Sensor Sweep

by Don Pendleton

  Blancanales opened those negotiations with a high-explosive Diehl DM51 grenade. The most recent addition to the Stony Man armory, the German-made hand grenade had both offensive and defensive applications. This particular feature was the chief reason for its growing popularity among the warriors of Stony Man.

  The Able Team commando managed to circumvent the perimeter of the building and took up a position behind the tree-lined sidewalk of the neighboring house. He darted among the trees until getting within fifteen yards of the Town Car. A quick glance in Hightree’s direction confirmed the FBI agent, while having taken a beating, was still moving. The big man would make it.

  The same couldn’t be said for his aggressors, however.

  Blancanales removed the fragmentation sleeve from the DM51, then yanked the pin and lobbed it carefully so that it skittered to a halt beneath the closest war wagon. The concussion of a Diehl in offensive mode was definitely to be admired. The PETN-filled grenade exploded a few seconds later and lifted the heavy Town Car off the ground. Flaming gasoline and metal fragments sailed in every direction, and the sudden intense heat melted the tires to the pavement. Some of the terrorists were ventilated by shrapnel and glass while others were simply bounced off their feet by the concussion.

  “Gadgets to Pol,” came a voice as the debris continued to fall.

  “Go,” Blancanales replied, smiling at the thought his friend had obviously made it out alive.

  “I’d guess that was your handiwork.”

  “That’s a roger,” Blancanales stated.

  “Copy.” There was no mistaking the sound of victory in his tone. “I’m on the opposite side. Let’s coordinate with Ironman and end this party,” Schwarz suggested.

  “Acknowledged,” Blancanales replied. “Break. Politician to Ironman, where away?”

  “I’m in the wind, somehow,” Lyons said. “Don’t know who or how, but someone’s watching out.”

  “Maybe the man upstairs,” Blancanales replied. “You in with us?”

  “Yeah,” he said. “You got the status on our number four man?”

  “Alive and kicking. Just keep them high.”

  “Understood and acknowledged. We do this on three….”

  As soon as Lyons had sounded off a three-count, the Able Team warriors opened up with their pistols simultaneously. The terrorists still on their feet began a grisly dance of death under the unerring accuracy of the gunfire. Blancanales took one of them with a clear head shot. The terrorist’s skull exploded like a grape under the impact of a 158-grain 9 mm Parabellum round. From his vantage point, Blancanales could see Lyons begin to pick his way down the sloping yard, moving from one cover point to the next, picking each target carefully.

  Blancanales did a quick change-out, then continued to pump out rounds as fast as he could manage. The terrorists were no match for such firepower placed with that kind of accuracy, and before he knew it he could hear Lyons calling for a cease-fire. As the ringing died in his ears, he detected the distant wail of approaching sirens.

  The Able Team commando sprinted toward the carnage, arriving at Hightree’s side first. He checked the guy’s pulse: weak but regular. Lyons joined him a moment later and Schwarz arrived and immediately began to check the bodies for identification. The sirens were growing louder by the moment.

  “Let’s get Hightree to the car,” Lyons ordered. “Quick! Gadgets, you help Rosario. I’ll check these dudes.”

  Schwarz did as instructed.

  Blancanales and Schwarz got Hightree up and carried him to the SUV as Lyons went quickly and efficiently through the pockets of the dead. He couldn’t believe his luck when he discovered one of the terrorists was still alive.

  Lyons holstered his pistol, then hauled the man to his feet before slinging him smoothly into a fireman’s carry. He trotted quickly with his burden to the SUV, tossed the guy into the back seat then slid in next to him. Blancanales had seat-belted Hightree in front and took the back seat while Schwarz got behind the wheel.

  “Did you get it all?” Lyons asked Schwarz.

  “Sure did. Every last scrap of information on those computers is now in my pocket.”

  “We’ll need to get the information back to the Bear ASAP,” Lyons said.

  “Understood,” Schwarz replied.

  “Who’s your friend here?” Blancanales asked Lyons.

