Domination Bid

by Don Pendleton

  His teammates nodded in unison as they began to gather their equipment and head for Black Betty, which they’d parked downstairs. Lyons considered asking Stony Man for local military support, maybe something from Craney Island, but quickly dismissed the idea. Not only would that violate the rules for use of military force on U.S. soil but there would be a whole lot of publicity around it.

  The Cyclops camp was in a very remote region, and if they could confine the use of the EMP prototypes to that area it would pose much less of a hazard to innocent bystanders. Sadly, it bothered Lyons that he had no way of warning Cyrus. They were in a remote area with no means of communication—part of their attempt to remain isolated and off the radar. Electronics would have made them vulnerable to hacking, part of the reason Cyrus had bought the land under trust in the first place.

  “I don’t understand it,” Blancanales said as they climbed aboard Black Betty. “How the hell could Madari have known about Cyclops and the location of their training site?”

  “Probably had Steinham’s place bugged,” Lyons replied.

  “Makes sense,” Schwarz agreed. “They managed to plant a bug on Ironman without any of us knowing it for some time. It would only stand to reason Madari’s resources stretch far enough to get inside Steinham’s organization.”

  “Not to mention everybody he’s dealt with,” Lyons added.

  “That means we have a much larger security concern,” Blancanales said. “For all we know, Madari could have an entire army of hired guns at his disposal operating right here on U.S. soil. I’m sure he wouldn’t be stupid enough to go up against Cyclops with just a few novice dudes toting prototype weapons.”

  “That’s a troublesome thought,” Lyons replied. “Blast it, we can’t be everywhere at once! Gadgets, did you get an ETA on Phoenix Force?”

  “They’re still about six hours out,” Schwarz replied.

  “Let’s contact the Farm and let them know what we got,” Lyons said. “At least David and friends will know there’s been a change in plans.”

  “If there’s a change in plans,” Blancanales said. “Madari may still plan to deal with Steinham after he’s hit Cyclops.”

  “That doesn’t make much sense,” Schwarz said.

  “It does from a tactical standpoint. Madari isn’t going after Cyclops to hurt Steinham. He’s going after them so they can hurt him.”

  Lyons’s ice-blue eyes flashed with wicked resolve. “Not if we hurt him first.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Rural Virginia

  The electromagnetic pulse wave that hit the sentry shack wasn’t anything for which Colonel Jack Cyrus or any of his men could have prepared. There was no way to shield against such a pulse, except maybe in a bunker deep underground, and absolutely no way to repel a beam of such magnitude. Even coming from a small rifle like the one Madari’s terrorist fighter used, the results were far greater than anyone could have imagined.

  For a heartbeat it seemed as though nothing extraordinary happened—then the unthinkable occurred right in front of every man in Madari’s force. The shack seemed to both implode and eject. Everything made of metal turned to slag and anything not nailed down seemed to almost explode. The effect of the weapon on the bodies of the two sentries inside was even more spectacular.

  Perhaps the better description might have been gruesome.

  The two men were separated from their limbs, as shoulders and legs were ripped from sockets. One of the men caught a sufficient enough part of the pulse that it actually tore his head from his body. Blood and bodily fluids splattered the inside of the shack and were immediately charbroiled, the blood reaching boiling temperatures in a matter of milliseconds. Then the shack came utterly apart and its remains were projected in every direction.

  The man who had fired the weapon lowered it and swore under his breath, looking at the pair on either side of him. These two were armed with merely conventional assault rifles, and neither of them could help but look at their comrade who was wielding a weapon of unbelievably fearsome power. No bazooka or RPG could have done that kind of damage in that moment. In fact, nothing short of a miniature nuclear bomb could have performed in the same fashion.

  “Quit staring at each other and get moving!” their team leader ordered.

  The trio burst from cover and sprinted toward the makeshift road of mud and sand. There was a complement of twenty-five men in all, each a trained member of the Libyan rebel forces and all with some measure of combat experience. In addition, Madari had equipped them with most of the EMP prototypes; an understandable choice considering theirs was the more daunting task.

