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McCarter lent him a sour eye as he said, “We’ll need to know everything you can tell us about your team, dossiers on its members…everything. It would also help if you could give us some idea of when someone last saw them.”
“At least an eyewitness who can confirm or deny they left Lüderitz when they were supposed to,” James added.
“You think one of my people could be involved in this?” Matombo asked with incredulity.
“Involved in what?” McCarter asked with a shrug. “We aren’t even sure what’s going on here yet, mate.”
“We simply want to know whether or not they left so we know where to start looking,” Encizo added.
“I don’t understand.”
“Well,” McCarter explained, “it already seems obvious whoever grabbed up your chums are operating out of Lüderitz. Knowing whether they met their fate in the city before they left or if they were ambushed after leaving will give us a better idea of who to look for.”
Matombo shook his head. “I trust what you tell me, Doc…er, I mean, Mr. Brown. But what I do not understand is how you can help just by knowing this.”
“Simple. We’ll know if those behind the team’s disappearance are operating within the city or if they’re being fed intelligence.”
“In other words, we know the search needs to start in Lüderitz,” James said. “We just need to be certain if it will end there.”
Hawkins grinned broadly. “You see, we generally like to terminate problems at the source. Hitting lackeys isn’t usually a permanent solution to a problem like yours.”
“I understand now,” Matombo said. “I will see what I can do to get this information for you.”
McCarter nodded. “Right-o. In the meantime, we’re going to head straight for Lüderitz.”
“Would you like me to arrange an escort?”
“That won’t be necessary. But some decent transportation would be helpful.”
Matombo stood as he replied, “We have a fleet of various vehicles at our disposal. I believe we can find something appropriate.”
DR. JUSTUS MATOMBO was true to his word, and before long Phoenix Force was headed southeast out of the city and bound for the port city of Lüderitz in a pair of matching, late-model Dodge Nitro SUVs. They split the equipment between the two vehicles. McCarter and Hawkins rode with Encizo behind the wheel in the lead vehicle, followed by James, Manning and Matombo in the second. McCarter had tried to discourage Matombo from tagging along but the man wouldn’t hear of it, citing his required oversight of their transportation, as well as his cooperation as the official representative of his government. McCarter decided not to fight the guy about it. Matombo still had plenty of juice and could make it very difficult for them if he really wanted to, and McCarter figured it better to err on the side of cooperation.
That didn’t stop them from having Matombo ride in the tail vehicle. That afforded the Phoenix Force leader some privacy when he contacted Stony Man with his update. Brognola and Price listened while McCarter gave his report, telling them everything including how he felt compelled to reveal they weren’t exactly as the U.S. government had initially represented them.
“You think he’s trustworthy enough to stay quiet?” Brognola asked.
“For now,” McCarter said. “I think he’ll keep still as long as we cooperate with him. I wouldn’t put it past him to shoot off his mouth if he thought we were holding back.”
“This complicates things,” Price said.
“But we know you did what you thought was best,” Brognola added. “I have complete confidence in your decision. It’s probably for the better, anyway, since Able Team is stepping into the thick of it here.”
“They’re on a mission you think is related?”
“We don’t have any doubts at this point,” Price said. “What’s happened there coupled with the events here in Washington is too proximal to be mere coincidence.”
“Yeah, well, you’ve never been much for coincidence, either, love.”
“Right.” Price filled him in on their discovery of the traffic video and the IUA. She concluded with, “Able Team has a lead they’re following up even as we speak.”
“So this is a new terrorist cell.”
“Pretty much,” Brognola said. “They only recently were identified by Israeli MOSSAD as a group who has grown large enough that they could pose a significant threat to the security of the U.S. and her allies. You are to assume they are fully trained and equipped, and you are to deal with them by S.O.P.”
McCarter didn’t have to ask what that meant; a rookie could’ve figured it out. “Acknowledged. As soon as we know more, we’ll get in touch.”
After they signed off, McCarter lit a cigarette and groaned. He reached back toward Hawkins, who in turn responded by pressing a sweaty can of soda into his palm. McCarter yanked the top and took a long pull from it, draining nearly half the contents. The dry, dusty air and afternoon sun beating through the windshield had left him parched.
“What’s the scoop, boss?” Hawkins finally asked.
