by Dick Stivers
“Wizard. They went right.”
“We got them, got them!” Mohammed the driver laughed, leaned on his horn, stood on the accelerator, whipped to the left and braked. As the taxi slowed to a roll behind a truck, Mohammed leaned out the window and squinted into the fading light. “They’re up there, but I don’t see them.”
“Think we can get close?” Gadgets asked him. “Close enough to slap a magnetic DF on them?”
Mohammed turned his head and gave a manic grin, his long, oval face and white teeth glowing with mischief. “Oh, yeahhhhhhh.”
They passed a park of palms and yellow dust. Mohammed eased through traffic as Gadgets scanned the street and the parkways. On the broad tree-shaded walkways, artisans and vendors bustled past old men on benches. Schoolchildren crowded around a skateboard. Then Gadgets caught a glimpse of traffic beyond the walkways.
“Stop here,” he told Mohammed. “Wait for me.”
Dodging through idle taxis and the vendors’ carts, Gadgets pressed through the mob. Several wide walkways converged at a monument. He saw another street, more parked taxis and buses, more vendors. The street curved around the park to create a crescent-shaped island of walkways and gardens. He looked for the Fiat sedan or the mini-van that Blancanales had described. He didn’t see them, and he turned back.
Out of nowhere, a mini-van screeched to a stop. Gadgets stood still in the walking crowd and watched two men slam open the side door. A Fiat double-parked next to the mini-van. The driver and passenger left the Fiat to unlock the doors of a nearby step-up van. Moving across the paved path, Gadgets kept his eyes away from the terrorist crew, watched them with his peripheral vision as he let the flow of pedestrians carry him toward the curb. The sun was low in the sky, the day still blazing bright but cooler at last.
Stepping into the street, he slipped the DF from his pocket. He eased to the side for a moment, giving way to a knot of laughing teenagers. He pressed the magnet against the van’s sheet metal, felt it click tight. He heard voices in the truck behind him.
He walked behind the truck to see two men transferring burlap-wrapped bundles from the van to the truck. The bundles were the size and shape of RPG-rocket launchers. Two newspaper-wrapped rifles followed. Gadgets continued past the double-parked van, then hurried behind another truck. Almost running, he rushed through the crowded park, shoved past two vendors who had spotted him as a tourist, jumped in his waiting taxi.
Jamming down his radio’s transmit key, he ducked down low to watch the walkways. Mohammed swerved into traffic. “This is the Wizard. I got the DF on them, quick and dirty. Saw them changing cars. Took a light blue step-up van, don’t know what. Got Arabic writing on the side in white letters…”
Lyons’s voice cut him off. “We’re at the north end of the street, going slow.”
*
On the boulevard, Blancanales keyed his hand radio as Zaki pulled their cab to the curb. “We’re parked. If they double back, we’ll be here. When they move, keep your distance. They got rockets.”
“I saw them get into the van,” Gadgets confirmed.
“There they are,” Lyons told his partners. “They’re going — going east. Politician, go! Wizard, catch up and take over! I’ll circle around the park.”
Zaki rolled into the flow of traffic three vehicles behind the blue step van. As the bright afternoon suddenly became gloomy dusk, with a swiftness common to Cairo’s latitude, lights came on, and the dust and diesel smoke from the boulevards drifted around the neon signs like fog. Blancanales located the DF receiver in his attache case and flicked the power switch. A loud, steady drone came from the unit.
His hand radio buzzed. “Wizard here. Coming up behind you.”
Blancanales turned down the volume of his DF receiver and checked the map covering his radio. “We’re with them. Tried the DF; it’s strong.”
A horn honked outside Blancanales’s window. Gadgets waved from the back of the taxi as he passed. His voice came from the hand radio. “Now I’m point.”
“You got it. Watch for rockets. Crazy man back there. How’s your prisoner?”
“Alive. No identification. Old Welby .38 revolver. Radio’s a cheapie, held together with sealing tape. Whoever they are, they aren’t well financed.”
“Spent all their money on rifles and rocket-propelled grenades,” Blancanales muttered.
“We checked the park. The Fiat and the van are still there — must be stolen.”
