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.”

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