"No. To break the conspiracy, we must have information. Hold your position."
Yakov shouted out in Arabic. The Palestinian officer answered him with a grenade. It hit the dome's fabric, bounced back to the floor. Yakov and McCarter ducked as steel-wire shrapnel cut a thousand tiny holes in the plastic.
The officer shouted out a command. Obeying instantly, the squad of PLO fighters ran into the night, screaming as they jumped from the entry level down to the gardens surrounding the dome. Their Kalashnikovs sprayed slugs in all directions.
"Well, now, Mister Right Honourable Katzenelenbogen," McCarter demanded sarcastically. "May I have your leave to shoot those creeps?"
Katz's Uzi answered. Aimed bursts of 9mm slugs killed the first two terrorist soldiers. McCarter levelled his M-60 and fired, sweeping the weapon's muzzle from right to left, then left to right. The heavy slugs scythed down the purveyors of terror.
A moaning Palestinian flailed his arms above him, beseeching Allah for mercy. But surcease came from the M-60.
Again, Yakov demanded the surrender of the Palestinians. No one answered.
"Too quiet . . . " McCarter hissed.
An RPG blasted through the dome. It sprayed fire over the gardens. Yakov motioned McCarter to shift positions as the Palestinians fired another rocket at the voice tormenting them with the fact of their defeat.
Dragging the weapons a few steps to the side, McCarter found a rip in the plastic. He surveyed the interior.
Palestinians crouched among the trucks. Carrying several OD green satchels, one of the Arabs dashed from group to group. Another gunman tossed the green satchels to his comrades. McCarter saw arms thrashing in green plastic sleeves. One Palestinian stood for an instant as he pulled on plastic pants, then dropped behind the crates protecting him.
"Look at that." McCarter had slashed a hole in the dome's plastic for Yakov.
"Hmm," the Israeli commented. He keyed his hand-radio. "Encizo, what do you observe?"
"They put on gas suits."
"Manning. Report."
The Canadian answered quickly. "Looks like they're suiting up for a counterattack. A chemical counterattack."
"Ohara. What do you see?"
"The leader. . . he moves near the airplane ... he is in the airplane. What are your orders?"
"Yeah, General," McCarter demanded. "You want them to pull a gasser on us?"
Yakov issued quick commands. "Manning, Ohara. You and the Air Force men withdraw to the south end of the town. Encizo, you care for the prisoner. Carry him to the assembly point. Is that police officer with us?"
"Yes, he is here."
"All of you go. McCarter and I stay—"
"I'm not going to stay for the bedbug treatment!" the brawler protested. "I wanted to blast them from the first."
"And now you will. The rocket."
Twisting free the warhead's metal safety cap, McCarter shoved the RPG-7 through the torn plastic dome cover. Palestinians in plastic suits scurried from cover to cover. One climbed into the plane. Another dragged a tow chain from the bumper of a truck and looped the chain around the landing gear.
"They're trying to get the plane out," McCarter said. "They're crazy. They think we're just going to let them fly away?"
Shouting in Arabic one last time, Yakov offered the terrorists their lives. None of them responded.
Starters whining, the DC-5's props turned, the engines spewing smoke as they warmed. The props created a wild artificial wind within the dome. Yakov and McCarter felt air blow from rips and holes.
"Tell me when, already!"
Yakov nodded.
Sighting on the drums of aviation fuel, McCarter squeezed the launcher's trigger.
A spray of flame lit the interior of the dome, the rocket's warhead ripping through the steel drums, simultaneously vaporizing and igniting the high-octane fuel.
A vast, churning maelstrom of flame, fanned by the cargo liner’s propellers, consumed the cars and trucks and men. Fire blossomed around the cargo-liner. Its engines continued to whip the firestorm, even as the plane's sheet metal buckled and melted.
Yakov and McCarter retreated from the furnace. Behind them, the highly volatile plastic of the dome burst into flame. Sheets of sizzling plastic fell into the inferno, while the updraft lifted more burning plastic high into the night sky.
Flaming pieces fell on other domes. The fires spread. Plastic melted, flowing in noxious-smelling rivers of fire. Big Top burned.
