Power Grab

Another man fell to a bullet. There were several ricochets around them, and Lyons ducked, taking a round in the arm that had expended most of its energy bouncing from the corridor wall. He gritted his teeth against the pain. There was some blood, but it didn’t feel as if the slug had penetrated very far.

Then all of the shooters were down, except one. He turned as if to run, and Blancanales tackled him.

Or he tried.

As he hit the big man’s legs, Blancanales realized that their opponent was almost a giant. He had to crouch to avoid scraping his head on the top of the corridor, and he seemed almost as broad through the shoulders as Blancanales was tall. The giant grunted as Blancanales hit his legs…and then he straightened, reaching around with one grizzly-bear-size palm to grab the back of Blancanales’s head. He threw Blancanales into the corridor then, and the Able Team warrior went slack, knocked out cold.

The gun that came up in the giant’s fist looked like a toy. There was an audible click as the hammer of the 1911-pattern .45 automatic failed to fire. It wasn’t locked back, but Lyons wasn’t going to wonder what gods of fate had prompted this misfire. He pulled the trigger of his Colt Python.

It clicked. He was empty.

The giant roared in laughter then, his whole body shaking. He had a lion’s mane of naturally curly black hair framing a face that could have been chipped from granite. Strangely piercing blue eyes stared out from his craggy face, and Lyons recognized that look. This was one of the two brothers mentioned at the briefing. This was Karbuly Ghemenizov, son of Nikolo Ovan and leader of Ovan’s terror network here in the United States.

Ghemenizov wasted no words. He threw himself at Lyons, the sheer weight of the man knocking the former L.A. cop onto his back. The Python skittered across the floor. The second he hit the corridor, Lyons understood the lethal danger. Going to the ground with a larger opponent like this was a sure way to get killed. If Ghemenizov mounted him and started to pound him with those ham-size fists, he would never get up again.

Lyons brought his feet up, scooting to one side, keeping his feet between Ghemenizov and himself. He fired several vicious kicks from that position, several times catching Ghemenizov painfully in the shins. The giant roared, then simply waded through the defense of Lyons’s legs. Lyons’s had just enough time to roll to the side to avoid being pinned when Ghemenizov landed on the floor of the corridor.

He was not fast enough to escape. The big terrorist grabbed him and hooked an arm around his neck. Lyons ducked through that, going for the crook of the elbow, escaping before the giant could apply pressure. That was the only thing that saved his life.

He wriggled free and managed to get to his feet as the giant also rose, still on top of him. Then a fist the size of a small moon was rocketing toward him. He tried to bring up his arm to block and felt the fist smash right past his guard and into his face. The blow bounced him off the wall of the narrow access corridor. Stars exploded in his vision and bright spots swam in front of his eyes.

One of his martial-arts instructors had once counseled him, “Never celebrate the hit.” It was the sensei’s way of telling him not to waste time reacting to a blow, no matter how painful. The appropriate response to being hit was to hit back harder.

Lyons fired a punch with everything he had. He felt as if he’d struck a brick wall, but he put all his power behind it anyway, following through with every fiber of his being. Ghemenizov howled and actually rocked back slightly.

Lyons didn’t know how much damage he was doing and didn’t care. Half blind, he began punching and kicking, throwing knees and round kicks and elbow strikes, anything and everything he could summon. He mixed in ax-hand strikes and hammer fists, too, fighting for his life, driving back the monster who towered over him.

He felt something give in the big man’s torso, possibly a rib.

With a bellow of inhuman fury, Ghemenizov started to drive Lyons back. He fought with little technique, using his natural strength and ferocity, but this he had in abundance. Lyons felt the shock wave of every blow as the giant hammered away at him. Then, as he reeled under the onslaught, he heard the giant speak.

“You wonder, don’t you,” Ghemenizov whispered, his accent sounding like nothing so much as thickly Russian. “You wonder why I waited. Why I watched you tamper with my little bombs. I know you stopped the bombs in the little market. We were warned. I wanted to see. I like to see my foes, see who dares to challenge me, before I crush them.”

