Phoenix Force 06 - White Hell

by Gar Wilson

  There was a door there that connected to the pumping station's adjoining rooms. He would be through it and gone before the attackers could collect their wits. If only he could be positive one of his rounds had put down that gunner for good.

  Sean Toolan had, in his youth, served a stint in a steel manufacturing plant in Dublin; he knew how an electric winch worked. He knew how startlingly swift the hook could be made to rise—if there were no real loads involved.

  And here, within easy striking distance, on the far side of the central catwalk—a winch of winches, overpowered, with the most modern, most responsive of controls. These damned Americans did things right sometimes.

  Grunting, terror continuing to lash him, he jammed his lean body beneath an especially low-hanging set of piping and vent work, the tracked winch that much closer now. Masked by the roar of the machinery, the clamor of the Yank attack force's weapons, the winch's electric hum would hardly register.

  Yakov and McCarter, infiltrating deeper into the west end of the room, firing sporadically to keep their quarry in place, played right into Sean Toolan's hands. "Come on out, you bucket of Irish shit," McCarter taunted.

  Fresh hatred curdled Toolan's guts. An English toff was it? A bloody Brit. Could anything be sweeter than the death of a Brit?

  The platform where the flexible control cable hung was one guarded lunge away.

  He heard the men grumbling between themselves, the random spatter of rounds—one covering the other—as they moved closer. Then, decisively, breaking out from beneath a roof of multiple runs of pipe, his M-16 panning to the left, Toolan padded across the steel deck. He swiftly placed his left foot into the curve of the hook, set his right on the sharp point for balance.

  Still, as he drew in the control box, switched the power on, last-minute doubts struck. He would be a sure bull's-eye. Up in the air on a string like that. It was a chance he would have to take. His only chance. At least he would die like a man, fighting, risking everything. He would not wait in some bloody hole for them to come and blow his head away. No.

  Besides, there was the element of surprise to consider. Their backs to him, thinking they had him cornered, which of them would think to watch overhead? And once he gained that upper catwalk, he would cut them to ribbons.

  He touched the Up button, wrapped his left arm around the grease-slicked cable. Instantly he began a slow ascent, his eyes darting between the two men on the floor and the iron coffin occupied by the gunner—who he was now positive was dead. There had been no sign of any movement for several minutes on that front. The bastard had to be dead.

  But Keio was not dead. Badly shocked perhaps, dazed to near insensibility by the head-splitting clangor of M-16 tumblers on boiler plate. The chilling significance of the near misses had not helped either. His brain clouded, he vaguely heard the shooting below and convinced himself that Yakov and McCarter had things under control. It would be a mere matter of minutes before they moved in for the kill.

  They ordered him to stay down. And until he heard that final all clear, he would follow orders, like the good soldier he was.

  But then, cutting through his fog, came the dull whine of the motorized overhead pulley. What the hell, he wondered, shaking his head to clear it. He half raised himself, groggily eased his eyes over the rim of the gate for fleeting seconds, dropped back again, his heart suddenly pounding.

  Not more than fifteen feet above him, rising fast, his M-16 trained on the area where Yakov. and McCarter were moving up, was the Grey Dog headman.

  Toolan, already discounting the gunner he thought he had killed, intent on the two whitesuits flanking the array of elbows, never saw Keio as he floated up in his cage. His face in an agonized grimace, Keio knew his opening blast had to be true. Should he miss, one checkout burst by Toolan would take out Katz or McCarter—or both—for good.

  He shot Toolan in the hands, the slugs hammering Toolan's rifle from his grip, hoping to spin him off the cable at the same time. The M-16 chewed out lead in six quick spurts, the reports re-bounding off the walls with startling force. On the floor, Yakov and McCarter spun and stared up with disbelieving eyes. As they brought up their weapons, Keio pumped another half-dozen tumblers into Toolan. The hook froze in space.

  But the terrorist was tough. Even as life's last oath was jarred from his throat, the M-16 instantly dropped, the man's arms reflexively closed on the steel cable. What was left of his left hand clamped down with steely power. Even when his feet slipped from the hook, flopped in empty air, he still hung on.

