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CHAPTER FIVE

One of the attackers lunged forward, flattened against the floor and tried to draw a bead on Lyons, who knew he was a nanosecond from death as the stream of bullets slashed toward him like a cutlass sinking in a downward stroke.

A guttural cry welling up from within, Lyons stroked the Uzi’s trigger. The volley of slugs closed the gap between him and his attacker, pounding into the man, eliciting a crimson spray as the man jerked under the Uzi’s onslaught.

Swinging his weapon forty-five degrees, Lyons squeezed off a second burst that ripped through another terrorist’s white button-down shirt and pulped his chest. The bullets whipsawed the man until Lyons eased off the trigger and turned his attention elsewhere. The man folded to the ground in a boneless heap.

A third man, weapon at hip level, came into view, but withered quickly under relentless blasting from Blancanales, never getting off a shot.

At the same time the door of Hakim’s private elevator slid open behind them, revealing another trio of hardmen. From the corner of his eye, Lyons saw Schwarz turn to meet the threat, his Uzi up and ready. The stout weapon stuttered out a searing line of 9 mm slugs as Schwarz hosed down the elevator car’s interior, cutting down the men before any could squeeze off a shot. One of the men pitched forward from the automatic door squeezing and releasing his body as it tried to close.

Lyons stared through the thick haze of gun smoke that clung to the air. He strained his ears, listening for more attackers, but heard only the roar of blood thundering through his ears and the muffled beating of helicopter rotors.

As the din of gunfire died down, he looked at Schwarz, who shot him a grin. “You think they know we’re here?” the electronics genius asked.

Schwarz let his micro-Uzi fall free on its shoulder strap. Wedging himself between the corpse and the elevator door, the Able Team warrior grabbed the corpse by his belt and shirt collar and heaved him into the corridor. A moment later he again fisted the Uzi while propping open the elevator door with his hip, waiting for the others.

His teammates boarded the elevator. Schwarz punched the penthouse button and the elevator lurched to life. All three men ejected spent or partially spent magazines from their weapons and inserted fresh ones. Lyons also fisted the Colt Python.

Holstering his Uzi, Schwarz withdrew a pair of grenades from special pockets in his jacket. As the elevator came to a stop, all three men crouched low, figuring they’d face an almost-instantaneous onslaught of weapons fire when the door opened.

They were right.

The angry chatter of submachine guns sounded and weapons fire lanced through the doorway, splintering the elevator’s interior, a few of the rounds ricocheting around the confined space. Schwarz armed the flash-bang grenade and rolled it into the room while Blancanales and Lyons returned fire from prone positions, their shots shredding upholstering, chewing through wood and showering the room with shredded stuffing.

The first grenade exploded, filling the room with a sudden white flash and a crack of thunder. The thugs’ weapons fire became more sporadic and less focused as men fought to reorient their senses after the startling explosion.

In the meantime, Schwarz activated the second device and tossed it through the doorway. The cylindrical object skittered across the mirror-finished hardwood floors before banking off a table leg and coming to rest next to a large vase. Plumes of gray smoke poured from the grenade, shrouding the room in a seemingly impenetrable haze.

The Able Team warriors used the cover to exit the elevator, crawling on their stomachs, propelling themselves forward on their elbows.

Lyons was the first on his feet, coming up in a crouch. He glided along the wall, using it as a touchstone while he waited for the smoke to clear. The big man had walked about twenty paces when a thug spilled out of the smoke, hacking, rubbing his eyes with one hand, but searching out a target with the muzzle of his handgun. Lyons snap-aimed the Colt, squeezed off two shots, planting both into the man’s center mass. The force shoved his body into a nearby hutch, shattering the etched-glass windows and showering the floor with bits of china, glass and blood.

Motion to his right caused Lyons to whirl. He spotted a second shooter drawing down on him with an automatic pistol. The big ex-cop bent at the knees, aiming the Uzi and triggering it within the span of a heartbeat. As Lyons fired, the Arab shooter triggered a quick burst of autofire that cleaved the air a foot or so above Lyons’s head. In the same instant, a reply from the Able Team leader’s Uzi hammered into the man’s midsection. The gunner emitted a short cry of pain as the rounds drilled into him and dumped him in a heap.