Then he was done talking, apparently. Ghemenizov grabbed Lyons, now dazed, by the throat with one hand, wrapping his fingers in the leather of Lyons’s bomber jacket with the other. He started squeezing, and Lyons could only hammer away ineffectually at the big man’s arms. He tried to reach for the tactical folding knife he kept clipped to his pants’ pocket, but he could not find it; it had apparently been dislodged during the struggle.

“You are very strong,” the giant said in his ear, still squeezing.

Lyons could feel his vision start to go gray around the edges. Black spots replaced the bright blobs he had seen before.

“I like a good fight. You have given me one. But you, like everyone who faces me, have lost. I enjoy making people lose. I enjoy hurting them. I have enjoyed hurting you.”

He threw Lyons to the floor, and the big cop felt the floor strike his face with unyielding finality. Some part of his mind could picture Ghemenizov raising a large foot to stomp him. A man like this would relish stomping on a fallen enemy.

Schwarz would have been able to deactivate the bombs by now. He and Blancanales would be able to continue the fight. He, Carl Lyons, would not be the first Stony Man warrior to fall in the line of duty, at the hands of a brutal foe.

He only regretted that he would not be able to complete the mission and destroy Ovan’s network—

The shots, when they came, sounded strangely distant. Lyons realized then that he was hearing the triple bursts of Schwarz’s Beretta 93-R. He faded for a moment, then came back, then faded again. Finally he opened his eyes and looked up at the face of Hermann Schwarz.

“Oh, thank God,” Schwarz said. “I thought I was going to have to give you mouth to mouth.”

Blancanales’s face came into view. He looked sheepish. “Come on, Ironman. We’ve got to keep moving.”

“Did you get him?”

“No,” Schwarz said. “He got away. With you and Pol both down I didn’t dare go after him and leave you and the bombs unattended.”

“It was…Karbuly Ghemenizov. Head of their terror network here. Should have…gone after him.”

“And let your brains leak out all over this floor?” Schwarz said with a half grin. “Not likely, Carl. Come on. We’ve got to get the deactivated bombs back to the chopper.”

“Police?”

“Not coming unless somebody thought we should have paid at the gate,” Schwarz said. “The noise down here was probably nothing like gunfire to the folks upstairs.” They could still hear the music and cheering of the game above.

“You saved my life,” Lyons said.

“Pol’s, too,” Schwarz said. “I keep reminding him.”

“Help me up,” Lyons said.

His teammates helped the big blond cop get to his feet.

“How do you feel?” Schwarz asked.

“I just got the shit beaten out of me by a giant Cossack,” Lyons said. “How do you think I feel?”

“Well, you’re alive enough to be grumpy,” Schwarz said, helping him down the corridor as Blancanales covered them both. “I imagine you’ll live.”

“Shut up, Gadgets.”

“It looks like he mostly pounded on your skull,” Schwarz went on. “That should mean you’ll be fine in just a little while.”

“Shut up, Gadgets.”

They continued bickering as they made their way back to the Chinook. Grimaldi wasted no time asking questions. He simply put the heavy helicopter back into the air. “We’ve got our next target,” he reported. “The Farm says Warlock has pinpointed another set of signals in Albany, New York. That’s where we’re headed.”

“All right.” Lyons nodded wearily.

Blancanales retrieved the chopper’s well-equipped first-aid kit and went to work. He started probing at Lyons’s chest. The big cop breathed in heavily but refused to give in to the pain any more than that.

“I don’t think your ribs are broken,” Blancanales said finally. “Although I couldn’t say why not, from what Gadgets says happened. All I remember is a sensation of flying, and then the wall and I got to know each other.”

“He wasn’t the most fun person you’ll ever meet,” Lyons said.

