using infrared equipment and could clearly spot every one of them.
The strategy was clear. Miller was operating with three teams on this assault. One team hit the airfield. The other two waited until the airfield alert drew additional security troops. Then Miller's other teams would move in.
Bolan saw sporadic exchanges of fire between commandos and security patrols who attempted to intercept them. But it was too damn dark down there. Bolan saw one terrorist go down. He saw two Farm troopers spin away to the ground under hails of enemy fire.
When the chopper had made a complete circle, Bolan got Stony on the shortwave.
'Striker to Stony Man.'
April's voice. 'Stony Man. Go ahead, Striker.'
'I'm coming in from the outside,' said Bolan. 'Five infiltrators moving in on the main building from the southwest. They're meeting some resistance. Get them reinforced.'
'I'll send Katz and McCarter. Anything else?'
'Eight more moving in from the east. Have Wade send down anyone he can spare from the front gate. I'm moving in on the eight. Over and out.'
Bolan felt good hearing April's voice. What a woman.
Grimaldi did not need telling. He swung the chopper in low behind the eight figures advancing from the east.
The commandos were a thousand meters from the main house when they were engaged in a firefight with security troops.
The predawn night of Stony Man Farm crackled with sounds of armed combat, men grunting terse exchanges, the cacophony of battle echoing back from the low cloud ceiling heavy with a rain that would not come.
Shadows darted between shadows.
Flashes of gunfire lanced the thick black air.
As Grimaldi zoomed in, Bolan saw one of the commandos nailed to a tree by a blast of M-16 automatic fire from one of the Stony Man security men.
There was no sign of Wade.
Bolan was back in the doorway of the chopper when the Hughes raced over two wedge-shape squads of commandos and two other men lagging somewhat behind.
The straggling pair would be Miller and his second-in-command.
Miller was the next link in the chain. He had to be taken alive.
Bolan opened fire with his M-16 at the two forward squads. He saw four of the men caught in a withering hail of fire. The other two, and Miller and his man, scattered. Bolan lost sight of Miller behind a clump of trees as the chopper started to climb away.
One of the surviving commandos swung around his grenade launcher, aimed at the receding chopper and triggered.
The chopper rocked and spun as the night erupted for Bolan in a thunderclap of brilliance and spinning sensation.
The chopper was hit!
Grimaldi had been cruising low enough so that Bolan's fall to the meadow would jolt every bone in his body, but not enough to kill him.
Bolan came out of a tumbling roll in time to see the chopper skid to a stop in the clearing several feet away. Grimaldi was able to land the damaged aircraft, but he did not emerge from the disabled Hughes.
Bolan had lost the M-16 somewhere during his fall.
Though he still wore the Nitefinder goggles he did not take time to look for the rifle.
He unleathered his .44 AutoMag and raced toward the chopper while keeping a constant lookout for any movement coming at him. There was none. The Hughes had sustained a hit to its rear end, which was now in flames.
The fuel tank could go at any moment.
Bolan reached the bubble front and found Grimaldi slumped forward against his shoulder-strap harness. The pilot wore a nasty bruise on his temple.
Bolan unhooked the man who had saved the Executioner's hide on so many missions. Jack was breathing.
Bolan kept Big Thunder in his right fist, fanning the night as he hefted the Stony flyboy over his shoulder and jogged away from the fiery wreck.
He went twenty paces when the Nitefinders caught a figure to his left. It was the bastard who'd brought down the chopper. The guy was swinging an Uzi around in Bolan's direction, not particularly careful to stand behind cover because he didn't know Bolan could see him.
Bolan did not slacken his pace as he brought up Big Thunder and triggered a .44 Magnum round that ruptured the guy's head into a reddish mist in the infrared goggles.
Behind them, the Hughes exploded as the fire touched the fuel. A hot invisible wall lifted Bolan and his human cargo off the ground then slammed them back down.
April Rose emerged from the 'farmhouse' command post in time to catch Katz and McCarter. She relayed to them Bolan's report of the number and position of infiltrators moving in from the southwestern corner of the Farm.
'Wade's chaps need backup,' McCarter grunted, snicking his M-16 into its automatic mode.
'Let's give it to them,' growled Katzenelenbogen.
The two Phoenix members hustled off into the night.
April gripped her pistol. She had no intention of returning to the safety of the Stony Man communications room. The farmhouse was adequately guarded.
She turned and jogged back to the grounds on the other side of the house where Phoenix Force member Rafael Encizo was covering Aaron Kurtzman and his men in their final repairs of the sabotaged satellite unit.
The rattle of gunfire and an exploding HE broke the darkness.
She advanced on the tight circle of men and equipment several meters behind the farm building.
April sensed movement to her right.
Crouching, she whirled and fired the Magnum in a two-handed grip. She clearly saw the figure of a commando and heard the sound of a bullet slapping open flesh and bone, and a grunt of expelled breath and the rustle of deadweight tripping backward to the ground.
They were getting close. This one must have circled around from the eastern squads engaged by Bolan and Grimaldi!
April Rose continued cautiously toward Kurtzman, Encizo and the others to see what she could do.
McCarter and Katzenelenbogen came upon heavy fire when they were about one thousand meters from the house.
They found three of Captain Wade's security personnel pinned down and exchanging fire with the enemy across a clearing of dogwood. One security man was sprawled in a lifeless clump where he fell, a dark pool of blood around his head.
'Colonel Phoenix got one of them, sir,' a lieutenant reported to Katz. 'I think two of them split off to circle around us or the house. That leaves three across that meadow, and we're too damn pinned down to budge or do anything but hold them up.'
Katz plucked a grenade from his utility belt.
'The pot needs stirring,' he told the soldier who was not outfitted with grenades.
'Give it to 'em, mate,' growled McCarter.
The Briton had pitched himself onto his belly alongside the soldiers and was returning fire at the two blasting commandos across the clearing.
Katz pulled out the pin with his teeth. He flung the explosive with his prosthetic right hand. The grenade sailed true. The Phoenix team members and soldiers ducked, covering their eyes.
Ten seconds after the pin was pulled, the HE ruptured the night in a dazzling flash of fire, smoke and roar
