Then Gadgets came through the door. He pushed past Taximan. Like Lyons and Blancanales, he wore battle-black and had a silenced CAR-16 slung over his shoulder. In each hand he carried several small electronic devices. 'Last-minute trick. Here, radio in the front pocket, here's the earphone.'
'More walkie-talkies?' Lyons asked. 'I've got two already.'
'These pick up their frequency. See the knob?' Gadgets explained as he slipped the small radio into Lyons' pocket. 'We can monitor them. But when things get moving, twist the knob. It'll jam their walkie-talkies.'
'Any chance they'll be monitoring us?'
'I don't think so. The truck out in New Jersey had all their serious electronics in it.' Gadgets looked over at the flaming window. 'What's going on over there?' They saw the plate-glass window drop back into the office. A young woman waved her arms. Blancanales raised the bow, drew back, but didn't let the arrow fly.
'Go!' Lyons told him. 'Make your shot!'
'Signal for her to get out of the way,' Blancanales told the agent with the flashlight.
'
The arrow arced through the night, monofilament singing from the reel.
Shivering in the chill wind, Mrs. Forde explained what had happened. 'Diane came out of the office and told me we were almost ready for the officers to come in. Sandy wasn't paying attention to the elevators, she wanted to hear what we were saying... Then the two creeps with guns came out of the elevator. She didn't see them until I shot at them. I think I hit one. But they grabbed Sandy, took her with them.' She was almost hysterical.
'Did you watch what floor they went to?' Green asked her.
'The third floor. They went straight down to the third floor.'
'Okay, calm down. Get out of the wind. The shakes will go away, don't worry.' Green pried the pistol out of Mrs. Forde's hands, checked the cylinder. He pulled out two brass casings. 'Reload your pistol. They could come back.'
Jill was standing in broken plate glass, hauling in monofilament, hand over hand. In seconds, they had a heavy nylon rope in their hands. Green stood on the desk, ripped a hole in the false ceiling, looped the rope over a steel beam. He pulled the rope taut, knotted it. Then he hung by his hands from the rope to test the knot. The nylon was as tight as an iron rod.
The nylon line angled up to the building across the street, three floors higher. Green waved his arms. He saw the signal flash in response.
A shadow stepped from the far window, and started to hurtle towards Green. He stared for an instant at the man in black sliding through space. Then he remembered his own training and experience, years before. He quickly checked the office for obstacles. The desk!
Green shoved the desk aside, kicked away a chair. The blond, wide-shouldered man in a commando's black jumpsuit flew through the window, jerked to a halt, dropped to the floor in a crouch.
'Officer!' Green called out. 'They know we're here. The terrorists...'
The man in black glanced at Green with cold blue eyes, stepped past him, flashed a light to the opposite building. In twenty-five seconds, two more men in black were in the small office. Then the blue-eyed commando turned again to Green.
'They may know you're here,' he told Green, 'but they're too busy to come back. Take your people to another floor now. Hide. It'll all be over in ten minutes. Whatever you do, don't go down to the ground floor. Understand?'
'They took one of my staff with them!'
But the three men in black were already gone. Green ran after them. He saw the elevator doors slide shut. The indicator light went to the ninety-seventh floor, and stopped. Then it continued to the hundredth floor.
'I thought they were going to rescue us!' Jill cried.
'What now?' Mrs. Forde asked.
'You and the other two take the stairs down to the next floor,' Green told her. 'Lock yourselves in an office and wait. They said it will be over in a few minutes. It looks like there's going to be shooting. Don't leave the office once you're in there.'
'What about you?' asked Diane.
'They took Sandy, and she's my responsibility.' Green strode to the elevator and punched the down button.
As he dropped to the fifth floor, he took the .45 pistol from his coveralls pocket and slipped the safety.
From the ninety-seventh floor, the Able Team took the stairs. Lyons went first. He moved as fast as he dared through the stairwell's half-darkness, peering around corners, waving his flashlight across the landings to check for booby traps. His caution cost precious seconds.
He whispered into his radio's mike. 'Team moving to Position Two, over.'
In his right ear, he heard the response from the command center: 'Check, over.' In his left ear, through the radio monitoring the terrorists' frequency, he heard only an occasional word or phrase in Spanish, too colloquial and quick for him to understand. He pulled the earphone out of his ear and tucked it into his pocket.
The concrete shaft of the stairwell echoed with sounds from far below them. There was a voice, a clank of metal on metal. Lyons glanced back to Blancanales and Gadgets. They moved quickly, silently, as if they were shadows without flesh. The distant sounds continued.
At the landing of the hundredth floor, one flight of stairs short of the stairwell housing that opened to the roof, Lyons unscrewed the 40-watt light bulb. He called Blancanales forward. They talked in the dark, their CAR-16's aimed at the roof door.
'What are you hearing on the monitor?' Lyons asked. 'I can't make out the Spanish.'
'They're behind us. The shooting on the fifty-third floor slowed them down. We got an extra two minutes. What about the door? Any way we can check it?'
'I'll chance it. Alcantara said the plan was for the lower floors only to be wired. So back off, I'm going up. And kill that light down there; someone could be waiting for me when I go out that door.'
Blancanales touched Lyons' shoulder. '
Lyons laughed. 'Don't get sentimental.' When Blancanales blacked out the landing and had taken cover, Lyons crept to the roof door. He ran his hand along the steel door frame, felt nothing. Then he flattened himself against the wall, and started to ease the door open.
The cool evening wind touched his face. He heard the distant throbbing of the helicopters. Lyons didn't continue through the door. It made no sense to him that the door wasn't booby-trapped. Unless this was the way the crazies intended to take to the helipad.
Even if that's true, he thought, they should have it set so we can't follow them.
He couldn't risk a flashlight. Instead, he took a slip of paper from his pocket, a diagram of the WorldFiCor rooftop area, and tore off a strip. Using it like a feeler, he ran it along the doorframe.
Just above ankle height, the paper caught on something. Lyons touched it again, then laid himself down on the landing and looked closely.
There, finer than a hair, glinting with starlight, a transparent strand of filament extended from one side of the doorway to the other. Lyons checked for other trigger-strands. Then he spoke into the radio-mike.
'We got one here. One line of filament, ankle high. I'm going on.'
Carefully he stepped over it. He found the charge: it was a kilo of C-4. Then he continued, scanning the rooftop and helipad for terrorists. He lifted his feet high as he walked. He couldn't search the entire roof for booby traps, but he would have to do all he could to avoid the trip-lines.
Making it to the elevator's motor housing opposite the helipad, he felt carefully again for trip-lines or pressure triggers, then went up the ladder. On top, he spoke into his mike.
'Hardman One in position. Next, please. And good luck.'
Blancanales came out, took his position in the air-conditioning stacks across the helipad from Lyons. Finally, Gadgets took a position on top of the stairwell housing. Regardless of how the terrorists came out — elevator or stairs — the Able Team had them in triangular ambush.
'Hey,' whispered Gadgets suddenly. 'They're on their way! Oh, good God! Politician, did I hear that Spanish right? Tell me I didn't.'