Waiting at the south entrance to the circus city, the men of Phoenix Force joked with one another and the Air Force personnel. Encizo pressed field dressings against the wounds of their one prisoner.
Sergeant Bragonier of the Texas Highway Patrol watched the flames rising from the abandoned fun metropolis.
"Those terrorists. . . Why wouldn't they surrender?"
Yakov answered. "To live the rest of their lives in prison? I only promised them life. And to them, that means nothing."
28
Twenty-Nine Palms, California
Sunday
5:00 a.m.
(1300 Greenwich mean time)
POINTS OF LIGHT marked the darkness of the predawn desert. Through the executive jet's portholes, Able Team saw the purple band of the horizon tilt as the jet banked. The lines of the airfield's lights rotated to parallel.
"Twenty-Nine Palms Marine Corps Base," Grimaldi announced from the cockpit. "Estimated time of arrival, right now."
Deceleration pushed them forward against the seat belts. Landing lights blurred past. Leaving Nicaragua fourteen hours earlier, Able Team had changed planes in Honduras. After putting Maria and David in an ambulance, they had showered away the dust, sweat and blood of their attack on the terrorist training camp, then had flown north in the night black Air Force jet. They slept en route to the California desert.
The jet taxied to a Huey troopship. Grimaldi shut down the engines. He hurried to the door and threw it open. Cold desert air swept into the warm interior.
"Off, you three," he told Able Team. "You got people waiting for you."
"Thanks for the ride," Lyons said as he passed. "But next time, bring a stewardess along."
"Hey, joker. You got to get rank before you get privileges."
"I second the motion," Blancanales told Grimaldi. "Next time, we want some comforts."
"You want all that, run for office. Only real politicians get the comforts on Air Force planes."
"Don't insult us," Gadgets snapped cockily. "We may be with the government, but we work for a living."
"Then go earn your money!" Grimaldi shouted boisterously to them as they ran laughingly down the stairs. He watched Lyons, Blancanales and Schwarz run across the asphalt to the Huey. "Adios, gentlemen," he said quietly. "Go with God."
Lyons pulled his sports-coat collar closed against the chill blast of the Huey's rotors. Marines in desert-yellow camouflage fatigues and combat gear reached from the side door to help him in. He turned and pulled in his partners.
Marines jerked the doors closed as the helicopter lifted away.
A gray-haired man in a dark blue business suit motioned for them to join him on the folding bench. Under his conservative coat, he wore a Kevlar vest.
"I'm Torres," he said over the vibrating rotor-throb of the helicopter. "DEA. Last night we thought we had a standard drug plane coming in. Mexicans spotted it skimming the ocean in the Gulf of Cortez. They notified us, we got ready to intercept it. It was big—airliner size. We knew we had a multi-ton load coming in. When it crossed the border, our planes tracked it on radar. It dipped off the screens for a minute, then reappeared. But it wasn't the same plane."
Around them, the teenaged Marines and their officer watched the four huddled men. One Marine nodded toward the strangers as he touched helmets with another Marine. "Spooks. CIA."
"Nah, man. Just narcs."
"Then what are they doing with us? And what's with the gear?" He pointed to a box containing rifles, bandoleers of ammunition
, other equipment. The second Marine shrugged.
"When the helicopter got back to where the DC-6 had landed," continued Torres, "he saw a group unloading cargo into trucks. He reported that he saw a semi and trailer and several pickup trucks. The last thing he said was 'rocket.' Then we lost contact.
"Our people reached the scene fifteen minutes later. They found the plane burning, and the wreckage of the helicopter. Blown out of the sky. That's when we called in the Marines. That was almost twenty hours ago."
The Drug Enforcement Agency officer unfolded a map of the southern California desert. "We closed all the highways leading out of the area. We have the highway patrol, the sheriffs, the FBI, and all the local police departments helping us maintain the checkpoints and search the desert. We don't think they could have gotten the semi past us. It's only a matter of time."
Gadgets pointed to the city of El Centro, on the U.S.-Mexican border. "That's an agricultural area, right? How many trucks a day from the farms use these highways?"
"Today, none," Torres told him. "We're rerouting all through traffic."
