by Wilson, Gar
"Ow-wei! " the guard yelped. "Let go of me." Rafael replied by thrusting the muzzle of a silenced Walther PPK into the man's face.
"Jesus," the sentry rasped. "You guys ain't cops. What is this shit? A Kahka-roach?"
"A cockroach?" McCarter snorted. "This guy's nuts."
"It's a pidgin expression for a rip-off," Rafael explained. "All the young studs who want to be cool in Hawaii speak pidgin. It's a bastard lingo with expressions from Hawaiian, English and any other language one wants to throw in."
"How do they understand each other?" Manning asked.
"They manage," the Cuban said with a shrug. "But our man better make himself understood now."
"You ask and I answer, mister," the guard replied, more than ready to spill his guts.
"Where is Oshimi holding Palmer?" Yakov demanded.
"Palmer?" the sentry said, frowning. "You mean the honkie they brought back from Japan?"
"Where is he?" Yakov insisted.
"Shit. I don't know. I'm just a little fish. They got him somewhere in the castle. . . . "
"How many men does Oshimi have in there?" Manning snapped.
"About fifty, I guess," the guard answered. "They're always moving guys in and out. Look, let me go and . . . ."
"And nothing," Rafael snorted.
The Cuban then put the guard into a deep sleep with the butt of the PPK.
The five-man army did not encounter any more guards in Land Cruisers. Oshimi's coffee fields were relatively small, and he had concentrated on using the field for cover. Security for the crops was limited.
When they reached the stone wall surrounding the castle, Phoenix Force discovered more sentries guarding the terrorist stronghold. Guards in bush shirts and khaki slacks patrolled the parade field on foot, each armed with a riot gun or a CAR-15 rifle.
Gary Manning attached a twelve-inch silencer to the barrel of his H&K G3 SG1. The special infrared telescopic sight was also mounted to the barrel of the gun.
Rafael Encizo adjusted the shoulder strap of his MP-5, sliding the weapon to his back, then he scaled the wall, its rocky surface offering plenty of hand-and footholds. The Cuban reached the top and scanned the parade field. He glanced down and saw a startled young Oriental face staring back at him.
Rafael immediately leaped from the wall, diving onto the guard before the terrorist could unsling a CAR from his shoulder. Both men fell to the ground.
The Cuban pinned his opponent and hammered the butt of his Gerber Mark I into the sentry's forehead.
Then he plunged the knife into the man's throat, slicing it open with a single stroke. Rafael rolled from his victim as blood gushed from the fatal wound.
A guard by the west wing of the castle saw the thrashing bodies near the wall and quickly unslung his weapon. His mouth opened to alert his comrades, unaware that Manning lay in a prone position on top of the wall—his sniper rifle held ready. The H&K SG1 hissed, and a 7.62mm round cut into the gun-cock's open mouth and popped out the back of his head.
McCarter and Katz scrambled over the wall and headed for the west wing, while Keio joined Rafael and moved to the east. Manning remained at the wall, scanning the area through his Starlite scope, finger ready on the H&K trigger.
Rafael and Keio jogged between a trio of cherry trees, the slender branches covered with white blossoms. They saw two shadows approach. The Cuban hit the dirt and assumed a prone position, his silenced Walther in his fist. Keio hid behind a narrow tree trunk, relying on shadows for concealment.
"Iras-shi," Keio called weakly. "Isogimas, dozo."
The sentries ran toward the trees to see what troubled their "comrade." Rafael's PPK muttered a muffled snarl as he squeezed the trigger twice. Two .380-caliber rounds tagged one of the guards in the side of the head.
The man abruptly fell and his partner whirled, instantly spotting Rafael. Keio leaped forward and ripped the CAR-15 from the guard's grasp with a reverse roundhouse kick. A lightning fast seiken punch slammed into the man's midsection. Keio's other hand slashed a shuto stroke to his dazed opponent's collarbone, and then he finished him off with a nukite thrust. The tips of Ohara's fingers stabbed into the guard's solar plexus. The blow ruptured the man's intestines. He crumbled to the ground and died.