The chopper was headed east. Lyons could tell from the position of the sun. They spoke over the noise of the chopper as Grimaldi flew them. Lyons hoped there would be enough time. Whoever was in position in Albany, Karbuly Ghemenizov wouldn’t be there…but there was no point in searching the city of Syracuse for him. He wouldn’t be staying there, unless it was to plant more bombs, and if he did so, the Warlock network would find him.

Lyons hoped so.

“You’re looking pretty grim, Carl,” Schwarz said, less teasing now. “You all right?”

“I don’t like getting my ass kicked.”

“Did you see that guy?” Schwarz asked. “He could beat up a marching band and have energy left over for the color guard.”

“That has to be the strangest comparison I’ve ever heard.”

“Quiet,” Schwarz said. “Your brain is scrambled and you’re not in my right mind.”

“Gadgets?”

“Yes, Carl?”

“Shut up.”

CHAPTER FIVE

Tehran, Iran

The irony that they were fighting to protect supporters and party officials belonging to the hard-line tyrant now holding Iran’s presidency was not lost on David McCarter. The strange complication of the surveillance equipment, unaccounted for, worried him a great deal, but there was nothing to be done about that now. They would have to play out the hand they had been dealt. It would do no good to concern themselves with factors whose import was not discernible yet.

The small cafeteria hall that was the site of the first rally boasted a crowd of a few hundred people. Phoenix Force, at Ahmadi’s urging, insinuated themselves into the crowd toward the back. There were a few token security personnel here and there, from what they could tell. These men wore no uniforms and, while they carried wireless radios, did not appear to be armed.

The front of the cafeteria hall had been decorated with banners bearing Magham’s photograph and some sort of slogan. None of McCarter’s team would have been able to understand it even if they could read the writing, but of course that was irrelevant. A podium had been erected, and one of several speakers who Ahmadi had said was a minor party functionary was now going on in Persian. He sounded boring even in an incomprehensible language, McCarter thought, and it didn’t surprise him that politics was dull no matter what the cultural environment.

The plan, inasmuch as they were able to create one, was simply to stay among the crowd unless and until a terrorist hit was enacted. It was a stopgap measure; McCarter would much have preferred to go directly to the heart of the matter but, as Brognola had said, there were certain political concerns. The big Fed would not come right out and say it in so many words in the briefing, but they all understood that there were certain political exigencies at stake. It wasn’t enough to destroy Ovan or to smash Magham. The men involved had to be exposed so that the world would know why such men had been destroyed and smashed. Thus the weight of public opinion would not be thrown too hard against those few industrialized nations still willing to combat terror in the world.

The real difficulty here would be in pulling off armed resistance to the attack without ending up in the hands of the Iranian authorities. At the thought, McCarter realized it was odd that this rally, supporting as it did the current government’s regime, boasted no Iranian Internal Security agents. He edged closer to Ahmadi, who now wore a radio just as did Phoenix Force’s members. Their conversation would be inaudible to anyone not wearing such an earpiece.

“Ghaem, lad,” McCarter said softly. “Where is the IIS in all this?”

“It is indeed curious,” Ahmadi said. “Usually, Magham’s operatives travel with them in plentiful number.”

“Not that I’m complaining, mate,” McCarter said, “but just how do you suppose we would pull this off if the place were crawling with IIS men?”

“I assumed you would think of something.” Ahmadi managed to sound sheepish, even whispering. “You came highly recommended.”

“Can’t argue that,” McCarter said with a mental shrug.

The audience began to close in around the podium as the speaker made as if to wrap up his comments. Apparently he was some sort of preliminary figure, for the crowd perked up considerably when the next man strode to the podium. He began without apparent preamble, making sweeping gestures with his arms, doing his best to animate the crowd. For the most part, they responded, and the men of Phoenix Force played along, shouting when the crowd shouted, waving when the crowd waved.

McCarter was starting to feel silly when he saw the first of the killers.

He would not have been able to explain, if asked, what first drew his attention to the man. It was something in his body language, a quality visible to a soldier with years of battlefield experience. The man who stood in the midst of the crowd, playing along as McCarter was doing, was focused entirely too much on everyone but the speaker at the podium. He kept brushing his hand across his shirt just above his waistline, too, a dead giveaway. It was a tell that he was carrying a firearm or some other weapon there.

