Sensor Sweep

by Don Pendleton

  There was nothing in their intelligence information that led them to believe the house was wired. Perhaps the Qibla felt that human security was good enough, and perhaps the intelligence had simply been wrong. Either way, they would find out soon enough. Lyons gave the heavy double doors the once-over, looking for any wires or other security devices, and then went about the task of picking the locks with a set he pulled from a slit pocket in his blacksuit. Lock picking was a fine art. To do it successfully was the mark of a skilled burglar. To do it quickly with success—especially in the dark—demonstrated an even higher level of expertise. Lyons had the door open in under a minute.

  His teammates made their way past him and into the house while he covered the exterior with his pistol. The three-story home was dark. As their eyes adjusted to the gloom, the room lit only by the streetlights, they could see it was some kind of large den. Blancanales led the way, careful to navigate around a coffee table and a pair of overstuffed recliners. Lyons secured the door and catfooted across the carpet to catch up with his friends.

  The trio had memorized the house plans, acquired from the builder’s database through the technical machinations of Kurtzman’s cybernetics team. The team knew where it was going and wasted no time getting there. The computer systems were on the third floor. It wasn’t ideal, since it trapped them thirty feet above ground level if the probe went hard, but Able Team would cross that bridge if they came to it.

  The interior was deserted. A few digital clocks along the way cast the only real light. The silence was deafening, but if the house was in fact unoccupied, they didn’t have to worry about being detected. As long as the sentries remained where they were, they could get what they came for and get out in a timely fashion.

  NOOTAU HIGHTREE SAT behind the wheel of the SUV and watched the action. Or maybe it was the lack of action. He was still miffed about being left behind, but he knew the leader of this mysterious team was right. He had no “real” authority to enter the premises without a warrant, and he wouldn’t have dreamed of doing so. Hightree believed in operating within the code of ethics as proclaimed by the FBI. His organization had taken enough black eyes over the years without his actions adding another.

  The legalities aside, he knew good and damn well he wouldn’t have violated the code of conduct given his own personal values and morals. Hightree strongly believed that the FBI acronym—Fidelity, Bravery and Integrity—were at the very heart of what he did. As a Native American, he’d been raised to be proud of his heritage and his country. Hightree had never heard his parents bad-mouth the American government like so many of their peers. His father had served as an infantryman in Vietnam, his grandfather in World War II and Korea. He couldn’t think of anything that would have caused him to betray the sacrifices of his blood-brothers in those conflicts.

  No, betrayal wasn’t a word in either his vocabulary or his nature. He had served with honor and distinction in the FBI, and would continue to do so until he took his dying breath. Which was possibly coming much sooner than anticipated, he thought. A black Town Car cruised past the SUV and pulled to the curb in front of the house. Hightree watched with interest as the driver exited the vehicle, crossed around the back to the other side and opened the rear door.

  The back seat occupant who emerged was short with dark hair, but Hightree couldn’t make out more than that. However, there was no mistaking the other two men who climbed from the vehicle. They were big and dressed in loose-fitting suits; attire unquestionably designed to hide the bulges of firearms they probably wore beneath their jackets. Before Hightree could react to their appearance, a second Town Car stopped behind the first—parked almost parallel with the SUV—and five more gunners emerged.

  Hightree’s increased adrenaline caused his blood to race, but he quickly regained his composure. He had to think about this. His three new friends had left him out here in the event they had to make a quick getaway, but they hadn’t said a word about what to do if anyone arrived. Hightree looked at his watch and realized it had only been about fifteen minutes. Assuming that was enough time for the three men, they were now probably inside and searching for what they’d come for. If Hightree permitted the group to enter the house before the team could escape with their information, this entire trip would be nothing.

  And Hightree knew he couldn’t let that happen, no matter what the cost.

  ABLE TEAM REACHED THE computer systems unmolested.

  Lyons kept an eye on the door while Blancanales and Schwarz got to work on the computer system. The first step would be to bypass security, a daunting task in lesser hands, but Lyons knew the skill of his teammates. The pair had actually been doing this kind of work longer than Lyons.