Gadgets monitored the conversation as his driver followed the van. Only two passenger sedans separated them. He leaned forward to Mohammed. “A little more distance…”
“Where we taking this punk for interrogation?” Lyons asked. “You appreciate we cannot put the questions to him in hotel rooms.”
His driver, Abdul, answered. “There is a place available. The colonel did not intend you to return to the hotels. Your registration was only to satisfy the authorities’ expectations.”
“Maybe we should take this one there and dump him.”
A motor scooter backfired next to the taxi. Lyons started, instinctively reaching for the pistol under his sports coat. He saw a teenager on a motor scooter looking at him. Then the boy accelerated off between two cars.
Lyons buzzed his partner. “Pol, you said they had two kids on motorbikes?”
“One took off, one stayed on. I guess that’s the one you got…”
“The other one’s coming up. He eyeballed me, then kept going.”
Now the popping and backfiring of the scooter came from the lane next to Blancanales. He kept his head turned away but knew the boy had seen him. “Zaki, that motor scooter next to us…”
“It is one of them. He looked at us.”
Blancanales slipped out his silenced Beretta 93-R. He touched the extractor to confirm the round in the chamber, then thumbed back the hammer and set the safety. He looked up to see the teenager two lengths ahead, steering the scooter with one hand, holding a walkie-talkie to his mouth with the other.
Blancanales spoke quickly in his own radio. “Wizard, you heard. That kid’s got to fall.”
“Unnecessary. They’re looking for you, not me. So just stay back, let the Ironman and me switch off the tag car. With a DF and three cars, we can’t lose. There goes the kid, he’s eyeballing everybody, looking for surveillance. They can’t dodge every cab in the city. I say we just hang loose, play it cool.”
“Yeah, man,” Mohammed agreed from the front seat. “We’re too cool.”
Ahead of the taxi, a car changed lanes to the right, a truck to the left. Only asphalt separated them from the step van of terrorists. The motor scooter sputtered in the lane to their right. Mohammed sped ahead to the bumper of the van.
“We’re too cool, no one would thinkof messing with us.” Mohammed slapped the steering wheel to a beat only he heard. “Too cool, too cool.”
“Hey, driver. Act natural! That kid’s looking at us.”
Mohammed turned to face Gadgets. “Dig it, dude. I was born here. I know what is natural.”
The van’s doors flew open. Even as Mohammed turned forward again, Gadgets threw himself over him and jerked the wheel sharply to the right. The taxi sideswiped another taxi, both cars sliding sideways. Mohammed saw an RPG pointed at him from the back of the van. He floored the accelerator, jammed the steering wheel to the left, then spun it to the right.
Falling over the seat back into the front seat, Gadgets looked up at the side wall of the van. He pulled out his silenced Beretta. Mohammed slammed back the transmission lever, the engine shrieked with red-line rpm in low gear. The rear tires flattened as they bit for purchase near the van’s right side door.
The pointed nose of an RPG-7 emerged from that door.
“Lean back — don’t move!” Gadgets screamed at Mohammed.
He double-actioned the first shot of a three-round burst.
Flame flashed as the gunner fired the rocket.
6
The flash lit up the pollution gray of the Cairo dusk.
>
Blancanales saw a point of flame streak away into the sky, then explode. Zaki floored the car through traffic, came to a taxi stalled sideways in a lane and pulled up behind the step van. Flames rose from the van’s doors.
“Wizard! What…” Blancanales shouted into his hand radio.
“They tried to hit us with a rocket. I shot first. We’re past them, making distance. What do you see?”
“The van’s burning. Zaki, what do you say we play concerned citizens? Try to help those…”
“Others are. Look.”
“We’re getting out to take a look.”
Lyons skidded to a stop one lane to the left. Behind them, a thousand horns blared. Lyons leaned from his window and called across to his partner, “I got a prisoner to sit on, so I’ll watch the cabs.”
Blancanales left his taxi. Both their drivers, Abdul and Zaki, charged into the smoke and confusion. Blancanales jerked the step van’s back doors open, ducked down to avoid any shots. None came. He looked inside, saw flames and black smoke churning from the foam plastic of the driver’s seat. The driver burned with the seat. A second dead man sprawled on the floor of the van, an RPG launcher still in his hands. A screaming man clawed at the van’s sheet-metal floor, dragging himself away from the heat of the flames. Smoke rose from the man’s flesh and clothes.