“Either of you ever heard of the ‘the Revenge of Allah’?”
They shook their heads.
“Me, either. Until Barb and Hal just told me about them. They’re a new terrorist group, up-and-coming, and a case Able Team is working might just be related to what we’re doing here.”
“In what way?”
“Somebody lifted the plans to a nuclear-powered sub and left the designer and some federal agents dead. Took them out in bloody broad daylight, no less.”
“Sounds lovely,” Hawkins said.
“So plans go missing for a nuclear-powered device, and parties unknown suddenly show up here with radiation poisoning,” Encizo said.
“Right,” McCarter said. “Go figure.”
They rode a couple more miles in silence and then something cast a shadow over their vehicle. McCarter leaned forward and strained his eyes to see beyond the limits of the roof. He caught the first glimpse of the helicopter before they actually heard the sound of the rotors chopping the air, felt their vibration through the vehicle. They were flying awfully low and McCarter felt something prick his sixth sense. Before he could react, the shortwave radio clipped to his belt squawked for attention. He removed the earpiece from the clip holder on the lapel of his shirt and inserted it into his right ear.
Keeping one eye on the chopper, he answered, “Go.”
Manning’s voice came back. “We just talked to Matombo and he said that bird above you has markings of the Namibian national guard. It looks like maybe someone let the cat out of the bag.”
“What does he think they want?”
“Most likely they know about our little excursion here and they want us to stop. Apparently, official trips into Lüderitz have to be authorized.”
“Funny how that slipped Matombo’s mind.”
“He started apologizing as soon as he saw the bird,” Manning said in a quieter tone. “I don’t think it was purposeful.”
“Tell that to them?”
Before the Canadian could reply, the ground ahead of the lead vehicle churned with dust and the pattern that emerged could only have been produced by automatic weapons fire. Then the road erupted in a red-orange blast and left a crater three feet deep in its wake.
Encizo leaned on the brake pedal.
“Go off-road!” McCarter ordered. “Don’t stop.”
Encizo nodded and tromped the accelerator even as McCarter shouted at Manning to have James do the same. Both vehicles barely had all four wheels on the soft, sandy ground when heavy sparks followed by black smoke poured from the chopper hovering just above them. The whirlybird began to spin—lazily at first and then with increasing frenzy—before the pilot finally lost control and had to set it down. Hard. The smoke and dust left in its wake made it impossible to see in the mirrors of their SUV.
“There’s some cover,” Hawkins said as he gestured toward a rocky outcropping.
Encizo nodded and whipped the wheel to put the SUV in that direction while he expertly controlled the vehicle as it fishtailed in the loose sand of the Namibian wilderness. McCarter signaled Manning, who indicated they saw it, as well, and were right on their tail. Within a half minute they had reached the cover of the large rocks, although not without the cost of a few bullet holes in the frames of their SUVs.
As they bailed from the vehicle into the chill desert air, they could hear the reports of autofire, detect the whine of ricochets or the buzz of rounds burning the air just above their heads.
“Boy, oh boy,” James said as they converged on the cover of the rocks. “We have walked right smack-dab into a stinger’s nest.”
“What is happening?” Matombo demanded, fear evident in his voice. “Who are these men?”
“They aren’t friendly, whoever they are,” McCarter stated. He exchanged glances with the faces of his teammates. “Options.”
“I got us some heavy thunder, boss,” Hawkins said, patting the M-203 grenade launcher mounted beneath his M-16 A-2.
Manning hefted the M-60 E-4 heavy-barreled machine gun. “And I can bring some.”
“Good,” McCarter said. “That should give us the covering fire we need.”
“Need for what?” Matombo asked.
“To crash their bloody party,” the Phoenix Force leader replied with a wicked grin.
CHAPTER FOUR
“Let me off here!” Lyons ordered.
Blancanales pumped the brakes and Lyons went EVA with the vehicle still moving at better than twenty miles per hour. The Able Team leader didn’t lose stride as he touched the pavement and rushed the front doors of the broken-down factory. The terrorist gunners, firing from positions on the upper floor, tried to cut him down but they didn’t have fields of fire that close to the building. Lyons made it through the rickety doorway unscathed and into the cold, dusty interior.
