It seemed to do nothing, however, to deter the seemingly endless parade of armed combatants that disgorged from the back of the panel truck and immediately fanned into formation. These were professionals, sure, that much made obvious by their practiced movements. But being soldiers, whose side were they really on? Were these more of Cyrus’s mercenaries or additional numbers of hired guns under the employ of Ishaq Madari? Or were they maybe a personal force in the employ of David Steinham? It would be hard to find out if Able Team couldn’t survive the encounter.
Rounds bounced and sparked off the pavement or Black Betty’s armored body, which were troublesome to be sure—not nearly as troublesome, however, as the unmistakable shapes of the weapons being set up by two separate fire teams. Those were rocket launchers and they definitely put the odds in favor of the enemy.
“Are those—?” Blancanales began.
“Yeah!” Lyons confirmed.
“Ironman,” Schwarz said during a lull in the firing while he slapped home a fresh magazine. “Betty’s homogenous armor can withstand intense heat and just about every small arm round. But it’s no match for rocket-propelled grenades. We need to think about a retreat action.”
As a fresh hail of gunfire burned the air over his head, causing Lyons to duck, he replied, “I know, I know! But they have apparently some very different ideas. I don’t think we can get out of here before they’re set up. We need to try to neutralize them.”
“Wilco!” Schwarz reached into the van and came away with a stand-alone grenade launcher, a variant of the M-203 that fired 40 mm HE shells. He verified the weapon was already primed with a shell and then sighted on the nearest party and triggered a blast. The grenade fell a bit short of the enemy group, but the resultant explosion seemed enough to divert them from a more prolific course toward ensuring Able Team’s destruction.
The second group had managed to gain enough ground they were now in a position to hit Black Betty head-on, and there was wasn’t much the Stony Man warriors could do about it. They were just simply outgunned and outmanned, and not equipped to handle a force of this magnitude with the limited armament inside Black Betty.
Only those precious reinforcements Schwarz had talked about before could help them in their situation, reinforcements that would arrive only in time to find a smoking mass of ruins—the remains of Betty—accompanied by three charred bodies.
Lyons whipped his head to the side, directing his voice toward his compatriots that they should get clear, when the enemy position suddenly exploded in a brilliant flash. Chunks of dirt, stone and highway debris exploded high into the air and the secondary concussion from the blast about rattled the teeth from the three men of Able Team.
They were at a complete loss for explanation until the air above their heads burned with heat and the blast of rotor wash whipped dust and gravel around them. The black chopper streaked low overhead and then zipped out and came around for a second pass. Another pop-flash from its side and the panel truck disappeared a moment later under the powerful rockets being launched from the late-model attack chopper, which looked like a variant of an Apache.
Machine guns from the opposite side of the chopper erupted a moment later, and then a second chopper appeared and joined the battle. This one looked like a refurbished Blackhawk, an assessment confirmed when the chopper came to a hover and turned sideways, its profile now illuminated by the burning hulk in the middle of the roadway. It was all that basically remained of the panel truck.
Lyons and his teammates were so astounded by the sudden ferocity of the attack, coupled with the turn in fortune, they almost forgot there were still enemy combatants on the ground. No longer the point of concern, they turned their precious remaining munitions on the distracted troops, cutting them down with swathing fire while the machine guns from the assault chopper—along with help from manned guns in the Blackhawk conversion, laid down brutal and unforgiving air support.
Within less than a minute after the choppers arrived, the last of the enemy troops fell under the swift and direct assault of the air support. The attack chopper then swung away from the carnage and buzzed out of the area very quickly, while the Blackhawk finally found a safe stretch on the highway upon which to touch down.
At first, the Able Team trio refused to break from the relative safety of Black Betty’s shadow, completely unsure of the origins of their saviors. While they were simply grateful to be alive, it didn’t mean they were going to trust these new allies at face value. These avenging angels had come out of nowhere, with no reason to be able to differentiate between their friends or foes, and yet they’d come down on Able Team’s side.
“Hey, man, I don’t get it,” Schwarz said. “Did the Farm figure we were in trouble and send help?”
“I don’t see how even the Farm could have sent somebody this fast,” Lyons said.
“Beware of wolves in sheep’s clothing, old friend,” Blancanales said.
“Yeah,” Lyons replied. It was all he could think to say.
The rotors began to slow to a thrum as two shadowy forms stepped from the chopper and approached Black Betty. One of the men held a sub-gun of some kind but the other appeared unarmed. In fact, he trotted toward them with his hands up—obviously meant to show he meant Able Team no harm and that he was coming without intent of posing a threat.
Lyons had no trouble believing it, really. In spite of Blancanales’s warning, the choppers could easily have polished them off after dealing with their enemies. Instead they were now on the ground, vulnerable, and clearly heading into this offering a proverbial white flag.
Something in Lyons’s instincts told him that, allies or not, they were at least interested in being heard and he owed them that much. In response to a nagging suspicion, Lyons lowered his weapon and stepped into the open, making himself visible in the single spotlight from the chopper now blanketing the meeting ground in a bright yellow light.