  “I don’t know…yet. But he’s the only survivor, and I figure that counts for something. I found him covered by the body of one of the others.”

  “Like the deceased had thrown himself on top of the guy?” Schwarz asked, sparing them a glance in the rearview mirror.

  Lyons nodded. “Exactly.” He looked at Blancanales. “How’s Hightree doing?”

  “He’ll pull through.”

  “Should we take him to a hospital?” Schwarz asked.

  “Too early to tell,” Blancanales replied. “We had to leave just a bit too hastily for me to conduct a thorough assessment. For now, I’d say the best bet would be to get him someplace where I can check him out better. “

  “Agreed,” Lyons said. “I’m not exactly big on returning him to FBI headquarters in this condition.”

  “Yes,” Blancanales said with a nod, then gestured with a thumb at their prisoner. “Not to mention the questions our new friend here will generate.”

  “Yeah,” Lyons mumbled. “I can’t wait to hear what he has to say. Sounds like we’d better get the Farm on the horn and see where we can lay low for a bit.”

  “Why do I get the feeling that the fun’s just beginning?” Schwarz asked.

  “I still wish we could have gone to South Africa,” Blancanales remarked.

  “Oh, come on,” Lyons said. “And miss all this fun?”

  Neither of them bothered to reply.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  South Africa

  As soon as they had checked into their hotel, the men of Phoenix Force got to work.

  A light, steady breeze blew in from Table Bay and cooled the sweat on David McCarter’s brow. A lot had happened to the fox-faced Briton since taking over as leader of Phoenix Force. As he trudged along the rugged mountain terrain, his eyes roving the surrounding area and ears primed for any transmissions from Jack Grimaldi, McCarter briefly thought of his men. These were his friends and allies; he’d been through a lot with them. Despite such sentiments, McCarter counted himself as one of the most fortunate men on the planet. The men under his command were some of the best in the world.

  Encizo and James were accompanying McCarter. They were up against a critical time factor, so he had opted to leave Gary Manning and T. J. Hawkins in Cape Town. Jeanne Marais was with them along the wharves and docks of the city, looking for the ships that Stony Man intelligence had led them to believe might be somehow connected to the intent of the Qibla terrorists.

  High above the trio Jack Grimaldi flew in a special helicopter on loan from one of Marais’s contacts inside the SANDF. When the Intelligence Division had realized that they were going to get assistance investigating Rensberg’s death from South Africa’s Secret Service, they were more than happy to oblige. The chopper contained special scanning equipment, which Grimaldi had enhanced with some additional goodies they had brought from portable equipment stowed aboard the Gulfstream. Included was an infrared and motion detection systems array sensitive enough to detect heat signatures within a six-mile radius from a cruising altitude of up to eighty-three hundred feet. When attached to a forward-looking turret, the AN/APQ-174 radar developed by Texas Instruments provided superior tactical advantages in both targeting and clandestine operations. The chopper was a modified MH-60 Black Hawk, purchased specifically for special operations such as this one.

  McCarter keyed up the transceiver. “Papa One to Eagle One.”

  Grimaldi’s voice resounded immediately in his earpiece. “Papa One, go.”

  “What to report?” McCarter could hear the faint but unmistakable sound of the blades chopping air far above them.

 
“Nothing so far,” Grimaldi replied, but on afterthought added, “At least, nothing on two legs.”

  “You must be talking about Papa Three, mate,” McCarter quipped, casting one eye in James’s direction.

  The black warrior flipped him the bird.

  McCarter grinned into his microphone. “If the maps are correct, we’re near the area where our intelligence thinks Rensberg bought it.”

  “Understood,” Grimaldi replied. “We’ll keep our eyes wide open.”

  “Acknowledged. Papa One out, here.”

  McCarter turned toward Encizo’s position but didn’t see the Cuban. He tapped the transceiver three times, the signal for James and Grimaldi that something was amiss.