Yakov and McCarter had discovered three more sentries at the west wing. The guards desperately tried to unsling their weapons, but the silenced Uzi and Ingram harshly whispered death. Nine-millimeter projectiles tore into the trio, ripping flesh, muscle and organs.
Out of the corner of his eye, Yakov noticed a door open. He turned to the entrance as a young gunman emerged with a .357 Colt Trooper in his fist. Before the Japanese slob could use his weapon, Yakov's hook-hand clamped around the man's wrist. The steel claws snapped shut like a bear trap, the pressure crunching bone and tearing cartilage from the wrist joint.
The big Magnum revolver fell from useless fingers as the savage opened his mouth to scream. Yakov's left arm lashed out in a cross-body stroke. The side of his hand struck the terrorist in the throat, crushing the thyroid cartilage and destroying the youth's windpipe. The Israeli released his opponent. The youth slumped, becoming a lifeless lump in the doorway.
"I think we've found a way inside the castle," Yakov called softly to McCarter.
PHOENIX FORCE CHECKED THE AREA for more sentries, but they had already dispatched the entire guard force on duty outside the castle. They would soon find out how many more lurked within. So far the assault had gone well, but Keio and Rafael had some bad news.
"We spotted a TV surveillance camera by the east wall," Rafael told the others.
"I followed the cables to a circuit breaker and used a magnesium-flare torch to short out the wiring," Keio added. "That ought to take care of the cameras stationed outside on that part of the building. Any other cameras may or may not be affected. It all depends on how they've got the system wired."
"If there's only one camera," Manning said grimly, "you can bet there are others. Ten to one, we've already been picked up on a monitor."
"There's nothing we can do about that now," Yakov stated. "Except be prepared for trouble—lots of trouble."
"Maybe they didn't catch our act," Rafael commented. "We haven't heard any alarms, and there doesn't seem to be much activity inside the castle." They might have a silent alarm system," Keio warned. "They could be setting up a trap for us right now".
"Well," Yakov sighed, "we'll just have to take whatever they dish out and try to hit back even harder."
They entered the open door of Oshimi Castle.
The interior was a startling contrast to the building's pagoda-style exterior. Phoenix Force found themselves in a corridor with yellow tile floors, white walls and tube lights in the ceiling. The only furniture in the hallway consisted of a small metal desk and a chair. A sports magazine lay open on the desk top, and a telephone was mounted on the wall. The glass lens of a TV camera stared from its perch in a corner.
Yakov's Uzi sputtered fire through its silencer, and the camera burst into bits of plastic, metal and torn wires. The lack of electrical sparks suggested Keio's sabotage on the circuit breaker had put the entire monitor system out of order.
Footfalls on tile warned them someone was approaching. Yakov, McCarter and Encizo pressed their backs against one wall, while Keio and Manning crouched at the opposite side, weapons held ready. Shadows danced from a corner as the footsteps grew louder.
Three Orientals dressed in khaki uniforms appeared. Two men carried CARS and side arms. The third packed a pistol in a belt holster, but he carried a toolbox instead of a rifle.
The first man almost walked right into Yakov. The Israeli's Uzi quickly jammed into the JRC goon's weapon to prevent him from using the CAR. Yakov delivered a destructive uppercut to the guy's ribs, punching with the prosthetic hook. The terrorist doubled up, and Yakov's steel claw seized the man's neck in a vertebrae-crushing grip.
A three-round burst from McCarter's M-10 ripped open the handyman's chest and sen
t him hurtling into the nearest wall. Man and toolbox fell to the floor. The third JRC trooper prepared to fire his CAR-15 from the hip. Rafael's Walther PPK hissed, and a .380 round made a violent tunnel through the terrorist's forehead.
"Looks like they were sent to find and repair the short in the TV system," Keio remarked, nudging the toolbox with his boot.
"Then we haven't been detected yet," Manning sighed with relief.
"Don't count on it," McCarter snorted with typical cynicism.
They continued through the corridor until they discovered a thick steel door. Manning removed a block of plastic explosive from his field pack.
"Are you going to blow the door open?" Keio asked, concern in his voice.
"Why not?" Manning shrugged.
"Because that much C-4 will make a bloody great noise," McCarter said.
