Able Team 05 - Cairo Countdown

by Stivers, Dick

  A central building met the east wall, doors and windows opening to a roofed walkway. Other windows opened to the wall's walkway. The roof walkway continued around the building to the north wall. An auto-rifle fired from the corner, slugs gouging the wall near Abdul.

  Mohammed, who still monitored the terrorists on the captured walkie-talkie, shouted to his compatriots, "They know! They're getting it together to waste us!"

  Unaimed AK slugs tore through the smoke, punched the walls as gunmen on the west wall fired blind. Holstering his Colt, Lyons sprinted to the windows. He pulled a grenade from one of his battle armor's pouches and tossed it through the window. The blast sprayed glass. He looked up to the roof to see the form of a sentry silhouetted against the graying sky. A second grenade went up to the roof. An instant after the blast, a body fell to the walkway. Lyons finished the wounded man with a stomp on the throat. Then he signaled the others to join him.

  "Abdul! The corner. Sweep that north wall!"

  An Arab keffiyeh bobbed at the corner. Blancanales brought up his Beretta, waited an instant. When the headdress and a Kalashnikov appeared, he sprayed a three-shot burst into the Palestinian's face. Blancanales tore the pin from a grenade, let the lever flip away as he ran to the corner. He pitched it, then motioned Abdul forward.

  The grenade sent steel wire zipping through the air. Abdul did not risk exposing himself to sight the missile. Extending the launcher at arm's length, he pointed the rocket around the corner and fired. A roar-flash shook the building. He reloaded the launcher even as bits of stone and metal rained down.

  Auto-fire from the opposite wall raked the deserted walkway of the east wall. The smoke and swirling soot concealing Able Team also hid the gunmen.

  Lyons grabbed Gadgets and Mohammed. "The roof! Boost me up."

  Lyons stood on his partners' shoulders to grab the edge of the wall. He scanned the rooftop for a moment, then swung his legs over. An AK flashed.

  Shock slammed Lyons against the wall. Slugs searched for him, bits of clay and whitewash falling on him as he scrambled away. He tore his Colt from its holster to trigger a three-shot burst at the muzzle-flashes. He saw a rifle fall to one side. Sighting at a form sprawled on the rooftop, he fired again and saw a piece of a gunman's skull fly away.

  Lyons unslung his Atchisson before searching for his wound.

  He felt no pain. Feeling his shoulders and back, he thought perhaps his battle armor had stopped the slug. Then his hand touched a gouge in the plastic foregrip of the Atchisson. The slug had only scored the plastic.

  Leveling the Atchisson, Lyons flicked off the safety and rose to a crouch. He checked a body, found it was a Palestinian girl. Her back was spotted with tiny wounds from his grenade's steel wire fragments. Lyons searched her bloodsoaked uniform and came up with Soviet grenades. Going to the edge, he helped pull Blancanales to the roof.

  "Thought you were gone," Blancanales told him.

  "Me, too." Lyons leaned over the edge and shouted to the others, "Watch that patio. Watch the north wall. Pol and I will put some fire down their throats."

  Gadgets put a burst of Uzi fire into a terrorist rushing up the stairs. A grenade bounced across the ground. Mohammed kicked it as the others dropped flat. The Soviet frag tumbled down the stone steps and exploded in the courtyard.

  Lyons sighted his Atchisson on yet another form silhouetted by flames. He killed the terrorist, then followed Blancanales to the north. Below them, auto-fire hammered.

  Chancing a glance over the edge, Blancanales saw two soldiers behind a sandbagged searchlight position who were firing at Abdul. In front of the gunmen, only torn bodies and blood pools remained of the terrorists hit by the rocket. Taking a grenade from his thigh pocket, Blancanales jerked out the cotter pin and let the lever sail free. He counted to three, dropped the frag and pulled his head back to safety. The grenade exploded in the air three feet above the terrorists. High-velocity steel shards reduced their heads to pulp.

  Another terrorist broke from cover, screaming, an arm hanging limp. He ran for the west wall. A terrorist stuck an RPG around the corner and fired. The rocket hit the wounded man in the chest. It vaporized his upper body.