  McCarter and Katz raised their weapons, added their own thunder to the execution.

  At long last the hardman's arms and fingers relaxed. The body slid down the cable.

  But even here Sean Toolan was denied the dignity he had so diligently sought all his life. For, in final freefall his head connected with the hook. The speed of his descent literally rammed the jut of his chin against the shaft, flopping his head back. The point of the hook slashed into the V of his jawbone, tore through the flesh, penetrated his mouth, stopped his plunge with neck-snapping abruptness.

  There, swaying slowly like a spiked side of beef in a storage locker, he was suspended forty feet above their heads.

  Only then, the last rounds going nowhere, did McCarter finally stop shooting. His face twisted in sick revulsion, he could not take his eyes from the swinging body.

  But even so there was no time for breathing space.

  For just then there was a commotion in the hallway to their left. They whirled, dropped back into their pipe stockade, brought rifles instantly to bear.

  All released ponderous sighs of relief as Encizo's face cautiously poked itself around the edge of the door frame.

  Then, as he and Manning entered the slaughter-house, saw the queasiness on the faces of their comrades, they both glanced up, took in the grisly gallows.

  Encizo's jaw gaped, his eyes went wide. "Mother of God!" he blurted. "How'n hell did you guys manage to do that?"

  14

  Again Phoenix Force was on the prowl.

  Spread out, branching into the myriad corridors and stairwells the pumping station boasted, they moved like phantoms as they sought to flush the last Grey Dog remnants. Once more they sadly surveyed the mayhem in the master-control centers, stepping over the bodies of the trio sprawled in the hall on their way in, again on their way out. Next they rechecked the compressor area.

  Upstairs they searched deserted, dark office units, each new door-opening a separate maneuver. Lights flashed on, assault rifles panned with desperate swiftness, breaths were drawn back sharply. But always, no sign of any cowering terrorists.

  There was a fresh lightness to their stride as they came down the stairs, all assured that their ugly work was near an end.

  "Our friend on the hook," Manning remarked as they came down the stairs for the second time, "he must have been the last of the scuzzy lot."

  "Hardly," Katz answered. "Those people outside, remember? Unless they came in to get warm. They can wait. Until we're absolutely sure everyone's cleaned out in here. We'll go out after them together."

  He paused in mid-stride. "In the meantime, the generator complex. We haven't checked that yet. Can you men handle it without me? I should be seeing to raising somebody over in the billeting buildings, at the Army CP. If any of these phones are still operative." He winked. "Seems to me we could use a little help about now."

  "That'll be the day," McCarter hooted.

  "Keep your guard up," Katz warned as he turned, started off to find a telephone.

  "Right-o," McCarter snapped. "C'mon, mates."

  But, as they progressed down the corridor, advancing more carelessly than was wise, boots clumping, rifles slung over their shoulders, they could not resist the temptation to peek into the pumping rooms one last time. They wanted one last look at the bastard who had almost cost them their lives.

  One by one they filed into the room, stood in a loose semicircle, stared up at Toolan's suspended body
for long moments. Lost in grim reverie, nobody venturing a comment, they were perfect patsies for what happened.

  "Stand right there," the strident female voice barked from behind them, the suddenness of it jarring them with all the impact of a kick in the groin. "Don't move, or we'll blow your god-damned heads off."

  All four men froze, feeling a paralyzing chill claw through their guts. To a man they cursed themselves for fools, for allowing themselves to become overconfident.

  "Dick, you and Clancy get their weapons," the harsh voice commanded. "Then we'll take the devil's sweet time settling scores for what they did to poor Sean."

  The two Grey Dogs, mature, war-savvy specimens, prodded them in the back with the muzzles of their M-16s. "Drop the guns, you bastards," one of them growled. "No tricks . . ."

  One by one the rifles dropped to the floor. But the terrorists did not move to frisk Phoenix for small arms. There was, perhaps, a light after all. But even as hope flared, it died. Fat chance, with all those clothes in the way.

  "Turn around now, damn you. I want you all to see it comin' when you get it."