The rattle of weapons fire to Lyons’s right caught his attention. Whirling toward the source, he spotted Blancanales pinned down behind an overturned dining-room table. Concentrated autofire from assault rifles wielded by two of Hakim’s killers shredded the wooden barrier.

The shooters were positioned at twelve and three o’clock from Blancanales’s position. The Able Team commando was curled up behind the table, reloading his Uzi, as rounds from the twin AK-47s pierced the table and sizzled the air around him. Fear for his friend’s safety quickly morphed into white-hot rage.

Lyons brought the Colt into target acquisition, trying to nail the guy closest to him even as he brought the Uzi around to gut the second thug trying to kill his teammate. As he did, a third man sprinted from the hallway, pistol in hand as he ran up on Blancanales to get a clear shot.

“Pol!” Lyons yelled.

As the warning escaped his lips, Lyons caught the vague impression of a lithe shape, little more than a blur, thundering toward him. A second later, someone struck him with a flying tackle. He felt air explode from his lungs as he lost his footing and tumbled over. As he went down, his senses trying to identify this latest threat, he heard gunshots from near Blancanales’s position, followed by an anguished cry.

AS THE SMOKE from his grenade began to clear, Schwarz saw a shape cross the hellground of Hakim’s penthouse, apparently heading for the glass double doors that led onto the rooftop that doubled as a patio and helipad.

Uzi held at the ready, Schwarz threaded between bits of furniture savaged by the fighting and closed in on the fleeing figure, hoping to get a better look. As the door slid open, the gale-force breeze whipped up by a helicopter’s rotor wash exploded through the doorway, the whining of the turbine engines overtaking the crackle of gunfire. The smoke thinned to little more than a haze and Schwarz saw Hakim silhouetted for a moment in the doorway as the man passed through it and onto the rooftop.

Schwarz proceeded for the door at a dead run, vaulting overturned chairs and coffee tables as he closed in on his quarry. At this point, the bastard was their best bet for finding the other Arm of God killers running loose in America, their best bet for preventing a possible terrorist strike, mass murder in America.

That meant escape wasn’t an option for Hakim. At least not while Schwarz and the others lived. One of Hakim’s killers crossed Schwarz’s path, the muzzle of his pistol fast locking on Schwarz. The Able Team warrior fired from the hip, the Uzi stuttering out fire and lead that thrust the man back against a wall, body jerking until Schwarz eased off the trigger. The man slid down the length of the wall, leaving a bloody smear in his wake.

Schwarz barely acknowledged the death as he darted through the doorway. Instantly the transition from indoor light to the brilliant San Diego sun caused him to squint for a moment as his eyes readjusted. He made out the vague impression of Hakim’s silhouette as the man sprinted for the chopper. He considered firing low, raking Hakim’s feet and ankles with bullets, hobbling him and ending his escape plans all at once. He dismissed the idea for the moment, at least until his eyes adjusted. He couldn’t risk shooting too high and killing rather than wounding his quarry.

The men in the chopper had no so such limitations when it came to nailing Schwarz. Gunfire lanced through the air around him as he darted for the fleeing man. Someone was firing upon him from inside the helicopter. Running in a zigzag pattern, the Able Team commando covered the distance between himself and his quarry, his breath growing ragged under the stress of dodging live fire.

A bullet scorched the air next to his cheek. Ducking, he spotted the source, a man crouched in the chopper’s door, a pistol in his hand. The hard guy squeezed off a second shot, but in the same instant, the hovering chopper lurched forward, throwing off his aim, causing the round to slice through the air above Schwarz’s head rather than into his face. Cursing, the warrior lunged forward, landing hard against the fake grass carpeting the patio. The Uzi ground out a quick burst that stabbed into the chopper, driving the man under cover, but not striking him.

In a heartbeat, Schwarz was again up and running across the roof. Reflexively, he squinted against the rotor wash, the incessant beating of the blades tousling his hair, causing his clothes to ripple. The shooter in the helicopter came back into view, exposing a sliver of his face, a shoulder and a knee.

Not much.

But, in this case, maybe enough.

Schwarz tapped out a sustained burst from the Uzi, the shots pounding into the chopper’s skin just next to the crouched shooter. The bullets rent steel, penetrating it before slamming into the terrorist. The guy’s eyes widened and his mouth opened, apparently in a scream. The man’s limbs went rubbery and he pitched forward, his body hanging half in, half out of the chopper, suspended by the harness. His pistol fell to the ground.