"You get any description on the smugglers?" Lyons asked.
"The fire destroyed most everything. What our people did get, we'll get results on today sometime."
Blancanales leaned close to speak over the noise. "They had two planes. What about a third? Could they have transferred the load to another plane?"
"We have people at the El Centro airport and all the smaller airfields," Torres said. "Nothing got out."
"But the truck could be in the desert," Lyons commented.
"We have thousands of officers and soldiers looking for it. We even got a call from Washington. They're putting a spy satellite on the problem. It's only a matter of time. Let me introduce you to the captain."
Torres motioned for the Marine officer to join the huddle. A tall, angular young man, the captain had a face of sharp cheekbones and a resort-quality tan.
His desert-camouflage fatigues and flack vest made his face and neck appear thin. But the muscles of his neck and forearms flexed wire-taut as he moved. He squatted on his heels and looked at the three strangers. He swayed slightly, riding the bucking and lurching of the helicopter. Blancanales got off the bench seat to squat next to the officer so that the group could talk.
"I guess you fellows are the specialists," the captain said, speaking with an East Texas accent smoothed by years of university attendance and officer training. He studied them for a moment, staring each of them straight in the face, appraising Blancanales, then Gadgets, then Lyons.
"Captain Powell," Torres told them. "He will be your Marine liaison. Equipment or transportation. Anything you need, you get it through him."
Powell glanced at the men's hands. His eyes noted the clothes they wore, what kind of shoes they wore, how they tied them. Gadgets and Blancanales extended their hands.
"Pleased to meet you," Gadgets told him, shaking his hand.
"Likewise."
"Wish you'd been with us yesterday," Blancanales joked.
"Yeah? Where was that?"
"Chasing these crazies—" Blancanales began.
"Can't say," Lyons interrupted.
There was a long pause as the captain waited for Blancanales to continue. When he did not, Captain Powell turned to Lyons.
"So why didn't you get your crazies yesterday, specialist?"
Lyons shrugged. "Maybe today."
"Well, we shall see," the captain commented.
"We'll be at the scene of the crime real quick." He grabbed the box and dragged it over. "Washington telexed your specifications. We've got boots and fatigues in your size, plus vests and weapons. Instructions are for you secret agents to look like soldiers."
"Great." Lyons took a plastic-wrapped bundle marked with his name. Able Team changed into the uniforms. Lyons put his shoulder holster over his camouflage shirt, then pulled on his flack jacket. Blancanales and Gadgets put their shoulder holsters in the box with their street clothes. They slipped their Beretta 93-R auto pistols into the web-belt holsters furnished with the uniforms. They transferred magazines from their sports-coat pockets to the ammo pouches on the web belts.
"Never seen pistols like those," Captain Powell shouted to Blancanales. "Can you give me a look-see?"
Blancanales dropped the magazine from his Beretta and snapped back the slide. With the slide locked back, he glanced into the chamber to check it, then passed the weapon to the officer.
"Fancy ..." The captain examined the fold-down left-hand grip, the suppressor, the fire-selector. He pointed to the triangle of three enamel dots.
"It fires three-shot bursts of semiautomatic," Blancanales said. "Effective rate of fire is about a hundred rounds a minute. But with the silencer, it gets hot fast. With subsonic loads, it's silent death."
"Secret agents and silent death, huh?" The captain laughed. He returned the auto pistol.
Folding down the left-hand grip, Blancanales demonstrated two-handed aiming. He pointed the pistol toward the door's Plexiglas port, sighting on the distant spinning disk of a helicopter's rotors. Against the violet of the western horizon, the far helicopter was banking over the landscape, dawn light flashing gold and red from the blades.
"I'll keep my point-four-five." The captain slapped the holster of the auto-Colt he carried.
Lyons tapped Blancanales's shoulder and motioned to him. Lyons leaned over, closing off the Marines and DEA man from his words. "We have to talk this over, we only got a minute—"
"Not here," Blancanales told him. "Got to wait until—"
Even as he spoke, the rotors flared. The Huey dropped like an elevator, to touch the sand without a lurch. Marines threw open the side doors.