Lyons couldn’t make out the face of the man with his arms in the air until he got within touching distance.
Peering over the top of Betty’s grill, Schwarz let out a low whistle and looked at Blancanales with utter disbelief. “Cyrus? I don’t believe it!”
Colonel Jack Cyrus cast a glance in their direction and then locked eyes with Lyons. “Well, you apparently know who I am. I suspected as much. Unfortunately, I don’t know who you are.”
Lyons said, “I’m sure you can understand that’s the way it’s supposed to be.”
Cyrus nodded. “I didn’t believe your bullshit story about being with the Feds when you showed up at my boss’s doorstep.”
“Yeah, well…your boss didn’t exactly want to claim you,” Schwarz pointed out as he and Blancanales joined the little ad hoc meeting there on the highway turned battleground.
“Thanks, by the way, for saving our asses,” Blancanales said with as good-natured a grin as he could manage.
“I was gambling on which side represented the good guys,” Cyrus said with a nod as acknowledgment. “Looks like I picked right.”
“You did,” Schwarz said.
“Only question is how did you know which side to pick?”
“That’s a much longer story,” Cyrus said. He looked at his watch. “One that I’m afraid I’ll have to save for another time and place. Now, it’s time for us to go.”
Lyons raised his rifle, leveling it at Cyrus’s gut. “Afraid we can’t let you do that.”
“What the hell are doing, Ironman?” Blancanales said.
Directing his voice over his shoulder while keeping his eyes on Cyrus, Lyons replied, “I’m just keeping to the mission plan.”
“Your mission was to find me and kill me?” Cyrus asked, his eyes challenging Lyons while he kept his voice and demeanor cool as ice.
“In a matter of speaking.”
“Is it possible you could hear me o
ut first?”
“I don’t think whatever you have to say would change our minds.”
“It might.”
Lyons thought about a moment longer, realized that he wasn’t listening to his initial instinct, and then he lowered his weapon. “Okay, we owe you that much.”
“We can go to my place,” Cyrus said. As he turned to leave he added, “It’s not far. But then again, you already knew that. Didn’t you?”
“Yeah,” Lyons muttered. “We already knew that.”
* * *
USING THE GPS coordinates provided by Cyrus, along with a the chopper as a guide, Able Team reached the wooded acreage outside Norfolk that was listed in different parcels under Cyrus’s rather vast personal holdings, but that they knew he used for training the men under his command.
As it turned out, Cyrus was quite a host and granted the Able Team warriors a much warmer reception than they would have otherwise had by penetrating his compound and engaging his men. This caused Cyrus and his immediate command staff a considerable laugh when Blancanales pointed it out. The choice to reveal their original mission objectives to Cyrus soured Lyons at first, but he quickly saw the genius in it.
He also began to realize that Cyrus wasn’t the evasive criminal they’d originally made him out to be. Cyrus at least stood for something, not like his employer Steinham, who didn’t appear to be out for any interests but his own. It was over a ration of tacos and ice-cold beer that Jack Cyrus took exception to Lyons’s notion; one that Lyons hadn’t been shy about voicing directly.
“On the contrary, Irons,” Cyrus said. He wiped the beer suds on his upper lip with the back of his hand before saying, “In fact, I’d wager that Mr. Steinham may well be a bigger patriot than anybody in this room.”
“That right?” Blancanales prompted with a disarming smile.
Cyrus nodded. “Right enough. You see, everybody has it in their head that he’s merely a businessman, that it’s only the next contract he’s worried about. But I know a different guy. I’ve done a lot of jobs for him, and all I’ve ever seen is a guy who’s really passionate about what he does. No, I can’t see Steinham ever being in league with a guy like Ishaq Madari.”
“Who said anything about him being in league with Madari?” Lyons asked.
“Isn’t that why you showed up at his place unannounced? He had you guys pegged from the start. He knew you weren’t with any legitimate agency. And it wasn’t hard for him to figure it out, especially after the very public encounter you’d had with Madari’s people just hours before that.”
“So that first team was from Madari,” Schwarz said.
“Yes.”
“How do you know?” Lyons said.
“Because we’ve been watching him for quite a long time now. You see, Steinham had been keeping one eye on Oleg Dratshev’s work from the beginning. DCDI tried to develop EMP weapons quite a number of years ago, but they couldn’t get past all the physics. Apparently, from what little I understand of it, a lot of energy must be built up for even one brief pulse. Containing said energy within conventional weapon systems, even if you can produce it, is no easy task.”
“Yeah, we get the physics aren’t simple,” Schwarz interjected. “But that still doesn’t explain how Steinham managed to tie Dratshev’s work with Madari’s interests.”
“His little lady friend, the mole that called herself Mishka.”
“The one working for the CIA,” Lyons said.
“Right…her. She’d been on Steinham’s payroll practically from the start. He recruited her while she was still going through her field officer indoctrination and training. Wasn’t difficult to recruit her, really—one patriot can recognize another.”