  James stopped immediately and turned in McCarter’s direction. The Briton went to one knee and swung the muzzle of his Heckler & Koch G-36E into play. The G-36E was an export version of the German army’s standard rifle, designed to conform to the NATO standard for 5.56 mm ammunition. It differed only in the fact it had a 1.5x optical sight, one half as powerful as the one issued with its sister model. In every other way, it was a superior weapon with a cyclic rate of 750 rounds per minute and a muzzle velocity exceeding 900 meters per second.

  And David McCarter knew well how to use it.

  The Briton studied the area where he’d last confirmed seeing Encizo, which happened to be just short of a small cluster of trees. He turned to look at James, who had taken up a similar posture, his M-16 A-4 assault rifle held at the ready. McCarter turned back and let his eyes sweep the expansive terrain. There wasn’t a sound or movement, and now the veteran Phoenix Force soldier knew something was very wrong.

  McCarter switched his handheld radio to the ground-team frequency and keyed the transceiver. “Papa One to Papa Two, where away?”

  Only silence greeted him.

  McCarter repeated the call, but still there was no reply. Finally he switched to their all-receive band and called Grimaldi. “Eagle One, I need you come in closer and do a full sensor sweep.”

  “Eagle One copies. What’s up?”

  “Papa Two’s missing, mate.”

  GARY MANNING KNEW the six men were trouble when he first saw them.

  They approached in two groups, three from the docks and the other three from the shopping district that bordered the waterfront. Such a public attack seemed bold, but obviously they weren’t concerned with drawing attention—or who got in the way for that matter—and their micro-Uzi machine pistols left no question about intent. They were looking for a fight, plain and simple.

  They’d come to the right place.

  While Manning didn’t react with quite the same speed of the younger T. J. Hawkins, he still performed like the veteran combatant he was. Simultaneously he saved Jeanne Marais’s life. Manning whipped a .357 Magnum Desert Eagle autoloader from shoulder leather as he pushed Marais behind cover. He aimed toward the group coming from the docks, as Hawkins had already turned his attention on the trio trying to flank them on the side of the waterfront district.

  Hawkins fired first, the SIG P-228 barking twice as the Phoenix Force warrior fired a double-tap. Both 9 mm Parabellum rounds caught one of the attackers in the face, the first ripping away part of his jaw as the second slammed through his forehead and blew out a better part of his posterior skull. Brain matter and blood washed over his two counterparts, and seeing that their quarry meant business, the pair dived for cover.

  Manning triggered his own weapon twice, the first round missing but the second striking the terrorist’s sternum. The guy continued in forward motion, propelled by his zeal, but the legs were rubbery and carried him right into a heavy wire-framed garbage can. The can was bolted to the sidewalk by a thick cable, but that didn’t prevent its being upset. The terrorist landed face-first in a pile of refuse and one of his comrades had to jump over his body to avoid being tripped up by the sprawled corpse.

  Sheer pandemonium erupted along the waterfront. A number of the Cape Town citizens grabbed their children and ran for cover, while others reacted simply by standing stock-still and screaming at the top of their lungs. Manning’s chief concern was that the terrorists would try a different tactic, perhaps grabbing an innocent bystander as a shield. Worse yet, they could simply open up indiscriminately on the crowd with the micro-Uzis. Luck or something else seemed to be on their side, however, as the terrorists kept focus on him and Hawkins.

  “What’s the idea?” Marais hollered as she got behind a thick electric pole and drew her pistol. “I don’t need saving…although you may be in need of some.”

  “Later!” Manning replied.

  Hawkins changed positions, risking exposure to cross from where he’d grabbed original cover. Manning knew the play well. His friend was trying to draw fire away from the innocent targets and redirect it to where it would do the least harm. Manning returned to his own trouble, figuring Hawkins had everything under control on that end.

  The big Canadian turned his attention to Marais. “You want to help out here, now’s the time.”

  “What do you need?” she asked.

  Manning nodded at her pistol. “You any good with that thing?”

  A wicked smile was his answer.

  “All right, then, when I go for that boat over there, you start shooting and don’t stop until I’m out of the line of fire.”

  “You could have just asked me to cover you, Matthews,” Marais shot back.

  “Right,” Manning replied, then he was off and running.