Able Team ran through the helicopter's dust storm. The gutted hulk of the DC-6 lay on a pre-World War II airstrip. A bulldozer blade had recently scraped the sand and weeds from the cracked, buckled concrete. Several hundred yards away, only a decrepit and vandalized building remained of the old Army Air Corps base.
Unmarked cars and black-and-white patrol cars were parked near the wreckage. Marine Corps helicopters waited in a wide circle on the airstrip. Groups of soldiers waited.
Lyons looked over at the blackened hulk. "Think there's anything the lab teams could have skipped?"
"Don't know where else to start," Gadgets commented.
"Let's have a talk with the captain." Blancanales signalled Captain Powell. The Marine moved through the desert brush. Soot, like a black frost, tainted the weeds.
"Want me to take you on tour?" the captain asked. "The DEA helicopter went down a few hundred yards thataway."
"No thanks," Lyons told him. "One thing I'd like to know. What exactly was the story issued on what happened here? What do all these highway patrol, police and Marines think they're looking for?"
"Two stories. For the civilians, police, newspapers, television, all those people—a gang of smugglers shot down a Drug Enforcement Agency helicopter. Now what they've told us is that a gang of terrorists brought in a load of weapons. They used an RPG or SAM missile to bring down the DEA. So what's the real story?"
"That's it," Lyons answered. "Weapons."
Blancanales looked from Lyons to Captain Powell. He saw that the Marine officer did not much like serving the outside "specialists." A telex from Washington D.C. had instructed the officer to risk his life and the lives of all his troopers for three civilians who would not tell him the truth. Blancanales turned to Lyons.
"Tell the captain what the crazies have got," he said.
Lyons shook his head. "Classified."
Captain Powell looked at the ashes of the four-engined airliner. "They brought in a nuke for L.A.?" Able Team did not answer him.
"Well, gentlemen," the captain began. "This trooper speaks English, Spanish, Arabic, and lately I been learning French. They sent me to atomic-warfare school. They sent me to chemical-and-biological-warfare classes. So what did I think when they assigned me to chase these terrorists? I thought, '
This is it. This is the Big One.' So you see? You got no classified secrets from me."
The walkie-talkie at the captain's belt buzzed. He keyed a reply, listened for a moment, voiced a confirmation. He grinned at the three men of Able Team.
"A semi-truck and trailer and two pickup trucks shot their way through a roadblock. Want to mosey on that way for a look-see?"
"Moving."
ACCELERATING to a hundred miles an hour on the straightaways, only slowing to sixty for the highway's few curves, the trucks hurtled across the desert. Early light glinted from the windshields. The two pickup trucks cruised ahead of the semi.
The Huey stayed parallel to the trucks, flying at chapparal height four hundred yards to the east. Lyons and Blancanales stood in the side door, watching the terrorist convoy. Behind them, Captain Powell and Gadgets huddled at the radio.
A streak of fire came from one of the pickups. The helicopter veered as the pilot reacted, reflexively gaining altitude and banking. Holding safety straps near the side door, Lyons and Blancanales watched the RPG flash beneath them.
A second rocket passed wide.
"What's going on?" Gadgets shouted. He handed Lyons and Blancanales headsets with microphones for the intercom.
Lyons slipped his on. "They're taking pot-shots at us with rockets."
"Okay, dig this." Gadgets briefed them. He pointed to the speck of another helicopter above them. "The colonel's directing this from up there. He's already filled me in. There's a road-blocking force two miles ahead. They will stop the trucks. The Marines in the other troopships will close the trap behind the terrorists. But the colonel's keeping the Marines back at combat distance. If anyone wants prisoners, or wants to take that truck intact, it's up to us. The colonel has instructions to destroy all of it, if we don't succeed."
"End of the road coming up," the captain interrupted.
"If the binary canisters get hit ... " Blancanales cautioned.
Lyons broke in. "Wizard, radio him. Tell him to keep the firing away from the trailer. That'll give us a chance. We need information from those—"
"He already issued instructions," Gadgets interrupted. "He knows what's inside. No one will shoot up that load."
Super Bolan - 001 - Stony Man Doctrine Page 20