  The thing that had worried the commander of the group the most was what sort of resistance they faced inside. The Cyclops team was, according to all of Madari’s intelligence, no more than a dozen strong. Each of them was much more experienced than the majority of this force if numbered in combined pairs. The 2:1 ratio was only adequate given the tremendous firepower and advanced weapons at their disposal, as the onset of their attack had just so clearly demonstrated.

  Once the three point men were inside the perimeter, the team leader gave the signal through their transmitters. With a roar of engines, two dump trucks—modified to serve as personnel carriers—breached the perimeter and raced up the road. Each of the trucks had ten men with the EMP small-arms split equally between them, three per vehicle.

  They also had a trailer towing one of the two large-scale weapons Madari had smuggled into the country. It had taken their teams some time to accurately assemble the weaponry, but Madari had assured the group commander that time was on their side.

  “The Americans are stupid,” he’d said. “Careless. They are unprepared for anything like this.”

  That hadn’t really allayed the force commander’s concerns, but he knew better than to argue. He didn’t think putting their faith in superior firepower alone was wise. Experienced men and a good battle plan were the keys to victory in any combat strategy, something that could not be substituted by superior numbers or equipment—this had been proved time and again. Still, the commander had to admit after seeing the capabilities of the EMP prototypes that they stood a very good chance of being victorious this night.

  The trucks rolled up the muddy rutted lane, which opened onto the main camp. The man they had managed to get inside the camp and gather pictures and intelligence had indicated the locations of the key buildings they needed to hit. The first stage of the plan called for them to use the heavy weapons to take out the barracks. From there, they would move the assault to the other buildings. Madari had left one directive: no prisoners. It was to be a scorched-earth assault and the commander of the attack force relished the idea. Tonight, to the Libyan revolutionaries would go the spoils of war.

  And the Americans would learn what it meant to taste the revenge of freedom fighters!

  * * *

  THE OCCUPANTS OF the two vehicles seemed so intent on whatever their mission, they failed to notice the vehicle parked in the shadows of the trees less than fifty yards from the entrance to the camp. Of course, it was good reason. The matte-black, Kevlar-lined body of Black Betty was not only designed to repel radar but also other types of tracking. It could blend into the night as few others of its kind, and the men of Able Team were thankful for that much.

  “Looks like your hypothesis was correct, Ironman,” Blancanales remarked from his position behind the wheel.

  “I can’t take all the credit,” Lyons said. He looked at his friend with a cheesy grin and added, “Madari’s hardly an evil mastermind.”

  “Yeah, well, he’s an evil something.”

  “Did you see what that weapon did?” Schwarz asked.

  Blancanales groaned. “Oh, for the third time, yes, Gadgets. For pity sake we were all sitting right here.”

  “That’s enough chatter,” Lyon
s growled. “Let’s do this. Gadgets, keep your eyes and ears open. I don’t want to get blown to hell by one of those EMP weapons.”

  “It’s not going to be easy to avoid,” Blancanales said as he started the engine and eased the van from the dense foliage. “Are you sure it wasn’t a good idea to just warn them?”

  “I’m sure,” Lyons said. “We’ll be much better off taking them by surprise.”

  “I feel for those two sentries,” Blancanales said.

  Lyons grit his teeth. “I know. I do, too. But there wasn’t anything we could do about it. We didn’t know they were going to go that route, and if we did I’m still not sure there was anything we could do about it. Besides, they knew the risks of being in a PMC. Hell, we take the same risk every day.”

  With that, Blancanales gunned the engine and bore down on the entrance to the camp. Madari’s terrorists had left two sentries behind, and Lyons had already decided on the best way to handle them. Just as they reached proximity, he rolled down his window and yanked the pin on an M-67 fragmentation grenade. Blancanales slowed the van and Lyons leaned out the window.