Blancanales knew what had happened. He had seen a People’s Army of Vietnam soldier inadvertently killed when the backblast of a rocket launcher hit him. The Muslim terrorists had fired the RPG-7 inside the closed van, and the rocket blast had hit the driver point-blank and seared the other man.
“Abdul! Zaki! Back here!” Blancanales called out, then climbed into the van. He grabbed the hand of the burned man to pull him away from the flames.
The seared skin of the man’s hand came away like a glove. Blancanales grabbed him by the belt, dragged him to the back of the van. Abdul and Zaki lowered the guy to the pavement.
In the glare of the taxi’s headlights, the terrorist’s horrible burns made the onlookers gasp. The rocket flame had melted his eyes and features, reduced his flesh to cooked meat covered with the ashes of his shirt and coat. He waved his hands above him, groping for light, not yet understanding his loss of vision.
“To the hospital!” Blancanales called out to the two drivers.
Abdul shouted out in Arabic to the onlookers. Several men in the crowd helped lift the burned terrorist from the asphalt and gently carry him to Blancanales’s taxi. They eased him onto the back seat.
Blancanales jumped into the front as Zaki gunned the engine. Zaki leaned on the horn. Abdul and Lyons followed in their taxi. They heard approaching sirens as they left the flames of the scene behind.
“Two prisoners,” Blancanales radioed Gadgets.
“That man isn’t going to live,” Lyons added. “If we’re going to get anything out of him, it’s got to be quick.”
Zaki turned to Blancanales. “The colonel anticipated prisoners. There is a place ready.”
“Take us there.”
After five minutes of speeding through the labyrinth of Cairo’s streets, Blancanales saw Mohammed and Gadgets pushing up a rolling steel door. The roar of engines, the clanging of hammers on steel filled the area with noise. Blancanales looked around at the narrow street of auto and welding shops, saw white flashes of torches lighting the interiors, then his taxi followed Gadgets into a warehouse. Lyons and Abdul screeched to a stop behind them a second later. Mohammed pulled down the door.
Bare light bulbs lit the oily, soot-fouled interior. While their drivers checked the shadows and corners of the building for any possible intruders, Able Team pulled the burned terrorist from the taxi.
“How’d this happen to him?” Lyons asked.
“Remember when they trained you with the RPG-7, they told you to keep clear of the backblast?” Gadgets reminded him. “When I shot the one with the RPG, this one must’ve caught the backblast.”
“He caught part of it,” Blancanales corrected. “The driver got most of it. Killed him.”
“That’s why Stony Man sent us those German rockets,” Gadgets added. “You can fire an Armburst out of your coat pocket…”
“Get some morphine, Gadgets,” Blancanales interrupted as he leaned over the charred terrorist. “Trunk of my cab. Lyons, we aren’t going to get anything out of this guy. He’s in shock and dying. Listen to his breathing. I’d say his mouth and throat are burned bad. Maybe his lungs.”
“Don’t give him the morphine yet… Abdul! Over here.”
“Yes, sir.”
Lyons went to their taxi, pulled the semiconscious teenage terrorist from the car floor. He and Abdul sat the punk down on oil-black concrete away from the other prisoner. Lyons slapped the terrorist, grabbed him by the hair, pounded his head against the taxi’s fender. The boy’s eyes opened.
“Tell him he is a prisoner. Tell him if he cooperates, he lives. If he doesn’t, we torture him until he does.”
Abdul translated. The boy shook his head. Abdul spoke to him, the boy answering with a few words. He closed his eyes, mumbled words.
“He’s praying. He says he fights for Allah. The Brotherhood preaches that if their fighters die, they ascend to heaven to stand at the right hand of Allah.”
“So he wants to be a martyr?”
Abdul nodded.
“Ask him what kind of martyrdom he wants.”
Hearing the translated words of the American in front of him, the boy cried out, struggled against the plastic handcuffs looped around his wrists and ankles. Lyons slammed a fist into the terrorist’s ribs, doubling him over. The boy’s breathing came in sobs as Lyons grabbed him by the arms and dragged him around the taxi.