  “Okay, looks like we’re in business,” Schwarz told Blancanales. “The computer should boot to the CD-ROM, and then the hashing algorithm will take a few minutes to get the password.”

  Blancanales nodded as he withdrew the one-gigabyte memory stick from a hidden pocket. The stick utilized a universal serial bus interface, and most computers these days were configured with USB 2 capability. This one happened to have a USB front-side interface.

  “We’ll have to work fast once we’re inside,” Blancanales said as he handed the memory stick to his partner. “How long will it take us to download the entire contents?”

  “Carmen and Akira swore it would take no more than five hundred megs a minute. Rather than the data actually being transferred, the application Akira created and burned into this stick will go out and create an image of the drive rather than copy it file for file.”

  “That’s why so fast.”

  Schwarz nodded, then looked at his friend and winked. “We certainly don’t have the luxury of spending hours burning files into a CD-ROM, as much fun as I know that sounds.”

  “Yeah, we never get the good assignments.”

  “Hey,” Lyons whispered harshly. “You two want to keep it down over there? I’m trying to listen for bad guys.”

  “Sorry,” Blancanales muttered.

  “Just hurry up and get the inform—” Lyon’s began, but he never finished the statement because the unmistakable echo of loud voices reached his ears.

  The Able Team warrior gestured to his teammates to continue their work, then left the room and crossed the hallway to another door. It opened onto a bedroom. Lyons padded quickly across the carpet and reached a window.

  He parted the sheer curtains enough to take in the scene below. Lyons immediately identified Hightree, who had obviously left the SUV and was now engaged in conversation with several beefy types in dark suits. Two vehicles that hadn’t been there before were now parked in front of the house. He couldn’t make out much more than that, but he watched long enough to see Hightree flash a badge. A few moments later the thugs had him surrounded. Hightree looked to his rear and obviously saw where the conversation was headed.

  Then the group of hoods jumped him.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  “There’s trouble,” Lyons said as soon as he returned to the computer room. “Let’s go, Pol.”

  “What about me?” Schwarz asked.

  “You stay on that,” Lyons said, checking his watch. “As soon as you’ve got the information, go out the back. We’ll meet back at FBI headquarters in sixty minutes.”

  “Understood,” the electronics wizard replied, although his expression said he hated missing out on the action.

  The pair raced from the room and descended the stairs. They reached the first floor landing and on Lyons’s signal Blancanales went for the door as the Able Team leader found a side window. They’d have to deal with the security team first.

  Lyons could only hope they weren’t heavily armed. Damn it! What the hell had gone wrong? Hightree’s instructions were clear, and he should have kept out of sight. Then again, Lyons wondered if the guy hadn’t simply reacted to the thought that Able Team might be discovered. Perhaps all he’d tried to do was to create a diversion, stall these new arrivals long enough for Lyons an
d the others to get the information and get out of the house. Well, he couldn’t fault the FBI agent for that, and if that was the case then they owed Hightree enough to pull his ass out of the fire. He just hoped they weren’t too late.

  Lyons went through the side window and the first sign of trouble took the form of two of the sentries standing at the corner with their backs to him. They were obviously occupied by the action in front of the house. The Able Team leader knelt but it didn’t do much good since he’d made enough noise to attract attention. The pair of guards whirled and peered into the darkness, but neither of them seemed to notice Lyons, who seized the advantage and charged with his KBD1 knife.

  By the time the two pairs of eyes had adjusted, Lyons was practically on top of the sentries. He jumped into a flying sidekick and caught the guard on the right in the chest with his heel. The force of the kick cracked the man’s sternum and air whooshed from his lungs as his diaphragm collapsed. The guard sailed about ten feet before landing headfirst and breaking his neck.