  Pulling out more grenades, Lyons and Blancanales ran to the west. They pulled the pins. Blancanales said, "Now…" The levers flipped away. "One, two, three—over they go!"

  Simultaneous blasts cleared the corner. Lyons leaned over the roof's low wall and snapped semi-auto 12-gauge shots into every terrorist he saw, emptying his magazine in less than two seconds. He ducked back as AKs popped. Slugs chipped the wall and whined into the sky.

  Keying his hand radio, he shouted, "North wall's clear…"

  An explosion knocked the two of them flat. Stone showered them. A section of the wall edging the roof had disappeared.

  Lyons found the radio and shouted, "Hit the west wall! They're hitting us!" He jammed the radio back in a pocket and helped Blancanales to his feet. "How many grenades you got left?"

  "Haven't been counting…"

  A round grenade arced toward them. Lyons lunged forward and whacked the grenade with the plastic stock of his Atchisson, sending it down into the courtyard's inferno. A rocket shrieked over them and continued high into the sky, where it exploded. Lyons dropped the empty box mag out of his Atchisson and jammed in another. "This is getting serious."

  Blancanales jerked the pin from a grenade and looked for a target. Kalashnikovs flashed. He dodged back, blindly tossing the grenade. Lyons counted to three and crouchwalked forward. When he heard the bang of the grenade, he stood up and sprayed three riflemen with high-velocity steel shot.

  A terrorist with an RPG had leaned from cover and was sighting on Lyons. Lyons sighted on the terrorist's face. The Able Team hotshot squeezed off a burst. One hundred sixty double-ought and number two steel balls riddled the terrorist and his launcher. One of the steel pellets crushed the rocket's electronic fuse cap. The explosion left twenty feet of the walkway a smoking ruin.

  Terrorists scrambled from cover. Blancanales sighted on a form, saw the rifleman disappear off the wall. Another terrorist jumped off the wall to the sand outside the fortress. A second later, a mine exploded, throwing a leg into the air.

  Rifle fire came in bursts from isolated positions. A rocket flash swept the west wall. Lyons ran to the northwest corner and looked down at Abdul reloading his launcher. "The south wall! Clear it!"

  "You got it, Yank! Cover me."

  Dashing around the corner, Abdul sighted on the muzzle-flashes. The flash destroyed a sandbagged searchlight and silenced an AK.

  The building heaved beneath Lyons's feet as a rocket came from a concealed terrorist. The charge blasted through the exterior wall. Abdul sighted on the rocket man's hiding place and hit it.

  Lyons keyed his radio again. "Wizard. The enemy is retreating, holing up. We got to find that Agency man."

  "There are still the squads outside. They'll come back."

  "I doubt it. If they do, let them try the minefield."

  Blancanales aimed single shots down at forms in the graying predawn. Slugs killed wounded, punched more wounds in the dead. No shots answered Blancanales' methodical fire. Finally, nothing moved on the walls.

  "Now search the place," Lyons told his partner.

  "After we find our man, we pull out," Blancanales said. "We're pushing our luck way too far."

  "No argument from me…"

  Going to the roof's edge, they signaled to Abdul below. Lyons lowered Blancanales to Abdul's shoulder, then Abdul and Blancanales helped Lyons down.

  In the courtyard, fires still burned in the gutted hulks of the trucks and cars. Dead and dying terrorists were sprawled everywhere. Human debris littered the walkways, the tiles slick with blood. Above the desert, the first pink light of day streaked the sky.

  Able Team moved through the wreckage and death, searching for the American prisoner of the National Liberation Front.

  19

  Hiding in a closet, Omar shook wi
th fear. The darkness of the tiny space stank of the urine fouling his fatigues. Ashamed of his fear of martyrdom, yet fearing capture more than death, the commander thought of suicide, to die with his men rather than accept the shame of trial.

  Or interrogation. Were the attackers Egyptian commandos? If his countrymen took him, there was no hope. He would be dismembered as a matter of course. Unless he had enough gold to buy his freedom.

  Or were they American? By radio from Cairo, his leader had warned him. It had been the Americans who had attacked his command center in the city. Did they now search for the American he had captured? What treatment could he expect? He thought of suicide, his body shaking at the thought.