Schwarz closed in on Hakim, who, after taking a brief spill, was back on his feet and darting for the helicopter. Schwarz raked his Uzi over the ground at Hakim’s feet. However the slugs caught dead air as the terrorist sprang through the door. In the same instant, the submachine gun clicked dry.

Shit. It would come down to this, Schwarz thought.

Reloading as he ran, the Able Team commando vaulted an overturned table, ducking reflexively as he closed in on the chopper with its whirling blades. Engines whining, the craft lifted off the rooftop, its skids about five feet off the ground.

Springing forward, Schwarz caught the landing skid by looping an arm around it. With his free hand he grabbed the elbow suspending him from the skid, hoping to fortify his position.

The chopper continued its ascent. Suddenly, Schwarz’s world became one of deafening engine noise, nauseating fumes, buffeting winds and the steely pull of gravity. Muscles straining, burning, he freed his hand from his elbow and closed it around the skid, tried to pull himself onto it, his body held back by the rotor wash’s unseen force. He kicked once, twice, unsuccessfully trying to loop his leg over the landing gear.

He chanced an upward glance. Two things registered with him, Hakim’s face contorted with rage and a pistol muzzle tracking in on his head.

BLANCANALES SPOTTED a pair of hardmen pushing through the sliding doors leading from the rooftop patio and fanned out across the luxurious living room. A third man popped out from a kitchen door, molding himself around the jamb and trying to acquire Blancanales as a target. The commando dropped into a crouch and raked a punishing, waist-high burst through the room.

Blancanales’s initial volley of slugs chewed through plaster, slicing and dicing the midsection of the man hiding out in the kitchen. The man uttered a strangled cry accompanied by a stuttering protest from his AK-47 as his trigger finger tightened reflexively in death.

The other two men parted and went to ground, each unloading his assault weapon at Blancanales. Bullets scorching the air around him, the Stony Man warrior pressed his attack. He swept the stammering Uzi in a horizontal line, dropping a hard rain of fiery lead on his opponents.

His weapon clicking empty, Blancanales ejected the machine pistol’s clip as he dived forward. Skidding to a stop underneath a large oak table, he drove a foot into the table, tipped it onto its side, grateful for the cover as he reloaded his weapon. He heard the dull thump of bullets smacking into the furnishing, ripping its finely crafted, curved edges into a jagged line, like a mouthful of broken teeth.

He rolled onto his stomach, peered around the table’s curved edge and poked the Uzi through the opening. He caught one of the hardmen breaking cover, assault rifle snug against his hip as he closed in on Blancanales for the kill. The second shooter was firing sporadically at Blancanales’s position.

He targeted another hardman delivering a blistering volley of 7.62 mm slugs from his AK-47. The commando heard glass shattering overhead, felt shards raining down upon him. He snapped off a short volley of slugs that came within a hairbreadth of slaughtering the gunner.

His combat senses crying out, Blancanales thrust himself to the right before his mind understood why. A chandelier plummeted to the floor, hitting the spot he’d just vacated. The glass light fixture struck the ground and exploded, littering the air with shards that bit into the exposed skin of his face and hands. He shut his eyes, protectively wrapping a forearm around them and riding out the assault of splintered glass.

Blancanales popped open his eyes in time to see his opponent drawing a bead on him with the AK-47. Snap-aiming, he fired the Uzi. The swarm of 9 mm slugs speared through the man’s lower stomach, shoving him back as the bullets devastated his internal organs.

Ears still ringing with gunfire, Blancanales nevertheless sensed motion to his left. He spun and caught another shooter, this one armed with a sawed-off shotgun, popping up from behind a chair. Blancanales stroked the Uzi’s trigger as he swept the SMG in a figure-eight pattern that lanced through the overturned furniture and drilled into the man’s center mass. In a last act of resistance, the man triggered his shotgun, the weapon unleashing a thunderous blast that tore into the ceiling.

Getting cautiously to his feet, Blancanales traded the Uzi for his Beretta. The thrumming of the helicopter sounded from outside. The aircraft’s noise combined with their distance from the street made it impossible to tell whether the police, sirens blaring, were descending upon the building. But he knew it was only a matter of time before the local cops hit the scene. Scanning the room, he took in the battlefield littered with corpses, shattered glass and shredded plaster. He couldn’t help but mutter an oath under his breath.