  Lyons landed with the grace of a cat and turned to face his second opponent. The sentry clawed beneath his jacket for his pistol, but the Able Team leader never let him bring it to bear. He slashed downward, cutting a deep furrow in the guard’s right forearm and catching sinew, cartilage and tendons, following up with a snap kick to the groin. As the man bent over in agony, the Ironman finished him by driving the knifepoint into the back of his neck. The man collapsed to the ground as Lyons yanked the knife from his neck.

  The Able Team commando turned in time to see a sentry on the other side of the expansive lawn raise a pistol and aim it at him. The gunner never got a chance to take his shot, though. Blancanales emerged through the front door and fired twice on the run. The reports from the Glock 26 cracked through the chill night air as both 9 mm Parabellum rounds found their target. The first punched through the sentry’s neck, and the second ripped away part of his right skull. The man’s finger curled reflexively around the trigger as he went down, but the round slapped harmlessly into the dirt in front of him.

  The shooting had drawn the attention of a number of the hardmen on the street who weren’t immediately occupied in the assault on Hightree. Lyons started for them, sheathing his knife in and drawing the Colt Python. The .357 Magnum revolver had been his most trusted sidearm for many years. He’d first worn it as a duty pistol while serving with the L.A.P.D., and despite the much more advanced small arms of today, old habits died hard.

  The Magnum revolver roared as Lyons took his first target. A 200-grain skull-buster slammed into the nearest thug and knocked him off his feet. Blood and brain matter sprayed the dead man’s cohorts as his body hit the pavement. Pandemonium took over as the thugs realized they were now under fire.

  Lyons dived for the cover of a large, decorative boulder and once there he keyed up his throat mike. “Ironman to Gadgets.”

  Schwarz’s voice broke through immediately. “Go ahead.”

  “How much longer?”

  “Wrapping it up now, boss.”

  “Step on it,” Lyons said. “This party just went south.”

  “So I heard, but understood and acknowledged. Out, here.”

  Lyons and Blancanales laid down a suppressing fire designed more to keep heads down than to reduce numbers. Blancanales managed a lucky shot, catching one of the Qibla gunners with a 9 mm Parabellum round to the thigh. The man spun with the impact as the bullet shattered his hip and dumped him on the street. He screamed and writhed in pain, making it nearly impossible for one of his friends to try to staunch the blood spilling freely into the street. The amount of fluid seeping from the wound left no doubt Blancanales had hit a major vessel.

  The remaining crew members took up positions behind the Town Cars and began to return fire, Hightree now obviously forgotten. Lyons hoped that was due to Able Team’s intervention and not because the FBI agent was dead. If Hightree bought the farm, they’d have a lot to answer for back in Wonderland.

  Lyons popped off another round from the Python, then checked Blancanales’s position. He could no longer see his friend, but that didn’t cause him worry as much as that he didn’t have a sense for where their fields of fire interlocked. If he couldn’t see Blancanales, then he couldn’t be sure how much room he had on that side. He’d have to implement an extra dose of caution.

  Hairs stood up on the Lyons’s neck as his sixth sense kicked in. He jumped from his position just moments before the space he’d vacated filled with autofire. Lyons landed at a somewhat odd angle and immediately felt something pop in his shoulder. He bit back the sudden white-hot needles of pain that lanced down his left arm. The remaining sentry who had been roving charged toward him.

  Lyons watched the muzzle-flashes and felt chunks of mud and grass pelt his face as the rounds from the sentry’s SMG drew nearer. He raised his pistol even though he knew it might be too late.

  JUST MOMENTS AFTER LYONS’S transmission, Schwarz finished imaging the computer system hard drive. He practically yanked the memory stick from the computer and stowed it in a pocket of his blacksuit. He thought at first about planting an HE grenade to erase any evidence of their work, but he opted to go ahead and let the algorithms designed by Kurtzman’s team do that work. In short, the program created by the cybernetics wizards at Stony Man would do what it had been designed to do. Right now, Schwarz knew his job was to get the information out of the house and back to the Farm.

  But not before he helped his friends.