  Should he rush from hiding? Throw himself at the attackers? Offer his life to Allah?

  Despite his terror, he laughed at these possibilities. He talked like that to his soldiers. He talked of Allah and martyrdom and Paradise, but he knew only graves awaited dead soldiers—sometimes not only graves, only places by the side of the road, a feast for green-backed flies.

  But what if Americans found him?

  Forcing himself to face the chance of death, he realized he feared death less than capture by the Americans. And even if he fought, death might not come quickly. Fumbling in the thigh pocket of his tailored fatigues, he found a grenade. He looped a finger through the safety pin.

  If Egyptians found him, he would surrender and trust his luck to his compatriots' fickleness.

  If Americans found him—the determined Americans—he would give himself a quick death and take the Americans with him.

  In the first gray light of day, nothing moved. Flames flickered in the courtyard. Soot-heavy smoke rose in swirls as the dying wind whipped the flames. Somewhere a wounded man screamed and whimpered.

  "We can't go room to room," Blancanales told Lyons. "We'd run into every one of those losers who are still alive."

  "I know all about it. Number one cop fear: searching rooms with lowlifes waiting to kill you."

  "If we can find one alive, one who'll tell us where our man is…"

  Lyons laughed. "Then we got to search these rooms. Let's go." He keyed his hand radio. "Wizard!"

  Gadgets jogged around the corner. "What you want?"

  "See any of these losers alive?"

  "I hear one." He pointed toward the sound of the screaming man.

  "Get the others organized. We got to find that Agency man. If we can find a raghead who knows where, that'll get us out of here quick."

  Turning to the office behind them, Lyons pointed to himself. "I take the door. Cover me through the window."

  Blancanales stood beside the window. He leaned forward for an instant, exposing himself to any terrorists hiding inside, then snapped back. An auto-burst ripped through the window, glass tinkling to the tiles.

  "Come out and you live!" Lyons shouted.

  Arabic answered him. Abdul shouted Arabic to those inside. They waited for an answer. "I told them we would give them mercy…"

  The door slammed open, a blur with a Kalashnikov spinning to aim his auto-rifle at the men at the window. Lyons fired his Atchisson from a distance of six inches into the chest of the terrorist. The muzzle-blast lit a girl's face as the shock threw her through the air, her back exploding in a spray of blood.

  A grenade flew from the window. Blancanales swatted it back with one hand, then crouched as the flash threw glass and dust from the window. Abdul called out again for the terrorists inside to surrender.

  No answer. Gadgets pulled a grenade from his battle armor. "These diehards deserve a special treat." He jerked the pin from a canister, let the lever flip free, counted, "One, two, three…"

  As he pitched the grenade in, a voice shouted. Abdul translated, "They want to surrender."

  White phosphorous created hell. They heard screams inside. "Too late," muttered Gadgets.

  As they went to the next office, a form glowing with specks of metallic incandescence clawed at the window. Jagged shards of glass slashed the screaming terrorist's hands and arms. White fire burned in the howling mouth of the creature as the phosphorous melted through the face, continued burning into the tissues of the throat. Abdul raised his Uzi to give the agonized terrorist the release of death.

  Lyons pushed the weapon aside. "Let it go. Maybe that noise will motivate these other crazies to come out."

  Abdul went to the next office and shouted inside.

  A voice answered in Arabic. As the screaming continued, Abdul spoke with the terrorist inside. He turned to Lyons. "He says he'll surrender. Will you kill him?"

  "Not if he tells us what we need to know."

  Abdul negotiated with the man inside. The door opened and a Kalashnikov clattered onto the tiles. A young man came out, his hands high. Lyons grabbed him by the collar and slammed him down to the tiles. With one foot on the boy's back, Lyons held the Atchisson against the boy's head as Blancanales searched him. Blancanales found two grenades, which he passed to Gadgets. He pocketed a knife.

  "Is there anyone else in there? If he lies, I kill him."

  The boy shook his head to Abdul's questions.

  "Now ask him where the American is."

  Again the boy shook his head, pleaded with his captors. "He says he doesn't know anything about him."

  "Is the American still alive?"

  Abdul questioned the boy, then translated the answers. "He saw the American. The others brought the American from the city. He doesn't know anything about him. He's only a recruit. With the National Front a month."