  And there, standing half concealed behind a steel heat shield— The woman's parka was flung back, revealing the full glory of her long, red hair. Despite the demented, vengeful glitter in her eyes, she was a beautiful creature. Recalling the man they so recently had seen tied to the bunk at the satellite tracking base, their desolation deepened. If ever the men of Phoenix were to know the hell of terror, then this, most certainly, was it.

  "Had yourselves a bit of sport with my Sean, did you?" the copper-tressed woman grated, drawing her lips back over her teeth. "Animals. Animals is what you are."

  None of them made any move to answer, to attempt an explanation of the terrorist leader's grotesque death. They would not grant the woman even that satisfaction. They stared stolidly, eyes darting, seeking an opening. Odds of any sort. A thousand-to-one. Anything.

  Now her face went sly, as if sensing that time was getting away on her. If they were to somehow effect an escape . . . Finish them off, but fast.

  "Dick. You, Clancy. When I count three. In the ballocks, do you hear? A fine stand of geldings we'll have. It's what they deserve. Even if they live, they'll be sorry the longest day they live."

  Her voice became even more maniacal. "For you, Sean," she wailed. "Saints in heaven, Sean, are you watching? Forgive me, darling. Forgive me for the shame I put upon you. . ."

  The men of Phoenix Force were as taut as bowstrings, their jaws tensed to breaking point as they waited for the rifles to spill their hot, tearing tissue. They waited in despair for any shred of distraction that would permit them to charge the bloodthirsty trio. One thing was certain—they would not just stand there and let the deranged swine cut them down.

  "Here's sport for you, boys," Coletta Devane shrieked. "Ready, Dick and Clancy. When I . . ."

  The sentence was never finished. For just then the world exploded off to the madwoman's right. Suddenly Katzenelenbogen was there, feet firmly planted, the Uzi spitting nonstop death.

  Keio, McCarter, Rafael and Manning hit the dirt, random slugs from the terrorists' M-16s whining above their heads, trigger fingers popping off rounds even as their owners jerked and writhed, went into a last, spinning dance of death.

  With instinctive skill the Israeli had placed himself so that his line of fire would slice each head at once; no skull would be allowed to form a shield for the next.

  Blood, charges of gray brain matter and bone were flung to the left. Devane's lovely face was turned to gaping, bloody craters.

  The first to go down, she landed on her back, her arms and legs at crazy angle. Clancy Dolan was sprawled on top of her. Even in death. . .

  Even when the Uzi's high-pitched chatter finally died, the four Phoenix Force members still lay in a stunned, awkward sprawl, as if momentarily turned to stone. No smart talk now. No talk at all. Each was too preoccupied, too busy digesting a bitter lesson in humility that he would not forget as long as he lived.

  And where there should have been curt recrimination from Yakov, there was none. For he, too, was stricken, and stood silent, unable to take his eyes off of what was left of Coletta Devane's face. The cascade of rust-colored hair about that pulpy mass of gore became particularly devastating.

  "My God," he said in a hushed, awed voice, "this is the first time in my life I ever shot a woman. . ."

  15

  "And speaking of the Irish," David McCarter laughed as he put down his glass of rum and Coke, "as I'm sure we were . . . Do you know the one about John Dunn and his trip to America?"

  Keio pulled a long face. "We don't need Irish jokes."

  "Go ahead," Manning encouraged. "I haven't heard it."

  It was midafternoon, and now—two days after their brush with death—in a Klondike-style saloon located on Fairbanks's notorious "Two Street," the Phoenix team killed time while waiting for a flight to Washington, D.C.—and Stony Man. It was 1400 hours. Their flight was scheduled for 1630. There was time for letdown; anything that would elevate their mood after the grim happenings of the past days was more than welcome.

  Dressed in civilian clothes, giving illusion of harmless vulnerability, they were gathered about a round oak table, glasses and bottles spread across its battered surface. They had earned it, and they were damned well going to enjoy it. Even if they had to be poured onto the plane.