  “Hey there, fellas!” he shouted as he reached out his hand and dropped the grenade at their feet. “Happen to know the way to Hell?”

  The pair was so stunned by the brashness of the move they failed to notice the grenade until it was too late. They got what Lyons would later describe as “two of the dumbest looks I’ve ever seen on a terrorist’s face” just before the grenade went off. The explosion blew them to bits, rendering them to a fate not too dissimilar to the one suffered by their victims in the guard shack, but by that time Black Betty had cleared the effective blast area. Only a charring smudge had been left on her bumper in the wake of the blast.

  * * *

  WHEN TWO OF the Cyclops men coming out of the barracks saw the massive dump trucks, they weren’t sure what to think. It was an odd time of night for deliveries, and they hadn’t heard about Colonel Cyrus ordering any new equipment. It took only a moment for them to realize this was too highly irregular to be anything but trouble. Both men whirled and sprinted for the barracks to warn their comrades, but in that span of precious time the terrorists were already pouring out of the trucks.

  The commander, who had been riding shotgun in one of the dump trucks, leaped from his perch and began to direct his men. He had opted not to take possession of one of the EMP prototypes, concerned that if something went wrong they could well end up without leadership. These men had trained month after month under his guidance, and he did not think them prepared enough to operate on their own.

  As they fanned out to take up supporting positions for those with the EMPs, the commander shouting orders, none of them bothered to check their flank. As far as they knew, they were covered by the pair of sentries they had left behind. So they took no notice of the sleek, matte-black van that arrived just as they were preparing to deploy the EMP rifles against the barracks building.

  * * *

  “SEE THEM?” Blancanales asked.

  “I see them. All right, you guys, we take out the ones with the funny-looking rifles first. That should level the playing field and buy Cyrus’s men enough time to pull their asses together.”

  “Roger that,” Schwarz said.

  Blancanales brought the van to a halt and swung it into a position so they could use it most effectively for cover. The three warriors then bailed with full assault rifles in play. Lyons and Blancanales were toting M-16 A3s with 40 mm grenade launchers mounted below them. Schwarz had opted to bring a heavier weapon into the mix, dropping from the back of the van with an Mk 43 machine gun. The latest variant of the classic M-60 design, and identical to the M-60 E4 light machine gun with the exception of a slightly shorter barrel, the weapon was rugged and dependable, and Schwarz couldn’t think of another crew weapon he’d prefer to have in such a situation.

  By the time the majority of the Libyan terrorists realized they were no longer on the offensive and should now take up a defensive posture, it was much too late. Lyons and Blancanales scraped knees and elbows hitting the ground but the maneuver saved them from what scant couple of volleys the terrorists did manage to get off. Then it all went to hell for them.

  Lyons caught his closest target on the first short burst he triggered. The 5.56 mm rounds tore through the man’s gut and drove him to the ground. Lyons followed with a second burst, two rounds catching the figure next to his previous target in the chest and the third one clipping the top of his skull and blowing it off in a spray of bone fragments and bloody fluid.

  Blancanales delivered his own destructive volleys with the same deadly accuracy as his teammate. He wasn’t unfamiliar with combat by any means, but that was only overshadowed by his immense understanding of the capabilities of the M-16 A3. He’d utilized every known variant of the weapon since entering the U.S. military and even beyond that as trusted member of Able Team. With the right ammunition and in the hands of a trained marksman, the weapon was one of the most accurate in the world.

  A terrorist toting one of the EMP weapons quickly found this out as Blancanales triggered two successive bursts that landed on target. Some of the bullets shattered the delicate pieces of the prototype while others punctured abdominal organs, lungs and heart. Blood erupted from nearly every orifice left by the rounds, and a couple even continued on an outward path that left splotchy patterns on the man’s back—visible only because the impact spun him with the force of the autofire.

