toward Blancanales. The first truck slowed, the second truck stopped only twenty feet away. Blancanales crabbed backward, putting more distance and brush between himself and the soldiers who would be coming out of the truck. He paused to send out a warning on his radio. 'Pull out! They sent out two more truckloads of crazies. They'll be combing the perimeter...'
Lyons broke in on the frequency. 'There are lights all over the place! It looks like…'
To the east, parallel lines of white lights lighted the desert.
17
Surveying the fortress from the door of his office, Omar watched his soldiers rush to their posts. His faithful manned the Soviet 12.7mm machine guns guarding the approach to the gate. Other soldiers with rifles and rocket launchers crouched at the wall, looking down at the desert. Any American agents who dared attack his headquarters would meet death below the walls.
'Commander!'
Omar turned to his assistant. To insure instantaneous and accurate communications, Omar had stationed his communications technicians and their equipment in an outer room of his offices. Only a door separated him from the electronics linking him to Cairo, Tripoli, Damascus, Moscow. And Allah had rewarded his foresight tonight. Seconds after receiving warning of the gang of American assassins, he had alerted his officers and soldiers.
The young Libyan who manned the radios slipped off his headphones, called out, 'The squads are in position.'
'Good.'
A soldier ran into the offices. 'Commander. The prisoner is conscious.'
'Oh?' Omar smiled at the thought. Now he hoped the assassins came. The screams of their compatriot would greet them.
Following the soldier into the night and the blowing dust, Omar hurried along the wide balcony in front of the offices. Once students and professors crowded the rooms and hallways of this fortress, studying modern irrigation and biotechnical crop engineering. Grants from the United Nations had helped build the institute, helped pay the professors, helped provide scholarships to the students. With the rise of Omar's power, his movement had taken the classrooms for barracks, the offices for their commanders. The United Nations still funded the institute.
Rushing down the stone steps, Omar and a soldier went to the tiny room where they had thrown the American. He lay on the floor, his hands tied behind him, a loop of rope pulling his hands and feet together. Blood pooled on the tiles, bubbled around the man's ruined mouth. Omar stood over the prisoner for a moment and listened to the man's ragged breathing.
He kicked the American in the stomach. The breathing caught, blood sprayed from the man's mouth. But he did not move or groan. Omar kicked him in the face again and again. No movement.
'The dog! He'll die before we can take our amusement.'
Omar kicked him a last time and started back to his office. He glanced at the number glowing on his digital watch. Any moment now, he would receive the coded message announcing the latest delivery, of gifts from the Soviets.
The Libyan radioman looked up from his electronics. 'The shipment arrives in two minutes.'
The missiles! More weapons for the Jihad. Weapons, if need be, to start World War III.
Sprawled flat in the sand, trapped between the lights of the fortress and the lines of lights in the desert, Lyons heard aircraft engines coming from the east.
Gadgets's voice came through his earphones. 'Be cool, Ironman. Those lights aren't for you. There's a flight coming in.'
'You hear the engines?' Lyons whispered into his radio.
'Oh, man, we're hearing everything. We got those crazies wired...'
Blancanales interrupted. 'The trucks are moving out, cutting to the east.'
'That's a squad to unload the plane,' Gadgets added.
'This is it,' Lyons told them. 'Those trucks are the ticket. Wizard, Pol, all you other guys circle around. We'll ride right through those gates. Bring my gear. I'm on my way to wherever those trucks park.'
'Moving!'
Keeping his belly to the sand, Lyons slithered east. After a hundred feet, he crawled, keeping his back below the swaying brush. Stones tore his knees and hands. Only when the windstorm's dust screened him from the sentries did he rise to a crouch. Behind him, the searchlights swept the perimeter, their beams brown smears against the night. Ahead, he saw the high beams of the trucks nearing the desert airstrip.
Wing lights came from the sky. Prop noise roared. A black-painted cargo plane of a type Lyons did not recognize bounced over the sand. When the plane slowed to taxi speed, the airstrip's lights went dark.
Lyons jogged through the blackness. The wind whipped grit into his eyes. Blinking it away, wiping his eyes with his hands, he did not break pace. In front of him, working by the plane's lights, the crew and the terrorist squad secured a ramp from a side door. The plane's props turned at minimum rpm.
Machine-gun fire! Lyons dropped flat, keyed his hand radio. 'Wizard! Pol! What goes?'
Heavy slugs tore the night. Muzzle-flashes sparked from the walls of the fortress. Gadgets and Blancanales and their three taxi drivers watched the terrorists spray fire into the desert hundreds of yards away from them. Mohammed listened to the captured walkie-talkie. 'They think they see Americans, but...'
An RPG shrieked, exploded. The autofire from the machine guns and Kalashnikovs died away.
'Their man's telling them to hold their fire. He's trying to find out who saw what.'
Blancanales laughed, answered Lyons, 'They're shooting at shadows.'
'Get over here,' Lyons answered. 'They're unloading the plane. Move it!'
They ran in a wide circle around the perimeter, the weight of their weapons slowing them. Again, machine-gun fire hammered at the desert, this time on the far side of the fortress. The autofire continued, then died away as officers brought their soldiers under control.
Approaching the parked plane and trucks, Blancanales signaled the group to halt. He keyed his radio. 'Ironman, where…'
A shadow crouched beside them. 'Good thing they don't put sentries out here,' Lyons told them. 'Would've got you…'
'Here is your equipment,' Zaki told him, passing Lyons his battle armor and bandolier. Abdul unslung the heavy Atchisson.
Lyons slipped into his gear. He pressed closed the Velcro strips, belted the bandolier tight across his body. He slung the Atchisson over his back and pulled the sling tight. He gave the Armburst rocket to Abdul to carry.
'Pol, Wizard, lighten up. We go in first with the pistols.' Lyons sketched out a plan in whispers. 'The plane's still got its engines going. I figure they'll take off the second they get it unloaded. I say we get close, wait for the first chance, rush the ragheads in the back of the second truck. If we can do it without the driver of the first truck knowing, that's the way through the gate. What do you say?'
'And the taxi boys?' Blancanales asked.
'Use them for backup. If things come apart, they put down the soldiers in the first truck. If absolutely necessary. That would totally blow it. Then it'd be down to crashing the gate.'
'What about that plane?' Gadgets asked. 'Shame to let it go.'
'Can't do it all,' Lyons answered. 'Number one priority is to get through that gate.'
'You're still talking like a kamikaze,' Blancanales muttered.
Gadgets laughed quietly. 'Hey, Pol, pray for luck.'
'Let's go,' Lyons said as he crouchwalked toward the trucks.
It took a moment to shift loads. Gadgets's radios and electronics, the rockets, the Kalashnikovs and ammunition went to Abdul, Mohammed and Zaki. Then they trotted after Lyons.