  Marais moved with admirable skill and took up the firing position of a veteran shooter. She triggered her Glock 28, the compact model of the popular Austrian-made pistol chambered for 9 mm short. She fired a double-tap, her target crumpling to a heap on the ground.

  Hawkins was busier, continuing to angle away from his comrades and innocent bystanders in an attempt to gain a better targeting advantage. The area around him came alive with 9 mm slugs from the micro-Uzis, and the Phoenix Force commando shoved one young woman and her five-year-old daughter to the ground. The child cried out and the woman screamed at Hawkins, but keeping all three of them from being ventilated demanded his attention.

  The Texan retaliated by triggering round after round toward the enemy’s position. He managed to graze a gunner with one of the slugs, and the man reacted by ducking behind cover and grabbing at the wound. His shrill cry of pain drew his comrade’s attention, and in so doing, also drew him into view for a few seconds. It was enough. Hawkins took the terrorist with a clean shot through the neck. Blood began spurting from the man’s carotid artery and he grabbed at his neck even as he collapsed from blood loss.

  The remaining terrorist fired a group of hasty rounds at Hawkins, then burst from cover and raced toward the shopping district. Hawkins saw the terrorist drop a mag from the micro-Uzi and insert a fresh one on the run. The Phoenix Force warrior cast one last glance at the woman and her daughter to make sure they were okay, then leaped to his feet and took off in pursuit.

  Manning watched helplessly as his friend raced away. There was nothing he could do about it at the moment. The sole survivor on the dock had opened up with the micro-Uzi, trading shots with him and Marais and keeping both of their heads down. Manning risked moving to cover farther down the dock, eventually reaching a boat. The big Canadian leaped off the dock and caught hold of the stern deck railing of a small yacht. He vaulted it after gaining a foothold on the edge, then jumped over the railing on the opposite side and landed in a huge container filled with fish heads awaiting mass disposal at sea.

  Any port in a storm, Manning thought.

  The Phoenix Force warrior climbed from the rank container and hit the ground running. He flanked the surviving terrorist and drew a bead on him as soon as he came into view. The terrorist was occupied with Marais, now apparently content to believe that he’d either hit Manning with a lucky shot or the Canadian had simply turned tail and run. Manning shouted for the terrorist to surrender, but it did little good. The terrorist whirled, bringing
his micro-Uzi with him.

  Manning squeezed the trigger. The .357 Magnum slug punched through the man’s skull, entering just above his upper lip. The impact ripped through teeth, bone and flesh and continued out the back. Manning was in motion, sprinting after Hawkins. Marais could handle this mess here much easier than they could. Besides, he hoped to take at least one of them alive, and he stood a much better chance of doing that if he could catch up to Hawkins.

  He ignored Marais’s cry of protest as he continued after his friend.

  DAVID MCCARTER CAUTIOUSLY approached the area where he’d last seen Rafael Encizo. Calvin James took rearguard. It wasn’t like Encizo to just drop out of sight, but it especially puzzled McCarter that his teammate wasn’t answering the radio—definitely not good. The Briton couldn’t envision that the enemy had taken Encizo by surprise, although he couldn’t entirely rule it out, either.

  Still, McCarter wasn’t buying that—not completely—and he figured there was no point in worrying until he had something to worry about.

  Nearly fifteen minutes had elapsed in the search when Grimaldi’s voice broke through. “I’ve got him, Papa One!”

  “I’m listening, Eagle One.”

  “Heat signature directly ahead of your position, fifteen yards max. Signals from the heat source are ours.”

  McCarter looked at James at his rear, who shrugged, and then shook his head as he looked ahead of him and squinted. “Check your instruments, Eagle One. I don’t have anything directly ahead of me except dried grasslands and a few trees.”

  “I’ve already confirmed it, Papa One. Signature is directly ahead of you. I…well, this is odd.”

  That statement was followed by a very long silence. McCarter thought about doing a radio check with Grimaldi, just to make sure something hadn’t gone wrong with the radio system, when suddenly Grimaldi’s voice broke through the weighty silence.