  Blancanales delivered another volley, holding low, but it fell short and chewed the dirt as his intended target backpedaled to find cover behind one of the trucks. The moment of advantage in surprise for Able Team had passed and the terrorists were now getting organized. Some grabbed the nearest cover of the trucks while others went prone and began to set up interlocking fields of fire.

  Lyons and Blancanales low-crawled toward the cover of the rear of Betty as Schwarz took a knee near the rear bumper and eased back the trigger. The M-60 E4 shimmied in his hands as he pounded the terrorist force with an endless stream of 7.62 mm NATO rounds, the familiar chug-chug-chug of the weapon somewhat like music to his ears.

  What the Able Team warriors failed to notice, however, was that one of the men holding an EMP prototype seemed undaunted in completing his mission: the destruction of the Cyclops mercenaries.

  * * *

  COLONEL JACK CYRUS was leaned over the conference table in the planning room, studying a map and technical blueprints of the DCDI facilities when the sound of autofire in the distance reached him. He whipped his head around and stared at the windows that were shuttered with thin, steel-brushed lead. He dashed to one after a moment of verifying he had indeed heard the shooting. There’d been no training exercise scheduled to his recollection.

  Cyrus flipped one of the metal shutters aside—and what he saw horrified him. Two trucks with canvas tops were parked within a couple dozen yards of the building. A staggered line of armed men had set up position and were firing in the direction of the buildings; as well, others seemed to be exchanging fire with unseen foes to their flank.

  “What the he—?”

  Cyrus never got to finish the thought as rounds began to pelt the exterior wall of the HQ building, which was a modified Quonset hut. Cyrus slapped the shutter closed and fastened it, and then rushed from the planning room and headed straight to the spare armory. The sounds of combat were growing more intense by the moment, but Cyrus pushed any distractions from his mind as he selected an AR-15 from the rack. He added to it a bandolier of six full magazines and half a dozen grenades.

  Cyrus moved to another area and yanked his flak jacket off a rotary hanger system. He donned the Kevlar vest, then slung the bandolier over his body, slammed a fresh magazine into the assault rifle and put the weapon in battery. Cyrus pivoted on his heel and charged down the hallway to a side entrance. He’d come out on the far side of
the building, which would give him the advantage. He could come up on the invader’s flank.

  Cyrus had worked hard to make his company a success. He wasn’t about to let these thugs take that away from him. He couldn’t imagine who his enemy was but he had a pretty good guess. Madari. Nothing else made sense.

  Well, he’d planned to make his stand and if he had to do it then better to do it right here on his own turf.

  Cyrus punched through the door and into the steaming night. Humidity was high and mugginess hit his face like a wave. He wheeled to the left and moved up the side of the HQ building, weapon held in a ready state. He reached the corner and peered around it. From this vantage point he could see who had engaged the enemy to their rear—he recognized the sleek van—no mistaking the men who were fighting alongside it.

  Cyrus grinned. Those tough bastards, he thought.

  Cyrus saw one of the terrorists raise something to his shoulder. It had a super-long barrel with a boxy stock. It looked strange and awkward, like something out of a science fiction movie, and yet it must have been light because the terrorist seemed to wield it with uncanny ease. For a moment nothing appeared to happen and then the air around the barrel shimmered with heat. Cyrus realized with terror that it was one of the EMP prototypes and immediately raised his rifle and triggered a sustained burst.

  He was a moment too late.

  The EMP blast hit the front of the Quonset hut at the main doors. The area around them sparked and then the metal melted and the heavy wooden doors were blown off the hinges. The wood ignited and most shards were turned into charred embers. Sparks flew from the metal as the microwave beams from the EMP connected with the heavy tin material of the HQ building.

  Cyrus continued to hold back the trigger as he swept the terrorists indiscriminately. There was no room for dainty here, or to pick and choose targets. The man who had fired the weapon finally fell to the sustained volley Cyrus directed at him and the others around him. One of the dead terrorist’s comrades managed to reach the weapon and get his hands on it. He rose and aimed it in Cyrus’s direction.