"This isn't C-4," the Canadian explained. "It's a potassium-chlorate compound with a gelatin buffer. Trust me."
The Phoenix Force demolitions expert tore off a small chunk of the gray putty substance and inserted into the door's keyhole. He removed a pencil detonator and pressed it into the explosive.
"I'll set it for twenty seconds."
Phoenix Force moved a respectable distance from the door. The explosion resembled a whoosh more than a bang. The door creaked open, its entire lock mechanism blasted apart.
Manning and McCarter rushed to the door, while the others watched the corridor. The pair entered a short hallway. Glancing up, they noticed a thick steel net attached to the ceiling, extended from one wall to the next.
"Stun net," McCarter said. "Cops use them to handle violent felons like PCP junkies. It drops on a person, and a powerful electrical shock renders the victim immobile or unconscious."
"Can we walk under that thing without setting it off?" Manning asked.
"Only one way to find out," the Briton replied.
He moved forward quickly. Nothing happened. Manning followed. Further down the corridor, they found four unoccupied cells with barred doors. McCarter frowned when he saw the walls and ceilings of each cell were painted a soft shade of pink and the floors were covered by burgundy carpets. Instead of bunks, the cells featured large old-fashioned sofas.
"Oshimi must have an interior decorator on his penal staff," the Briton remarked.
"Color has an effect on one's personality and mood," Manning stated.
"I know," McCarter said with a grin. "I love it when a bird wears a bright red dress. Of course, basic black is nice too and . . . ."
"You've got the right idea," Manning told him. "But color is used differently here. Tests on violent criminals and mental patients proved that pink makes one less aggressive. These cells have been designed to subtly break down a subject's resistance."
"Look there," McCarter declared, pointing at a small loudspeaker built into a cell wall. "How much do you want to bet they also pipe soft music into the cells? Elevator music, the type they use in hotels and shopping centers. Probably have subliminals slipped in to further weaken a prisoner's will."
"And there are air-conditioning vents in the cells," Manning added. "They can further relax a subject's resistance by pumping drug-laced air into the cells."
"But none of this would be enough to break a man like Aaron Palmer into spilling his guts in less than . . . ."
The sound of muffled shots burping from sound suppressors told McCarter and Manning their partners were in trouble. They dashed from the cell block to the outer corridor. The bullet-ravaged corpses of two uniformed terrorists were sprawled on the floor, but no member of Phoenix Force had even been scratched.
"A couple more wandering troopers," Yakov said. "They didn't seem to be expecting trouble."
"Still no organized action against us," Rafael added. "Find anything in there?"
"Plenty," Manning answered. "But no Palmer."
He and McCarter explained what they had found as Phoenix Force continued through the corridors. They reached a flight of stone steps. Cautiously, Manning, Yakov and McCarter ascended the stairs, weapons held ready. Keio and Rafael remained on the first floor and moved to another room.
Peering inside, they discovered three gasoline-powered generators with thick cables extending to the walls. Two men knelt by a circuit box, examining multicolored wires.
Rafael and Keio charged into the room. One of the terrorists raised his head in time to see the Cuban's boot swing forward. Rafael kicked him in the face hard, breaking teeth and bone. The JRC flunky fell to the floor, blood squirting from his broken nose.
The other terrorist sprang to his feet and clawed at a gun in a button-flap holster. Keio's hand lashed out, the hard edge striking his opponent under the heart. The blow knocked the man backward into a wall. Ohara hit him under the jaw with a heel-of-the-palm stroke and then drove a nukite hand under the man's left ribs. He folded with a gasp, and Keio shuto chopped him across the back of the neck, shattering vertebrae.
"They must still be looking for the short in the TV system," Keio remarked, glancing over the machinery.
"That's better than them looking for us," Rafael said. "This stuff looks ideal—let's sabotage the bastards."
"Can you tell anything from the wiring?" Rafael asked.
"It's an independent job," Keio replied. "Which means the wiring doesn't fit any customary pattern. The generator cables are direct current lines. The black cables on the wall are to the telephone system. I recognize the blue wiring from the TV circuit breaker, but I can only guess what the yellow, red and green wires are."
"Alarm wires?" Rafael asked."
