'Glad to.'
'Let's move,' Lyons said.
Lyons was so angry he felt like slamming the door. He couldn't. He had already kicked it in.
Two minutes later, Lyons, Sanders and the men of Delta Blue Light Team were airborne. Lyons gave Sanders a quick briefing.
'I left two men to check on the security of the gymnasts at UCLA. Also, a Babette Pavlovski clone was going to show up and draw the termites out of the woodwork. My men buzzed me. By the time I got to reply, there was no answer.'
The specialist nodded.
Lyons brooded.
Babette, Gadgets and Pol were weaving toward the brick face of the multilevel parking structure. They snapped shots at the enemy. The Riding Devils advanced, chewing them up the ass with wild gunfire. Gadgets tried again to reach Lyons. A bullet tore the small communicator from his hand.
They ran along the side of the building and turned in the exit ramp.
'Watch the metal spikes,' Babette cautioned. 'They cut the tires of cars trying to sneak in the exits.' Her voice was spliced between deep gasps of breath.
The team stepped over the metal plates and pounded onto the concrete ramp. Pol shot out instructions. 'Right to the top. We don't want them to flank us.'
The ominous throaty roar of large powerful motorcycles came from the parking lot the trio had just abandoned.
'They won't drive over the spikes,' Gadgets said. 'They'll come in the entry at the north end of the building. We've got to get to the middle ramp to go to the top.'
'You two stop at the first ramp,' Politician said, 'and cover me. They'll need some slowing down.'
The three took off in another sprint, hoping to reach the ramps before the bikers entered the first level. At the first ramp, Babette scrambled partway up, turned and covered Gadgets and Blancanales. Gadgets stopped, crouching behind the wheel of a van. Pol went fifty feet farther before moving behind a parked car, just as the first motorcyclist appeared at the end of the aisle.
Pol watched as eight bikers wheeled into the garage. Each man had a handgun out, ready for action. The bikers rode in single file, moving slowly. Blancanales knew more bikers were in the area but could not pinpoint where — the noise of the bikes in the garage was deafening. The Able Team ace had a hunch that the building was surrounded, that the eight inside were just the stopper in the bottle.
Instinct grabbed at his guts. He turned in time to see a Riding Devil lining him up with an automatic. Pol dropped flat as an entire clip of .45s snapped angrily over his head. He fired a burst under the car at the tire of the lead bike. The tire blew and the rider went down in front of the other bikers. They spread and stopped. Their handguns were up.
The bastard who had fired on him was now edging toward the grounded Able Team member. Rolling and lining up at the same swift instant, Politician laced a burst that tore up the killer's chest. The biker grabbed the area of his heart as hot blood spat wildly from the pulverized organ. Pol rolled back to his original position. Again spotting from underneath the cars, he saw the fallen biker lift his machine off himself as he struggled to rise. He didn't have a chance. Pol triggered his Ingram, and a burst blasted the bastard under the chin. Jawbone collided with brain matter in a gory smear of death.
Reacting with the speed of a man half his age, Politician surged to his feet and sprinted between parked cars and the outside retaining wall. Bullets whistled by him. He stopped behind a car, fired, then moved on. After half a dozen cars, Pol came to a pickup with a high cab. It was backed against the retaining wall, blocking his path. Keeping low, Blancanales moved back toward the center roadway, his legs churning to carry him with speed.
The bikers had all moved past their fallen buddies. Pol took out their new lead rider with a burst to the side. Bullets tore, chewed. The man screamed but his cry was lost in the din. The bikers, caught behind the corpse, stopped. There they waited for the man they felt they had trapped. Pol
He reached into the gym bag he had strapped around himself and pulled out two grenades. He let both spoons go and threw one, then the other. The first exploded from its landing pad on the floor, the second burst while it was still in the air.
As the double blast rocked the area, Politician beat a hasty retreat. A quick glance over his shoulder told him that not all the Riding Devils had been leveled by the grenades.
The Able Team warrior brought up the Ingram. It spat one bullet then locked open. Empty clip. There was no time to change clips. No time to draw the Beretta. He turned his will to live into speed. He ran.
Gadgets Schwarz peered around the side of a car he had just taken shelter behind. Two bursts from an Ingram whizzed by him. Looking to one side, he saw Babette sitting on the ramp. She had just fired the machine pistol. A biker was lying under his fallen bike, his weapon still aimed in Gadgets's direction, his face bloodied, eaten by bullets. Gadgets nodded thanks to the female sharpshooter. He then leaned forward and saw Politician running for his life.
The lead biker was set to fire when Gadgets, in a careful two-handed firing stance, let go a single shot. The bullet sailed perfectly, nailing the biker in the hollow of the throat. He went down in a heap, the bike crashing on top of him, crushing the bones of a man already dead.
Blancanales headed for the safety of a parked car. Gadgets held his ground, prepared to meet the two remaining Devils. The bikers had guns raised and were coasting toward him. Thumbing the selector to triple shot, he quickly took care of the biker on the left, dropping him with a solid punch to the chest. Gadgets feinted a move toward the parked cars on the right, then dived to the left. Bullets flew past, inches from his arm. As his body bounced off the garage floor, he fired the Beretta. The bullets connected with deadly results. The man clutched at the remnants of his face. In seconds he was dead.
Gadgets rolled back behind the car. Pol, also behind the shield provided by a car, changed clips. The enemy gave them no time to breathe.
A barrage of bullets announced the arrival of the ground troops who had been scattered around the lawns of the campus.
Blancanales punched a bullet into the eye of one of the bikers attacking on foot. He continued to fire at maximum distance for the Ingram. Two more fell. The rest scattered behind cars. By the time the Devils had defensive positions, Pol and Gadgets were on the offensive.
They borrowed bikes from two of the fallen bikers with the promise of repayment sometime after never.
Gadgets throttled up to where Babette was waiting.
He stopped, giving Pol time to catch up. Gadgets motioned for Babette to swing on the pillion. The feisty woman stayed put, waiting. Gadgets then heard what she was waiting for: more mounted bikers were moving inside.
'To the top,' Gadgets screamed.
Pol nodded and took off.
About a minute later the first level was filled with the deafening drone of motorcycles. The bikers raced around the corner of the ramp. Babette sprayed them with the rest of the Ingram's clip then ran and leaped onto the seat behind Gadgets. There were screams of agony as the dead and wounded fell and bikes collided with flesh and bone. Gadgets let the bike loose, leaving carnage and a patch of rubber behind. They drove to the open top- story of the building. Pol was waiting for them at the head of the ramp.
'Babette bought us some time,' Gadget explained.
Babette, her arms wrapped snugly around Gadgets, took a long look at both men.
'Okay,' she said. 'I've let you tackle me off a bicycle, almost get me killed, take me on this terror mission. Do I get your names?'
'How impolite,' Pol said, laughing. 'I should have introduced myself between streams of gunfire. Rosario Blancanales. Politician to friends.'
'Hermann Schwarz at your service. But since you've got your arms around me, call me Gadgets.'
The two men took a calm second out of a stormy battle to drink in the beauty of Babette Pavlovski. The