  Encizo had a squat glass of brandy before him and was chasing it with beer. Yakov was nursing a Scotch on the rocks, while Gary Manning was developing a pleasant glow on Scotch and water. Ohara, the most moderate of the lot, was working on a glass of Burgundy. McCarter had his usual Coke, to which he was adding generous amounts of rum.

  "There was this bloke named Pat O'Malley," McCarter began the joke, "and he was leaving Ireland for a jaunt to the United States. And just before he left, the Widow Dunn got in touch with him."

  McCarter's voice slid into rich Irish brogue in all the right places, and shortly he had them all hooked. " 'Me son, John, went to New York twenty years ago,' Mrs. Dunn said, 'and I ain't had no word from him ever since. I'm wonderin' whatever become of the lad.'

  "She then wanted to know if Pat O'Malley would look up her son in New York and ask him to write his poor old mother back in Ireland. Pat protested that New York was an awful big place, that his chances of finding John Dunn were practically nil. Well, would he at least try? Yes, he would.

  "And there was Pat on his second day in New York. Looking up, he saw this sign that said Dunn & Bradstreet. The luck of the Irish, he thought. I've found the boy straight off. Entering the plush offices, he asked the pretty receptionist if they had a John there. 'Yes,' she replied, 'down the hall, second door on the right.'

  "But upon entering the room Pat was at an extreme loss, for all he saw were sinks and urinals and rows of booths. Undaunted, he looked about until he saw a man's feet in the third stall down.

  "So he goes down there and knocks on the door of that stall," McCarter continued, in full flow now. "And he says, 'Are you Dunn?' And the man answers, 'Yes.'

  "Well, dammit, lad," McCarter said, delivering the punch line, "why'n hell don't ye write to y'r mother?' "

  The four men were convulsed. Encizo pounded on the table, laughed until tears came to his eyes. McCarter, pleased with himself, laughed just as hard.

  The uproar at their table caused some of the twenty or so locals scattered at the bar to glance their way, their expressions unquestionably hostile. Damned tourists, their eyes said.

  Phoenix Force was winding down.

  For the moment Prudhoe Bay was put out of their minds. Each sensed deep satisfaction in knowing that their life-and-death efforts had saved the Trans-Alaska Pipeline. The crude would be flowing before the week was out. Indeed, oil was flowing now, but sluggishly. There had been an eleven-day grace period before the 9.2 million barrels of oil in the line turned to Silly Putty. As it had developed, they needed less than a third of that time before the line would be fu
lly operational again.

  But had the INLA splinter group been successful in rupturing the TAP itself, it would have been quite a different story. Disaster of irreconcilable proportions.

  Alerted in time, the Prudhoe engineers had been able to activate backup override systems at the last possible minute. Even with the computers down at both ends of the line there were manual alternatives available. The pumps, running at diminished strength, were able to generate enough pressure to push steadily to pumping stations two and three. Here, the pressure doubled and tripled, they were able to ram it over the Atigun Saddle. Home free.

  Granted, there was no leeway whatsoever for new emergencies. With the sophisticated oil-flow computers at Valdez totally destroyed, a new rupture anywhere in the line would mean more problems. The seventy-one gate valves, the eighty check valves that kept the oil from backing up in the line; that diverted oil into huge storage reservoirs at each pumping station; that allowed complete bypass of the station itself if necessary—all were dependent on the Valdez computers.

  These magic boxes would be out for weeks, despite round-the-clock efforts of high-tech crews jetted in from California to jerry-rig standby equipment, to replace that beyond repair. The Grey Dog hit team—all tracked down, killed in the wake of mass panic—had truly done a job at Valdez.

  The same for Prudhoe. But here the destruction had not been quite as critical. Again there was undirected thanks to the phantom force that had mysteriously intervened at the crucial last minute, and had completed its bloody task so efficiently.

  Just hauling away the mass of liberation army bodies at Prudhoe, along the line, back at QSS 0022, had been a job in itself.

  Even Grimaldi had, at the last, gotten into the act. Flagged in without a murmur by the air-control boys, he had barely set down than he had seized one of the Ingrams, had attacked the waiting Chinook 47-C. The cowardly Grey Dog pilot had given up without firing a shot.