6
The flash lit up the pollution gray of the Cairo dusk.
Blancanales saw a point of flame streak away into the sky, then explode. Zaki floored the car through traffic, came to a taxi stalled sideways in a lane and pulled up behind the step van. Flames rose from the van's doors.
'Wizard! What…' Blancanales shouted into his hand radio.
'They tried to hit us with a rocket. I shot first. We're past them, making distance. What do you see?'
'The van's burning. Zaki, what do you say we play concerned citizens? Try to help those...'
'Others are. Look.'
'We're getting out to take a look.'
Lyons skidded to a stop one lane to the left. Behind them, a thousand horns blared. Lyons leaned from his window and called across to his partner, 'I got a prisoner to sit on, so I'll watch the cabs.'
Blancanales left his taxi. Both their drivers, Abdul and Zaki, charged into the smoke and confusion. Blancanales jerked the step van's back doors open, ducked down to avoid any shots. None came. He looked inside, saw flames and black smoke churning from the foam plastic of the driver's seat. The driver burned with the seat. A second dead man sprawled on the floor of the van, an RPG launcher still in his hands. A screaming man clawed at the van's sheet-metal floor, dragging himself away from the heat of the flames. Smoke rose from the man's flesh and clothes.
Blancanales knew what had happened. He had seen a People's Army of Vietnam soldier inadvertently killed when the backblast of a rocket launcher hit him. The Muslim terrorists had fired the RPG-7 inside the closed van, and the rocket blast had hit the driver point-blank and seared the other man.
'Abdul! Zaki! Back here!' Blancanales called out, then climbed into the van. He grabbed the hand of the burned man to pull him away from the flames.
The seared skin of the man's hand came away like a glove. Blancanales grabbed him by the belt, dragged him to the back of the van. Abdul and Zaki lowered the guy to the pavement.
In the glare of the taxi's headlights, the terrorist's horrible burns made the onlookers gasp. The rocket flame had melted his eyes and features, reduced his flesh to cooked meat covered with the ashes of his shirt and coat. He waved his hands above him, groping for light, not yet understanding his loss of vision.
'To the hospital!' Blancanales called out to the two drivers.
Abdul shouted out in Arabic to the onlookers. Several men in the crowd helped lift the burned terrorist from the asphalt and gently carry him to Blancanales's taxi. They eased him onto the back seat.
Blancanales jumped into the front as Zaki gunned the engine. Zaki leaned on the horn. Abdul and Lyons followed in their taxi. They heard approaching sirens as they left the flames of the scene behind.
'Two prisoners,' Blancanales radioed Gadgets.
'That man isn't going to live,' Lyons added. 'If we're going to get anything out of him, it's got to be quick.'
Zaki turned to Blancanales. 'The colonel anticipated prisoners. There is a place ready.'
'Take us there.'
After five minutes of speeding through the labyrinth of Cairo's streets, Blancanales saw Mohammed and Gadgets pushing up a rolling steel door. The roar of engines, the clanging of hammers on steel filled the area with noise. Blancanales looked around at the narrow street of auto and welding shops, saw white flashes of torches lighting the interiors, then his taxi followed Gadgets into a warehouse. Lyons and Abdul screeched to a stop behind them a second later. Mohammed pulled down the door.
Bare light bulbs lit the oily, soot-fouled interior. While their drivers checked the shadows and corners of the building for any possible intruders, Able Team pulled the burned terrorist from the taxi.
'How'd this happen to him?' Lyons asked.
'Remember when they trained you with the RPG-7, they told you to keep clear of the backblast?' Gadgets reminded him. 'When I shot the one with the RPG, this one must've caught the backblast.'
'He caught part of it,' Blancanales corrected. 'The driver got most of it. Killed him.'
'That's why Stony Man sent us those German rockets,' Gadgets added. 'You can fire an Armburst out of your coat pocket...'
'Get some morphine, Gadgets,' Blancanales interrupted as he leaned over the charred terrorist. 'Trunk of my cab. Lyons, we aren't going to get anything out of this guy. He's in shock and dying. Listen to his breathing. I'd say his mouth and throat are burned bad. Maybe his lungs.'
'Don't give him the morphine yet… Abdul! Over here.'
'Yes, sir.'
Lyons went to their taxi, pulled the semiconscious teenage terrorist from the car floor. He and Abdul sat the punk down on oil-black concrete away from the other prisoner. Lyons slapped the terrorist, grabbed him by the hair, pounded his head against the taxi's fender. The boy's eyes opened.
'Tell him he is a prisoner. Tell him if he cooperates, he lives. If he doesn't, we torture him until he does.'
Abdul translated. The boy shook his head. Abdul spoke to him, the boy answering with a few words. He closed his eyes, mumbled words.
'He's praying. He says he fights for Allah. The Brotherhood preaches that if their fighters die, they ascend to heaven to stand at the right hand of Allah.'
'So he wants to be a martyr?'
Abdul nodded.
'Ask him what kind of martyrdom he wants.'
Hearing the translated words of the American in front of him, the boy cried out, struggled against the plastic handcuffs looped around his wrists and ankles. Lyons slammed a fist into the terrorist's ribs, doubling him over. The boy's breathing came in sobs as Lyons grabbed him by the arms and dragged him around the taxi.
'Tell him he'll talk, or we'll do
As Abdul translated again, Lyons dumped the boy next to the other prisoner, shoved the boy's face to the blinded, disfigured, dying man.
The boy screamed, thrashed. Lyons held him by the hair and the shirt collar, kept his face only inches from the horror.
'Will he talk now? Ask him!'
The boy nodded.
A gate of corrugated steel ten feet high slid aside for the limousines and escort car. In the blue white glare of mercury arc lights, crew-cut young Americans in uniforms without insignia, M-16 rifles in their hands, watched the Lincolns enter. While the others stayed back, one soldier advanced to the first limousine and motioned for the driver to roll down the window. The soldier glanced at the driver and bodyguard in the front seat, then at the CIA passengers. He repeated the procedure with the second limousine, waving a flashlight over the faces of Katz, Sadek and Parks. The limousines continued to the hangars. The escort car, a mid-seventies Dodge with a full-powered engine and heavy-duty suspension, parked near the soldiers.
Katz glanced back, saw soldiers searching the interior and trunk of the Dodge. The three CIA soldiers left the car and stood to one side.
'We're on full alert,' Parks explained. 'Marines will search these cars when we park. Can't be too careful.'
'Someone was not careful last night,' Katz commented.
'And he died.'
'True. But the death of Mr. Hershey does not solve the failure of the security of this facility.'
'It took the Muslims a year to infiltrate our operation. It'll take time to find...'
'Mr. Parks,' Katz corrected him, 'you don't have time.'
The limousines came to a stop. Parks opened the door. He stepped into the cool wind and squinting against the blowing dust, held the door open for Katz and Sadek.
'I know I don't have the time. I know it. But you can't expect me to take over the station one night and
