Cairo Countdown

14

The Lincoln's door flew open as the three-ton limousine rocked on its springs. Parks bolted out. Katz and Sadek followed a second later. They ran through the trucks and unmarked Fiats jamming the street in front of the warehouse.

An Agency soldier with overcoat concealing a weapon ran to Parks. "We got some people in there who claim to be highest authority. But they don't have identification or..."

A second CIA soldier rushed forward. "There's one of our men dead. Another missing…"

Parks took the men aside, out of earshot of Sadek and Katz. They spoke quickly, one man pointing to another block, to a car with shattered windows. The second man pointed to a warehouse door. While they spoke, a siren approached. A Cairo police department squad car whipped around a corner, lights flashing. Uniformed officers jumped out, revolvers in their hands.

Parks returned to Sadek. "Something happened here. We don't know what yet. But we need to keep the city police at arm's length until we can sort it out. Can you help us with that?"

"Oh, certainly," sighed Sadek. "But you understand, there will be a full explanation. We operate as allies in this investigation, correct?"

"You have my word. I know nothing about what happened here."

Sadek watched Parks with a calm, knowing expression. "Why do the men inside claim Highest Authority?"

"I have no idea... Please, the police are here."

With a smile, Sadek turned away. Parks watched the Egyptian go to the city officers who stood around, confused. The worried young American turned to Katz. "We got a problem. Come on…"

Motioning Katz to follow, Parks jogged to the guarded street door. The older man, Phoenix Force's scarred and maimed hero, maintained his Foreign Service investigator role as he limped past the Agency men. He gave them a quick salute. They turned their faces away.

Screams echoed in the vast warehouse. Parks started, his head whipping about as he searched the dim interior for the source of the agonized cry. Katz saw a three-story-high area for trucks, then an overhanging second floor of offices. Bodies of Arabs and Africans lay here and there on the oil-blackened concrete. The bitter odors of blood and cordite hung in the air.

Hands stopped Parks. A young Egyptian in a taxi driver's jacket stood in front of them, his outstretched arms pushing them back to the door.

"So sorry, sirs. You not come in. Not allowed."

"Who are you? " Parks demanded.

The taxi driver pressed them back. "So sorry, no speak much English. You not come in."

Again a scream tore the quiet, was suddenly choked off. Then another voice cried out, wailed. Words came. They heard a voice speaking quickly in Arabic, punctuated by shrieks.

Parks stared around the warehouse. His eyes finally registered the corpses strewn around the parked trucks. He shoved past the taxi driver, ran through the trucks.

A knot of men in battle armor clustered around a moaning, thrashing prisoner. Parks attempted to pull two of the armored warriors apart. Lyons jumped to his feet. Grabbing Parks by the shoulders, he threw him against a truck. In a quick sweep of a foot, he hooked Parks's ankles from under him, dropped him to the concrete. He stood over Parks. Blood smeared the black nylon of the hotshot's battle armor and bandoliers.

"You don't interfere in our interrogation. I don't care who you are."

"Highest Authority does not sanction this."

"Those terrorists have an American prisoner. That sanctions everything."

"Craig Parks," Katz told Lyons as he arrived on the scene. "He's temporarily Chief Special Operations Officer."

Parks looked from the oil-smeared face of the blond American to the man he knew as Mr. Steiner. "What's going on here?"

"We're doing your work; now stay out of the way." Lyons went back to the others.

Mohammed translated the Arab's panted, gasped words to Able Team, "…an old agricultural institute three kilometers past el-Minya. Very well defended. Heavy machine guns, mines, wire. Looks like a farm. But it's the fortress of the National Liberation Front."

"Ask him about places in the city here," Blancanales told Mohammed. "Maybe they won't take the American out of the area."

Mohammed questioned the prisoner, listened to the answer. "No, their leader wants the man for bad times. Some of their people went to hideouts in Cairo. But the main force is making it to the desert…"

"You're in with them, aren't you, Steiner?" Parks accused Katz. "What are you really doing? Are you with the Foreign Service?"

"Please be calm," Katz told him.

"Calm! I have a secret team of assassins operating in my area of responsibility. Do you have any idea of what this could do to our relations with this country? When the international news bureaus get this story, the United States will be..."

"Will be nothing!" Lyons interrupted, shouting at the officer. "You're going to tell them? Are you making the call?"

"No! But it's inevitable..."

"Nothing's inevitable," Lyons countered. The warrior slung his Atchisson over his shoulder as the other men left the prisoner.

"We promised to send this guy to a hospital if he helped us. You care so much, Parks, you take care of him."

Tourniquets tied off the Arab terrorist's ankles. Forty-five-caliber slugs had torn ghastly wounds in the man's feet. Behind the moaning prisoner, a dead man lay spread-eagled on the concrete, his feet and hands shot away.

"One talked, the other didn't. Who's he?" Lyons pointed behind Katz.

Sadek watched Able Team straightening their gear. He took a pack of English cigarettes from his coat pocket. He lit a cigarette with a gold lighter.

"Sir, I should ask that of you," the Egyptian said.

"Ask him," Lyons pointed to Parks as he moved past Sadek.

The Egyptian watched Able Team and the two taxi drivers jog away. He called after them, "Police and soldiers have surrounded the block. You cannot leave!"

Blancanales called back without breaking pace. "Wanna bet?"

Parks turned to Katz, his face livid. "I'm calling Washington," he said. "You've come here and run your own dirty tricks squad through another country's laws. A country we're attempting to convince of our friendship and respect..."

"Why do you shout at me, Mr. Parks?" Katz asked him.

"Those guys knew you. You were talking with them, they..."

"Talking with whom?" Katz glanced around as if confused by Parks's question.

Parks ran into the open expanse of concrete beyond the parked trucks. His head turned from side to side as he looked for Able Team. He rushed to the nearest trucks, glanced between the vehicles. Katz followed the angry young Agency officer.

"Talking with whom?" Katz repeated.

"They're gone…"

"Who's gone?" Katz asked.

In the back of the pitching truck, Jake Newton lay utterly still. Terrorists surrounded him. He felt their boots pressing against his legs, heard the moaning and crying of wounded, the Arabic words of other men.

They ignored him. A minute or so after the terrorists had thrown him into the back of the truck, he had heard the shooting. Slugs and shrapnel had ripped through the canvas. He'd heard the screams and panic, the long firefight. Before he could summon the strength to attempt to escape, hope of rescue had ended as the terrorists crowded into the truck.

Jake faked unconsciousness throughout the long ride from the city. After careering around corners, bumping over the streets of Cairo, every turn and lurch an agony to the battered prisoner, the truck sped through the highway traffic. Which direction had they taken him? It did not matter. He had already cut the rope around his hands. When they stopped, he would try to make his break.

He listened as the truck drove through desert quiet. No traffic passed. The truck neither slowed nor accelerated, simply held a steady speed on a good road. After an eternity, the terrorists around him gathered their weapons and talked again.

Voices called out. He heard the sound of a generator. The truck stopped. He lay still, as if dead, while the terrorists left the truck. A leader shouted instructions in Arabic.

Hands jerked at his feet. As Jake slid from the floorboards of the truck, he pulled his hands from the tangle of ropes on his wrists and opened the one eye that still worked.

Slamming an elbow into a face, feeling teeth break, he grabbed at an AK, felt the stamped metal of the receiver. But he did not have the strength to stand. Blood drained from his head. His legs, still tied at the ankles, buckled beneath him. He fell into darkness before his body hit the ground.

Merciful unconsciousness sheltered the American from the kicks and punches and rifle butts of the Warriors of Allah.