His breath was visible by the only light in the factory, shafts of sunbeams streaming through cracks and holes in the darkened windows. The shadows nearly obscured a pair of terrorist gunmen save for the light reflecting off their machine pistols. Lyons swung his M-16 A-3 into acquisition and triggered it from the hip. The weapon chattered a 3-round burst that took the first terrorist in the guts before it flipped him onto his back. Lyons had the second gunman targeted before the body of the first hit the stripped concrete floor. Lyons’s rounds struck the terrorist even as the man fired his own weapon and sent bullets into the ground. The man dropped to his knees as blood poured from his chest wounds. The light faded from his eyes before he toppled face-first to the concrete.
Lyons tracked a 360-degree arc with the muzzle of the M-16 A-3 before rushing to a metal stairwell. The fact the enemy had only left a defense of two men on the lower level bothered the warrior enough to pause and consider that he might be walking into a trap. Then again, what did it matter? They had to stay on mission and make sure the terrorists didn’t get away from them, irrespective of the risks. Springing the trap would accomplish the same thing as planning a stealth assault.
Lyons shot up the steps and made it about three-quarters of the way to the second floor before another pair of terrorists emerged from the darkness above. The men hadn’t seen Lyons and he hadn’t seen them, so they nearly collided save for the Able Team warrior’s reflexes. Too close to engage with the business end of his assault rifle, Lyons spun the weapon so the butt came up and caught the terrorist to his right under the chin. He followed through and a crack echoed along the stairwell as the impact flipped the man over the metal railing. The shout of surprise died in the man’s throat when he landed head-first on the concrete.
The other terrorist realized the proximity made any use of his rifle useless and he whipped out a combat knife. He leaped toward Lyons, knife blade pointed down and away from his body. Years of Shotokan training screamed at Lyons and he reacted by stepping inside the entry point of attack that would put the knife wielder’s blade as far from its intended target as possible. As he leaped aside, Lyons delivered an elbow to the side of the terrorist’s jaw while simultaneously checking the nerve in the forearm with the butt of his rifle. He followed with a hammer fist to the man that crushed his nose against his face. The swiftness and efficiency of the attack bought Lyons the time he needed to follow up with a disarm maneuver.
The knife clattered from numb fingers.
Lyons really went to work. He swung the rifle into the terrorist’s solar plexus, and the air rushed from the man in a whoosh. Lyons followed with a stomp kick to the knee that crushed tissue and ripped tendons. The terrorist emitted a howl of anguish as he folded on himself, and Lyons finished his attack with another kick that smashed the man’s head between the sole of Lyons’s boot and the wall of the factory. The terrorist’s body tumbled down the stairs.
Lyons turned and continued up the stairwell, undaunted in his mission to eradicate every last one of the IUA terrorists.
BLANCANALES AND SCHWARZ were pinned down.
The van provided their only saving grace, as venturing from the shelter of the vehicle would have meant the end for the pair of Able Team commandos. Bullets zinged off the pavement or slammed into the roof. There were no windows on the side of the van facing the terrorist assault line inside the second floor of the warehouse, so the specialized Kevlar body of the van easily repelled the firestorm without compromising structural integrity.
“It would seem they’re not going to make this easy on us,” Blancanales announced.
“No, it sure doesn’t,” Schwarz agreed.
“I wish to hell Ironman would have given one of us time to go with him.”
Schwarz decided the moment had come to even the odds, and in way of response to his comrade he grunted as he flipped a switch on the control panel inside the specially equipped van. A small LCD screen set in the sensitive array flickered to life and a picture of several moving shapes materialized a moment later. The heat of the gun barrels firing on them obscured the targets somewhat, but not enough that Schwarz couldn’t implement an effective firing solution.
“Let’s see if we can’t give Ironman some support in another fashion.” Schwarz stabbed a button on the console and the van came alive with a steady, heavy vibration.
Blancanales gripped the arms of the driver’s seat and looked around the van nervously. “What the hell is that?”
Schwarz apparently hadn’t found time to fully brief his companions on every new on-board feature of the van, since they had taken possession of it only a few days ago. The roof-mounted, electronically controlled and fired .50-caliber machine gun happened to be one of those features.
Schwarz jerked a thumb toward the roof. “A top-ten hit by John Moses Browning and the Fifty Calibers.”
