Sierra Leone.”

  McCarter kept circling. He was hoping that if he just kept moving, kept Mhusa moving with him, it would give James the shot he needed. “What does Sierra Leone have to do with it?” he asked.