  "And there's no one else inside there?"

  "He said no."

  "We'll find out." Lyons jerked the boy to his feet and shoved him into the office doorway. Crying and pleading, the boy twisted to face Lyons. Holding his prisoner in front of him, Lyons stepped into the room. Blancanales waved a flashlight over the interior.

  A dead soldier sprawled on a table, his stiffening hand holding a wadded rag against a chest wound. Blood soaked his uniform, puddled on the table and floor. Using the boy as a shield, Lyons searched the room. He hooked a closet door open with his boot, stepped back. Blancanales shone the flashlight inside. They saw stacks of papers and books.

  Stripping a grenade from the dead terrorist, they went to the next office. Abdul called out for surrender. He received no answer. Lyons shoved the boy in front of the window. No shots came.

  Lyons kicked open the door, then took cover against the thick clay wall. But no terrorists fired. Lyons pushed the boy through the door. Then he rushed inside, his Atchisson ready. Blancanales followed an instant later.

  An RPG had punched through the wall, shredding books and filing cabinets. Grabbing the boy, keeping him in front of them, Lyons and Blancanales searched the demolished room. They found no one.

  As they left the office, the boy spoke quickly with Abdul. "He says he will take us to the commander's office. The commander will know."

  "Great. Our punk just might live through this…"

  Shoving the boy along, crouch-walking beneath windows, dodging past doors, they went directly to the main offices. Again, Abdul called out for surrender.

  A voice answered. "I give up. I am only a technician. I can help. I am not a fighter…"

  "Come out! Hands up if you want to live."

  The Libyan radio operator walked from the offices of the commander. "I am only a technician, only a technician…"

  Sweeping the Libyan's feet from under him, Lyons spread him flat on the tiles. He searched him, found a .25-caliber Beretta in his boot top.

  "You're not a fighter? What's this for?"

  "It is the only gun I have."

  "Shut up." Lyons kicked him over onto his back and searched him some more. "Where's the American prisoner? Tell us and we'll let you live."

  "Prisoner? I do not know. I only operate radio."

  "Oh, yeah?" Gadgets asked. "Where is your equipment?"

  "In there. I can tell you where Commander Omar hides. He knows where prisoner is."

/>   "Show me."

  The radio operator got to his feet. Lyons grabbed the guy's collar and shoved the man ahead of him.

  "Any tricks and I will kill you."

  "Not me—I only technician."

  They went through the outer offices. The Libyan pointed to a door. "He is in there."

  "Open it."

  "No! He will shoot."

  "Tough."

  Shouting in Arabic, the Libyan opened the office door. Lyons heard the word Americans.

  Blancanales shone the flashlight into the office. They saw Persian rugs, hand-carved furniture, but no officer. Lyons jabbed the Libyan with the Atchisson. "Tell him to come out if he wants to live."

  The words had no effect. Lyons grabbed the Libyan by the collar again and forced him to another door.

  "Open it."

  They saw a white-tiled bathroom with modern European fixtures. "Now that other door."

  As the closet door opened, Lyons heard an elbow strike the door, smelled excrement. A piece of metal flipped free. Lyons saw it was a grenade lever.

  Slamming the radio operator against the door, Lyons jammed it closed. A scream came from inside the closet. Hands grabbed the doorknob, shook it. The Libyan struggled against Lyons's grip, finally twisted away.

  Bits of steel wire punched a hundred holes in the closet door. The man inside screamed, fell out of the shattered door, rolled across the floor, his body in shreds, the front of it punctured.

  He still lived only because the grenade had exploded below waist level.

  Blancanales whipped cords from his pocket and looped fast tourniquets around the Egyptian's legs at the crotch. He reached into the tangle of shredded clothes and shoes inside the closet to find a wooden clothes hanger. He snapped the hanger apart and used two lengths to twist the cord loops tight. The blood flow from the commander's legs slowed.

  "Where's the American?" Lyons shouted into the moaning man's face.

  Commander Omar shook his head. Lyons shouted again, "Tell us and you live."

  Ashen with shock, the commander looked up at the black-clad Americans who questioned him and tended his wounds. Finally he answered.