Lots of carnage and no information.

From behind a couch, he heard a grunt that unmistakably belonged to Lyons.

At the same time he also noticed that Schwarz was nowhere in sight, and a cold sensation traveled down his spine. Where the hell was he?

“C’mon, lady, give me a break here,” Lyons said.

First things first.

The Beretta leading the way, he rounded the couch and found Lyons tussling with a woman. She was dressed in black jeans, fashionable boots and a cranberry-colored, long-sleeved shirt. He couldn’t see her face, but her glossy black hair had spilled over the floor. From her profile, he could tell she was Asian. She also was giving Lyons a pretty fair tussle. Lyons had straddled the woman at the waist. He held her wrists in his big hands, but the woman continued to struggle.

“Get your hands off me, you bastard,” she yelled. Blancanales recognized the voice in an instant, felt his heart skip a beat. Shit! What was she doing here?

“Relax, lady,” Lyons was saying. “You jumped me, remember?”

Shaking off his surprise, he closed in on the pair, each step intensifying the squeezing sensation on his heart. In an instant he recognized the woman from her brown eyes and full, coral-colored lips, to the fiery temper that seemed to emanate from every pore.

It was Donna Ling, a woman from his distant past. And they had a history.

WITH GRAVITY TUGGING at his feet and the punishing wind of the rotor blades smacking into him, Schwarz knew he had only one chance for survival.

He raised the Uzi and fired the weapon at Hakim, dragging it across the man’s exposed knees. Hakim’s eyes widened in shock and the pistol fell from his fingers as 9 mm slugs tore through flesh and bone. He stumbled forward. At the same moment the pilot gave the chopper a hard jerk, an apparent attempt to knock Schwarz from the landing gear. The sudden motion caused Hakim to pitch out the door, his face instantly morphing from shock to fear as he went forward.

Schwarz looked down, saw the distance between himself and the roof. He guessed a good twenty feet already separated him.

Hell.

Letting go of the landing gear, he watched as the rooftop rushed up to meet him.

THE PRESENCE of someone approaching from behind had caused Lyons, his face red with anger and exertion, to glance over his shoulder. When he saw Blancanales, he rolled his eyes, but his teammate barely noticed. In the same instant, Blancanales’s gaze intersected with Ling’s and they stared at each other. He watched as the anger and fear fueling her struggle drained away to be quickly replaced by shock, the same emotion roiling inside him.

“Let her go, Carl,” Blancanales said.

“What?” Lyons shouted. “Are you crazy?”

The woman stopped struggling, whipped her head toward Blancanales. “Pol?” Ling said.

“I can explain,” Blancanales said to Lyons.

“This ought to be good,” Lyons fired back.

More gunfire crackled outside, followed by the sickening thud of something heavy hitting the roof. Almost immediately, the chopper’s whine grew louder and the sound of the aircraft’s engine more distant.

Gadgets!

Blancanales was sprinting for the door. Lyons was on his feet and following, the Colt Python gripped in his right hand.

The Able Team warriors burst through the door. Blancanales swept his gaze over the rooftop. He saw a man, Hakim, writhing on the ground, his pant legs stained dark with blood, his flesh rent by bullets. Schwarz stepped into view, his Beretta held in front of him, muzzle aimed at Hakim as he closed in on the Arab. He was shouting for the man to stay down.

The thrumming of the chopper’s engine grew louder. Peering up, he saw the craft circling and coming back for another pass, its side door pulled open. A hardman cut loose with a burst from the AK-47. The volley of rounds slammed into Hakim, causing him to convulse wildly. A half-dozen geysers of blood erupted from his torso.

Schwarz dropped into a crouch and fired upward. A trio of bullets sailed through the aircraft’s door, driving the man inside. The chopper grabbed altitude almost immediately and left.

“Damn!” Lyons yelled.

Able Team converged at Hakim’s body. Schwarz already had moved to the terrorist’s side and was examining him for a pulse. He looked up at the two men and shook his head.

“Need a séance to interrogate this guy,” he said.

“Wonderful,” Lyons commented. “I guess we’re back at square one.”

Blancanales looked over at Ling. “Maybe not.”