“So he saw an opportunity to learn about Dratshev’s work by planting her inside Minsk?” Blancanales asked. “How did he make that connection?”
“I don’t have all the details,” Cyrus said, hands splayed. “I’m not even sure I should be talking about this at all. But you guys seem on the level. And I have it on good authority that we may have mutual friends.”
“Is that right?” Lyons asked.
Cyrus nodded as he jammed a toothpick in his mouth. He sat back in his chair and folded his arms. “Seems some of your people overseas could have played hardball with some of my guys but chose to cut them loose.”
“You’re talking about Braden.”
“I am. He was over there on a mission from Steinham—not really anything I would have sent him on if I’d had a choice. But a contract is a contract and as long as it falls within our code of ethics, we have to honor any mission objectives he hands down.”
“And what code of ethics is that?” Lyons asked.
“We won’t assassinate noncombatants, such as bystanders, and we won’t operate against children. There are no acceptable casualties in our ranks. Strictly by the book. Finally, we won’t subvert American allies and we never operate against our own. Ever.”
“Meaning you won’t fire on American soldiers.”
“Or cops from any federal law-enforcement agency.”
“What about Iowa?”
“We didn’t know what we were getting into. Riley—er, that is, Major Braden—walked into a bad situation and he was forced to defend himself. Not to mention we lost as many as they did.”
“Take it easy,” Blancanales said, raising a hand. “We also found out that the guards you killed weren’t legitimate security. Turns out they were terrorists working for Madari, as well.”
Cyrus looked suddenly relieved as he removed the toothpick from his mouth and let out a long sigh. “I didn’t know that. Thanks for the information. That helped.”
“Least we could do for pulling our bacon out of the fire,” Schwarz said.
“All that aside,” Lyons said, “we’ve made you aware this is an American SOG operation and now we need you to stand down.”
“Wish I could,” Cyrus said. “I’d like nothing better, actually, but I’m afraid we can’t do that.”
“And why not?”
“Because we’ve come into some intelligence that indicates Madari plans to test these weapons. And that he plans to do it against Americans.”
“Here?” Schwarz asked.
Cyrus shrugged. “I doubt it. That would be kind of stupid, don’t you think? Attempt to turn untested weapons against us in our own country? That would be doomed to fail. No, our intelligence thinks he’ll do a demonstration against an American target overseas. Maybe a ship or a plane.”
“That sounds like information you’d best turn over to us,” Lyons replied with a warning smile. “Let us handle it from here out.”
“Not as long as I have a contract,” Cyrus said.
“Don’t go after this, Colonel Cyrus,” Lyons said, the warning implicit in his tone. “Stay out of it and let us do what we’re best at.”
“Look, guys, I have no intention of interfering with you,” Cyrus said. “But it stands to reason that if these weapons fall into Madari’s hands and he actually intends to use them against American citizens, he could do it anywhere. We have the privacy of our client to protect.”
“A privacy that’s been compromised,” Lyons said.
“Says who?”
“You just told us you were working for Steinham,” Blancanales said.
“I did. But I never said it had anything to do with this particular mission,” Cyrus replied. “Steinham is a big part of our revenue and we get lots of lucrative contracts. But that isn’t meant to imply he’s our only client. And I can assure you he’s not our only client with an interest in energy pulse weapons.”
“So you mean you’re working for someone else?”
“I mean that I’ve told you all I can tell you. Now you’re free to go as long as you give me your word you won’t try to bring a detac
hment of Army National Guard down on my head here.”
“How do you know we won’t promise it and then just break our word once we leave?” Lyons asked.
“Because of the very fact you just asked that question,” Cyrus said with a cat-ate-the-canary grin. “Not to mention that I know men who keep their word, and you three are definitely cut from the same cloth as we are. You want to see Madari fall just as much as we do. And I know you sure as hell won’t stand idly by as long as there’s a potential threat to American citizens.”
Cyrus shook his head and rose, circling the table with the intensity of a shark trapped in a shallow beach. “Look, you said it yourselves. We’re already on the same side. Let’s just agree to remain allies on the premise that we want the same thing. We just have different ways of getting there.”
“You aren’t worried our paths won’t cross again?” Blancanales asked.
“Oh, I can almost assure you our paths will cross again,” Cyrus said. “I just don’t want our next meeting to find us on opposite sides of the skirmish line.”
“We’d hope for the same thing,” Lyons said. “But we can’t make any guarantees. As you’ve said, the safety of the American people is our first priority. We have orders that if these EMP whatchamacallits can’t be secured then they must be destroyed.”
“Along with anyone who might want to possess the technology,” Blancanales said with a nod of affirmation. “You understand we can’t make any distinctions on that count.”
Cyrus stopped and looked at each of the three men in turn. “No, I don’t understand. But I understand orders and I understand duty. And I understand you have to do your duty and follow orders, just as I must do the same. It will be too bad if that winds up landing us in a case of opposition with each other.”
And even as Cyrus said it, the men of Able Team had to admit they shared such a regret equally.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Domination Bid Page 15
