States. Now he faced an American. Fear twisting his gut, bile rising in his throat, the African mercenary lifted his AK.
A .45 slug slammed through his chest, destroying his heart and left lung. He staggered back, his vision going dark, all the slogans and chants and prayers of his Soviet/Muslim indoctrination in terror spinning through his panicked mind. His lips formed a last word, but his dead lungs had no breath as he fell into the void.
Another terrorist struggled to lift a legless comrade from the wall's wide walkway. Gadgets snapped 9mm slugs into the heads of the Arabs.
Lyons turned to Blancanales and Abdul. 'Hit the truck with the rockets!'
'Take cover!' Blancanales shouted. He sprawled on his belly to sight on the truck below them. The others went flat against the outer wall as the rocket slammed into the cargo of SAM-7 antiaircraft missiles.
The blast shattered the truck, sent a churning ball of flaming diesel fuel upward. Missiles flew wild, ripped into trucks, exploded against walls, pin-wheeled high into the sky. Flames rose from burning trucks. A car exploded, the gasoline spraying liquid flame over other vehicles. A burning terrorist ran screaming from the inferno.
Flame and gutted hulks blocked the fortress gates.
Lyons called out to Blancanales and Gadgets, 'Pistols first! Until they catch on…'
Two Arabs in the patterned keffiyehs of the Palestine Liberation Organization ran up the stairs. Nine- millimeter slugs from Blancanales's silenced Beretta 93-R punched through their hearts.
Able Team and its allies crept to the east wall. They stayed close against the wall where the choking black smoke hid them from the gunmen on the opposite walls.
An officer ran through the smoke and flames, pushing the weapons of his soldiers, attempting to bring the wild autofire under control. He spoke into his walkie-talkie, listened for a moment. He directed three soldiers to the south wall. The AK-armed terrorists ran directly into Blancanales's Beretta. He put steel-cored 9mm subsonic slugs into their chests.
Lyons motioned Abdul forward. 'Have a rocket ready. Sweep the wall when I signal…'
Abdul went to one knee and sighted his RPG-7 on the line of terrorist riflemen firing into the shadows and darkness of the windstorm. Mohammed, Zaki and Gadgets cleared away from the back of the launcher.
Lyons sighted between the shoulder blades of the shouting officer, snapped his spine with a hollow-point. The officer flopped to the stone, flailing his arms for a moment before his last breath sprayed blood from his throat. Terrorists rushed to the dead man. Forty-five-caliber and 9mm slugs from the silenced autopistols dropped them. The screams pierced even the cacophony of the autofire and exploding fuel in the courtyard.
The line of terrorists manning the wall turned. Some saw a wounded man staggering drunkenly with his hands to his shattered face. Others saw the group of black-clad soldiers crouching at the corner of the walls. Kalashnikovs pointed at Lyons.
'Hit them with the rocket!' he roared.
Slugs tore past Abdul as he pulled the RPG's trigger. A brilliant flash ripped the east wall. Abdul reloaded the launcher and looked to Lyons for a command.
Gripping his Colt with both hands, Lyons searched for living terrorists. Screams and moans came from the twisted debris. A terrorist clawed at the wall tiles, tried to crawl away from the horror of what had been his lower body. Lyons snapped a silent hollowpoint slug into his head and ran forward.
A dying Palestinian clutched a Kalashnikov. A .45 slug ended his suffering. The Colt's action locked back, and Lyons paused to drop the empty mag and slap in another. Blancanales charged past him after two terrorists running up a flight of stone steps. Two bursts of 9mm slugs spun them and sent them rolling down the steps.
A central building met the east wall, doors and windows opening to a roofed walkway. Other windows opened to the wall's walkway. The roof walkway continued around the building to the north wall. An autorifle fired from the corner, slugs gouging the wall near Abdul.
Mohammed, who still monitored the terrorists on the captured walkie-talkie, shouted to his compatriots, 'They know! They're getting it together to waste us!'