“I’ve heard that tune before,” Blancanales said with a grin. “An oldie but a goody.”
“I do try.”
Chips of concrete marked where the .50-caliber shells struck, raising clouds of dust and debris that obscured the van. Blancanales saw the opportunity to bail and cradled the Beretta SCS-70/90 in a ready position. He crossed the open space and managed to get clear of the front as he sprinted along the side of the building and came up on its rear. Once he reached a safe point, Blancanales stopped to catch his breath and put his back firmly to the wall. There were no terrorists shooting at the rear because there were no windows.
But Blancanales found what he’d hoped to find: a door.
The warrior took several more deep breaths of the chill midday air and then rushed to the door. He tried the handle first. Locked. Blancanales stepped back, held the SCS-70/90 tight and low and squeezed the trigger. The 5.56 mm rounds shredded the flimsy metal of the lock and the door popped from the lock and swung outward.
Blancanales smiled as he edged through the gap, thankful fate had gone easy on him so far. He’d never been the superstitious kind but right now was a time he could believe in it. Lyons had once again opted for the direct approach by charging the building in a frontal assault like a madman. Now Blancanales had to traipse after him, cover his six so he didn’t get it shot off by a horde of well-armed terrorists.
Blancanales spotted a stairwell to his right. The body of a terrorist heaped at the bottom of the steps marked Lyons’s trail. Blancanales hopped over the body and took the steps two at a time. The reports of autofire had faded with the onslaught delivered by the electronic heavy battery being poured out by Schwarz. Blancanales figured it was proving enough to keep terrorist heads down, and that would buy him the time he needed to find his friend.
Blancanales should have known it wouldn’t be difficult. As he reached the top of the steps, he glimpsed Lyons hunkered behind a large steel drum for cover as at least a half dozen terrorists were angling for a clear shot. Blancanales took them by surprise when he rested his Beretta across the railing that lined the opening to the stairwell and, using it as a sort of bipod, strafed them with a sustained barrage of NATO rounds.
Lyons glanced at his friend and then with a wicked smile he popped up from the cover of the steel drum and joined in the offensive. The terrorists were unprepared to have the tables turned on them in such a fashion, and it didn’t take much to cut them to ribbons. Blancanales took out four of the six with bursts that struck heads, chests and stomachs. Lyons implemented a more methodical strategy, taking the time to draw close aim on his targets before squeezing off 3-round bursts in precise kill-zones. Their assault lasted only a matter of seconds and when the dust cleared the Able Team pair couldn’t hear anything but ringing in their ears, didn’t smell anything but spent gunpowder.
A squawk resounded in Blancanales’s ear, a signal from the van com. “What’s up, Gadgets?”
Schwarz’s voice came back. “I got company here!”
Blancanales heard the autofire through the earpiece the same moment he and Lyons heard it echo through the cavernous second floor from outside. He tried to inform Lyons but the Able Team leader already seemed aware of it because he was on the move before Blancanales could utter a word. The two men descended the steps with all speed and made for the front door. They emerged from the semidarkness into the blazing sunlight, the effect nearly blinding them, but caught enough of the scene in front of them to understand.
Three terrorists had entered one of their vans and were trying to make a break for it, shooting at Schwarz as they attempted to flee. Before either Lyons or Blancanales could react, the unoccupied van suddenly exploded in a flaming gas ball. Metal shards rained near them and one missed Lyons by mere inches. The Able Team duo raced for their van as one of the terrorists who had taken advantage of the distraction got behind the wheel and fled with a squeal of tires.
Lyons and Blancanales reached the van, Lyons diving into the back and shutting the door behind him as Blancanales got behind the wheel.
“You all right?” Lyons asked, his eyes shooting to the splotch of blood soaked into Schwarz’s shirt.
Schwarz had been gripping his forearm, and when he pulled his hand away it was slick with more blood. “Minor wing.”
“Don’t look minor.” Lyons groused as he broke out the first-aid kit.
Blancanales put the van in motion and whipped it around with enough force to knock Lyons off balance. Lyons muttered curses under his breath but they weren’t really at Blancanales; he knew the stakes were high here. A lot depended on them catching up to those IUA terror-mongers. If the terrorists escaped, it could mean serious consequences for the entire country.