“David,” Encizo said in his ear. “I have a possible shooter.”

“Describe him,” McCarter said. He listened. It was clear that Encizo was describing an entirely different person.

“I’ve got another,” James said. “He’s just to my left, in a black shirt and tan pants.”

“Me, too,” Manning said. “In fact, I see two, close to the podium on the far right.”

“I’ve got one, as well,” Hawkins drawled.

McCarter worked his way farther to the rear of the hall. He looked out over the assembled group and, with the positions of his team still fixed in his mind, ran down the approximate positions of the potential shooters. “Calvin,” he said, “I need you to take the two closest to you. That’s yours and the one Rafe spotted.” He ran down assignments for Manning and Hawkins, too. “That leaves one for me. Get ready.”

Ahmadi had assumed McCarter and his men would think of something.

McCarter reached the rear of the cafeteria and pulled the fire alarm.

The response was immediate. Most of the crowd began filing out of the room, conditioned as were most people to respond to a fire alarm. But in that moment when most people stop and look up in reaction to such an alarm, the possible shooters had looked, not to the alarm, but to their target at the podium. McCarter knew what they were thinking; it was what he would be thinking in their place. They were wondering how to complete their mission.

Well, they wouldn’t be. He and Phoenix Force would make certain of that.

“Now!” McCarter ordered.

The Phoenix Force commandos drew their weapons and leveled them at the would-be gunmen. The shooters went for their own weapons, but they weren’t fast enough. The pops of pistols were almost anticlimactic in the seconds that followed. Phoenix Force moved in on their targets, crouching low, moving smoothly, confident in their ability to engage enemies in close-quarters handgun exchanges and come out the winner.

As soon as the battle had begun, it was over, and the members of Phoenix Force stood over a dozen dead bodies.

Someone screamed.

The few people who had not responded to the fire alarm began to flee from the cafeteria. The speaker at the podium and the political operatives with him looked around in dismay. Some of them fled and some of them didn’t; the ones who remained looked confused or frozen.

It was time to go, before they met more resistance.

“Go, go, go, go,” McCarter urged. The team backed away, leaving the stunned speaker still at his podium. “Do we have anyone else?”

“No one that I can see,” Encizo reported. There were calls of assent from the other team members.

“Let’s fade, lads,” McCarter said. “Ghaem?”

“Meet me at the rear entrance, please,” Ahmadi reported. “I have secured alternate transportation.” The foghorn sirens of Iranian Internal Security were closing in. Ahmadi could hear them better than he could, McCarter was certain.

He stepped over one of the corpses—and it grabbed him. The terrorist was not yet dead, and he was determined to take someone with him. McCarter went down and suddenly found himself wrestling for possession of his Browning with a man possessed. The strength of adrenaline, fear and imminent death made the man’s hands iron as he clawed at the Briton.

“Keep going!” McCarter yelled. He slammed a palm heel up under his adversary’s chin. “Don’t wait for me! Go!”

The sirens were more insistent now; they sounded as if they were immediately outside. This was what Mc Carter had feared: doing their jobs only to end up handing themselves to the Iranian security forces. To be prisoners under those circumstances would be a fate worse than death. The Farm would have to disavow knowledge of them, and the Iranians, realizing they had high-value military personnel from the United States, would never let them go. They would probably use their captives for whatever propaganda value they could get, first torturing each member of Phoenix Force to break them.

Everyone could be broken. Many times McCarter and the men of Phoenix had found themselves in the clutches of determined enemies, and at times those experiences had been decidedly unpleasant. They had remained strong through them, but he had no illusions. The members of Phoenix Force were human, not super-men, and they could be broken by persistent torture as could virtually anyone else. It could take years of privation and steady mistreatment…or it could take hours of brutal, maiming torture, depending on the methods used.

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