"At least one of them probably is," Keio answered. "But which one? If I had enough time to examine the circuits, I could tell if there's a secondary system and how it operates, and then I could deactivate it. But by just cutting wires, there's a good chance we'd set off an alarm."
"Is it safe to put the phones out of order?" Rafael asked.
Keio nodded. "That'll reduce their ability to communicate. We'd better leave the rest be for now."
"Okay," Rafael agreed. "Let's wrap things up down here and find our amigos before the fireworks really start sizzling."
16
Colonel Yakov Katzenelenbogen led the way up the stone steps. Manning and McCarter followed. At the head of the stairs, the Israeli saw another uniformed terrorist patrolling a corridor. The sentry was a rather paunchy, young Japanese girl who had clipped her hair in a crew cut, robbing herself of any hope of being attractive.
Yakov raised his Uzi and squeezed the trigger. The phut-phut-phut of the silenced weapon was the girl's funeral dirge. Two bullets hit the female zealot in the chest, while the third 9mm slug tore into her throat. Blood splashed her bush shirt as she crumpled to the floor.
The ranks of international terrorism are usually comprised of young pseudointellectuals lured into the world of violence by the twisted scriptures of terrorist leaders. Many of these disciples of devastation are women. Gabriele Krocher, Shigenobu Fusako, Ulrike Meinholf and a thousand other female savages have proven to be as ruthless and vicious as their male counterparts.
Phoenix Force realized a terrorist is no longer a man or a woman. The fanatics of the modern tribes of terrorists are members of a different species. They are a hostile alien life form that must be stamped out if civilization is to survive. It had to be done, sure.
The three Phoenix Force members moved forward, scanning the corridor. They glanced up to see another steel net strung across the ceiling. The trio eyed the stun net with suspicion as they moved under it, approaching a wide metal door.
Suddenly the door slid open with an electric hum. A young Japanese, clad in a white laboratory smock, fearfully peered into the corridor. The snub-nose revolver in his fist weaved in his shaky grasp. His eyes expanded with horror when he saw the three warriors. Before he could use his .38, McCarter blasted apart the man's skull with a burst of Ingram rounds.
McCarter jogged to the door and glanced into the room. He saw computers, consoles, electrica
l graphs and plastic furniture. He also saw a pale-faced figure, dressed in a white smock, with a pistol held in both trembling hands.
McCarter dived to the floor and executed a fast shoulder roll across the tiles. The JRC lab boy's .32 automatic cracked. The small-caliber slug screeched against the steel doorframe. The terrorist tried to swing his pistol toward McCarter. Yakov's Uzi erupted, and 9mm projectiles zipped into the technician's chest. He fell to the floor, crimson stains appearing on his white smock.
Yakov entered the room in a low crouch. Dancing shadows on the wall warned him that more enemy technicians lurked in the lab. A Skorpion machine pistol snarled without benefit of a silencer. The spray of 7.65mm rounds ricocheted against the wall above Yakov's head as the gunman opened fire from the cover of a computer printout machine. Manning aimed his H&K SG1 around the doorway and squeezed the trigger. The JRC machine gunner's head popped from the impact of a flat-nosed bullet cutting through the bridge of his nose into his skull.
"Don't shoot," Professor Ouzu Yoichi cried, thrusting his hands into the air.
"Watch the hall," Yakov shouted, training his Uzi on the Japanese scientist.
"Got it," Manning replied. He had entered the lab and hastily slipped out of his field pack, placing the bag of explosives on the floor.
The Israeli approached Ouzu, while McCarter quickly checked the lab for any adversaries who might be hiding behind equipment. Yakov stepped around a monitor consul.
He found Aaron Palmer.
The deputy director of the CIA was strapped to a metal chair. Electrodes were clamped to his shaven head, wires extending to the console set.
"What have you done to him?" Yakov demanded, thrusting the Uzi at Yoichi.
"He is merely asleep," the scientist replied. "We haven't harmed him."
"What is this?" the Israeli insisted. "What are you doing here?"
"It's an electroencephalograph with a few modifications," Ouzu explained.
"What sort of modifications?" Yakov asked. "We've got company," Manning announced.