  It wasn’t often that Schwarz disobeyed Lyons’s orders, but this would be one of those times. One thing his big, blond friend hadn’t considered were the two sentries still on the roof. Even if his friends got off the grounds okay, and somehow managed to break through the line of defense forming outside, the enemy still held the advantage of higher ground. Unless Ironman and Pol got themselves under significant cover, they wouldn’t just have the ground crew to worry about but they’d also have to contend with overhead fire. The odds weren’t good, so Schwarz planned to do something about reducing them before just skipping out.

  The electronics wizard slid his Beretta 93-R from shoulder leather as he made his way to the roof by a set of stairs recessed into a wall bordering the third-floor hallway. The house interior was still pitch-black and when Schwarz emerged on the roof the light that emanated from the streetlights was welcome.

  The Able Team commando spotted his first mark kneeling at a far corner of the parapet encircling the roof. The terrorist gunner was leaning forward slightly, sweeping the area below with what looked like an assault rifle. No, there would be no murdering his friends from on high—that much was certain. Schwarz raised the Beretta 93-R and squeezed the trigger twice, the 115-grain 9 mm Parabellum rounds punching through the target’s spine and neck. The impact flipped him over the parapet.

  One down.

  Schwarz knelt and swept the roofline with the muzzle of his Beretta. Lyons said he’d counted two. The echoes of gunfire reached his ears, an irritation that he tried to push from his mind—he couldn’t allow it to distract him. Staying alive and keeping his friends that way, as well, took priority. The scuff of a soft-soled shoe alerted him to trouble from behind.

  The Able Team warrior whirled in time to see the Qibla thug charge him, the point of a long knife glinting wickedly in the moonlight. Schwarz raised his right arm in time to block the overhead stabbing motion of his opponent, but the impact jarred the pistol from his grip as nerves in his forearm and hand went numb. He tried to sweep the terrorist’s legs from under him, but the guy was faster. Sheer adrenaline saved Schwarz as the guy tried to distract him with an outside punch while attempting to penetrate his sternum with the knife.

  His opponent might have been more agile, but he didn’t have the experience of a battle-hardened veteran.

  Schwarz blocked the knife attack first, then executed an elbow strike that caught his enemy under the chin. Warm blood sprayed their clothing as the Qibla thug bit his tongue. The electronics wizard follo
wed up with a wraparound of the man’s arm just above the elbow, then he yanked upward and snapped the elbow, causing the terrorist to let out a scream as his knife fell from sensory-deprived fingers. Schwarz put a knee in the man’s groin, then ended the fight with a ridge hand strike to the throat. As the terrorist dropped to his knees and wheezed, Schwarz retrieved the Beretta and put a bullet between the man’s eyes.

  Checking his watch, then moving to a parapet near where the first terrorist had gone over, Schwarz took in the battlefield and almost immediately spotted Lyons in a standoff, and it seemed clear the Ironman was on the losing end. A Qibla terrorist was charging his friend, popping off rounds that were close to hitting the mark. Schwarz thumbed the selector to 3-round bursts, hoping the distance wasn’t too great as he squeezed the trigger. A volley of 9 mm Parabellum rounds spit from the muzzle, followed by another trio. The terrorist stumbled in midstride, reeled forward and rolled to the dirt, coming to rest just a few feet from Lyons.

  The Able Team leader began to look wildly for his benefactor, but Schwarz didn’t wait for discovery. He left his position and headed for the rooftop entrance. He only had a few minutes to get to the first floor and make his escape. If the odds were with him, he could escape through the back and circle a neighboring house. That would put him in a flanking position, which might just buy his friends enough diversion that they could get better cover and catch the terrorists in a cross fire.

  Yeah, all he needed was a plan.

  ROSARIO BLANCANALES HAD earned his nickname for his ability to be diplomatic in almost any given situation.

  But there were always scenarios where the other side understood only one type of diplomacy: justice by fire. And that was exactly the kind of foreign policy the Politician planned to implement in this situation. He was about to give some hell back to these Qibla hardmen, because it was high time they started taking some of what they were dishing out.