“Tell him he’ll talk, or we’ll do thisto him…”
As Abdul translated again, Lyons dumped the boy next to the other prisoner, shoved the boy’s face to the blinded, disfigured, dying man.
The boy screamed, thrashed. Lyons held him by the hair and the shirt collar, kept his face only inches from the horror.
“Will he talk now? Ask him!”
The boy nodded.
*
A gate of corrugated steel ten feet high slid aside for the limousines and escort car. In the blue white glare of mercury arc lights, crew-cut young Americans in uniforms without insignia, M-16 rifles in their hands, watched the Lincolns enter. While the others stayed back, one soldier advanced to the first limousine and motioned for the driver to roll down the window. The soldier glanced at the driver and bodyguard in the front seat, then at the CIA passengers. He repeated the procedure with the second limousine, waving a flashlight over the faces of Katz, Sadek and Parks. The limousines continued to the hangars. The escort car, a mid-seventies Dodge with a full-powered engine and heavy-duty suspension, parked near the soldiers.
Katz glanced back, saw soldiers searching the interior and trunk of the Dodge. The three CIA soldiers left the car and stood to one side.
“We’re on full alert,” Parks explained. “Marines will search these cars when we park. Can’t be too careful.”
“Someone was not careful last night,” Katz commented.
“And he died.”
“True. But the death of Mr. Hershey does not solve the failure of the security of this facility.”
“It took the Muslims a year to infiltrate our operation. It’ll take time to find…”
“Mr. Parks,” Katz corrected him, “you don’t have time.”
The limousines came to a stop. Parks opened the door. He stepped into the cool wind and squinting against the blowing dust, held the door open for Katz and Sadek.
“I know I don’t have the time. I know it. But you can’t expect me to take over the station one night and break a major terrorist operation the next day. Let’s see what the electronics crew came up with…”
As the three men crossed the asphalt to the door of the hangar’s office, Katz, limping slightly as always, touched the tiny hearing aid behind his ear. He smiled at what he heard.<
br />
Technicians saluted Parks as he entered the office. “We found no microtransmitters or corn-line interceptions, sir. We found nothing at all.”
*
A street of whitewashed shops glowed with the soft colors of a theater’s neon. Crowding around the entrance, teenagers waved tickets at a fat man. Other teenagers left the theater, boys punching and shoving one another. Abdul and Lyons rolled through the intersection.
Lyons pointed to the crowd. “What’s going on there? Politics?”
Abdul glanced at the marquee. “Bruce Lee.”
Smiling, Lyons checked his modified Colt. He undid his belt, secured several mag pouches. His hand radio buzzed. It was Schwarz.
“News from Katz, Ironman. Air force technicians have swept the hangars, telephone lines, the perimeter. No electronics.”
“Talk show’s over,” Lyons said. “We’re at the alley. On our way in…”
Abdul parked the taxi. Then he slid an Uzi from under his seat and followed Lyons into a narrow alley. Lights behind sooty windows cast no illumination into the narrow corridor of shadow and filth. Above them, voices screamed from tenements. Radio songs in the strange chromatic scale of Arabia drifted down. Lyons pulled back the hammer of his .45, held the silenced autopistol ready.
He heard Abdul’s steps behind him. Lyons slowed as he came to a tangle of trash. A faint light revealed a twisted length of steel jutting from a building. At six feet above the paving stones, it posed no danger to Egyptians. Lyons memorized the position of the hazard. If he had to run out of the alley, he didn’t want the angle iron to take off the top of his head.
“Two more doors,” Abdul whispered.
Silently, Lyons slid out his hand radio. Abdul went to the door. Lyons clicked the radio’s transmit key, once, then three times. He repeated the code, heard Blancanales and Gadgets acknowledge with clicks. He returned the radio to the flap pocket and checked the Atchisson slung on his back. No tangles, no hang-ups.
Abdul eased the door open. Dry hinges creaked. A low voice challenged him from inside.
Answering in quick Arabic, Abdul stepped back, putting the Uzi behind his back. A flashlight splashed light into the alley. Lyons watched as the muzzle of an AK appeared, then the shadowy form of the sentry holding the autorifle and flashlight.