Unaimed AK slugs tore through the smoke, punched the walls as gunmen on the west wall fired blind. Holstering his Colt, Lyons sprinted to the windows. He pulled a grenade from one of his battle armor's pouches and tossed it through the window. The blast sprayed glass. He looked up to the roof to see the form of a sentry silhouetted against the graying sky. A second grenade went up to the roof. An instant after the blast, a body fell to the walkway. Lyons finished the wounded man with a stomp on the throat. Then he signaled the others to join him.
'Abdul! The corner. Sweep that north wall!'
An Arab keffiyeh bobbed at the corner. Blancanales brought up his Beretta, waited an instant. When the headdress and a Kalashnikov appeared, he sprayed a three-shot burst into the Palestinian's face. Blancanales tore the pin from a grenade, let the lever flip away as he ran to the corner. He pitched it, then motioned Abdul forward.
The grenade sent steel wire zipping through the air. Abdul did not risk exposing himself to sight the missile. Extending the launcher at arm's length, he pointed the rocket around the corner and fired. A roar-flash shook the building. He reloaded the launcher even as bits of stone and metal rained down.
Autofire from the opposite wall raked the deserted walkway of the east wall. The smoke and swirling soot concealing Able Team also hid the gunmen.
Lyons grabbed Gadgets and Mohammed. 'The roof! Boost me up.'
Lyons stood on his partners' shoulders to grab the edge of the wall. He scanned the rooftop for a moment, then swung his legs over. An AK flashed.
Shock slammed Lyons against the wall. Slugs searched for him, bits of clay and whitewash falling on him as he scrambled away. He tore his Colt from its holster to trigger a three-shot burst at the muzzle-flashes. He saw a rifle fall to one side. Sighting at a form sprawled on the rooftop, he fired again and saw a piece of a gunman's skull fly away.
Lyons unslung his Atchisson before searching for his wound.
He felt no pain. Feeling his shoulders and back, he thought perhaps his battle armor had stopped the slug. Then his hand touched a gouge in the plastic foregrip of the Atchisson. The slug had only scored the plastic.
Leveling the Atchisson, Lyons flicked off the safety and rose to a crouch. He checked a body, found it was a Palestinian girl. Her back was spotted with tiny wounds from his grenade's steel wire fragments. Lyons searched her bloodsoaked uniform and came up with Soviet grenades. Going to the edge, he helped pull Blancanales to the roof.
'Thought you were gone,' Blancanales told him.
'Me, too.' Lyons leaned over the edge and shouted to the others, 'Watch that patio. Watch the north wall. Pol and I will put some fire down their throats.'
Gadgets put a burst of Uzi fire into a terrorist rushing up the stairs. A grenade bounced across the ground. Mohammed kicked it as the others dropped flat. The Soviet frag tumbled down the stone steps and exploded in the courtyard.
Lyons sighted his Atchisson on yet another form silhouetted by flames. He killed the terrorist, then followed Blancanales to the north. Below them, auto-fire hammered.
Chancing a glance over the edge, Blancanales saw two soldiers behind a sandbagged searchlight position who were firing at Abdul. In front of the gunmen, only torn bodies and blood pools remained of the terrorists hit by the rocket. Taking a grenade from his thigh pocket, Blancanales jerked out the cotter pin and let the lever sail free. He counted to three, dropped the frag and pulled his head back to safety. The grenade exploded in the air three feet above the terrorists. High-velocity steel shards reduced their heads to pulp.
Another terrorist broke from cover, screaming, an arm hanging limp. He ran for the west wall. A terrorist stuck an RPG around the corner and fired. The rocket hit the wounded man in the chest. It vaporized his upper body.
Pulling out more grenades, Lyons and Blancanales ran to the west. They pulled the pins. Blancanales said, 'Now…' The levers flipped away. 'One, two, three — over they go!'
Simultaneous blasts cleared the corner. Lyons leaned over the roof's low wall and snapped semiauto 12- gauge shots into every terrorist he saw, emptying his magazine in less than two seconds. He ducked back as AKs popped. Slugs chipped the wall and whined into the sky.
Keying his hand radio, he shouted, 'North wall's clear…'
