Cairo Countdown

2

Racks of weapons covered one wall of Andrzej Konzaki's laboratory. Oak workbenches at wheelchair height lined two other walls. Heavy machines spaced throughout the floor area — a lathe, a drill press, an hydraulic press, a band saw, grinders and buffers — gave the large room the look of a factory. Windows viewing the farmlands and mountains around Stony Man dominated the fourth wall.

While Konzaki put the tiny wheel of a Foredom polisher to the chamber of a modified Atchisson assault shotgun, Carl Lyons surveyed the collection of weapons. He took an MP-40 "Schmeisser" from the rack. Swinging out the wire stock of the World War II submachine gun, he put it to his shoulder, sighted through the window to a distant mountainside. Returning the weapon to the rack, he scanned the other rifles and submachine guns and heavy automatic weapons — American, British, French, German, Soviet, ComBloc. Obsolete and modern, the weapons represented the recent history of the world, war after war after war consuming the resources and technological genius of nations, wasting their wealth, maiming and murdering their young men. Devices of tragedy.

But marvelous and fascinating. He took a 1903 30-06 Springfield from the rack, snapped back the bolt to check the magazine and chamber. The weapon's steel shone with oil. In World War I, a soldier had won the Congressional Medal of Honor with the later model of the 30-06, the P-16 Enfield. His deadly, unrelenting rifle fire had convinced a company of German troops that they faced an overwhelming enemy force. And they had. One American with a rifle. That one soldier, Sergeant York, accepted the surrender of one hundred thirty-two Germans and marched them to the rear.

"A thousand-yard killer," Konzaki called out. "Put a nine-power scope on that and you could hit a target on the horizon."

"No doubt about it." Lyons returned the old rifle to its place.

"And I'm working on over-the-horizon capability," Konzaki joked. "Come look at this Atchisson. It's ready to test."

The black metal-and-plastic assault weapon looked like an oversize M-16 but fired 12-gauge shotshells semiauto, three-round bursts, or full-auto bursts. A box magazine held seven standard or Magnum rounds. Lyons had used an Atchisson in the Amazon, when Able Team and their Xavante allies fought Khmer Rouge slave-raiders. In three vicious, no-quarter firefights, in the rain forest, on a moonlit river, in a warlord's fortress, the Atchisson meant the difference between victory or death.

"This one has a fourteen-inch barrel and a telescoping stock." Konzaki pressed a lever and pulled out the tubing of the buffer-spring stock assembly to full length.

Lyons took the Atchisson, tried the weight and balance. "Like a CAR-15." He jerked the padded buttplate against his shoulder, tried a snap-aim on the band saw. Then he pressed the release lever, slid in the stock and held the gun at waist height, assault style.

"Lighter than the other one," he commented.

"Less barrel, less plastic and steel, more titanium," Konzaki said. "The rate of fire and the shot patterns created by the short barrel give the weapon an awesome potential value in an urban firefight. After I read through the debriefing reports of the Amazon action, I went ahead with this SWAT version."

"What that Atchisson did to people and things… You just would not believe it."

"Yes, I would," Konzaki replied, his words sober, without enthusiasm or humor, simply stating a fact. "And I also went back to work on the Berettas."

Konzaki palmed his wheelchair's thin tires in opposite directions, spinning the chair about. Rubber squeaked on the concrete as he propelled himself the length of the workbench. He skidded to a stop at a cabinet.

For a moment, Lyons hesitated. In the long last morning of horror in the slave-city of the Chinese plutonium lord, Lyons had cursed the Beretta. The silent 9mm autopistol required perfect head shots for an instant kill. Underpowered to avoid the crack of the bullets breaking the speed of sound, the slugs had failed to knock down the enraged, adrenaline charged men that Lyons had faced. As if trapped within a nightmare, he had shot men again and again, spraying bursts of lightweight subsonic slugs into their chests and faces only to see the men continue toward him. It had been the fifteen-round magazine of a Beretta 93-R that had saved Lyons from death.

The weapon represented long hours of meticulous, frustrating work for Konzaki. How could Lyons politely refuse the weaponsmith's latest modification?

Never mind the polite words. He could talk straight with the ex-marine. Konzaki knew more than Lyons about combat.

"Forget it, Andrzej. No more Berettas. Not for me. They're great for special occasions, but my personal experience tells me that when the going gets rough, the Berettas aren't enough."

"So I put together a hybrid..."

"Forget it!" Lyons snapped. "No diamond points, no steel cores, no high-tech modifications. I've had it with 9mm. From now on, I'm carrying a silenced MAC-10."

"How about a .45-caliber ACP? Suppressed Colt Government Model? Semiauto and three-shot burst? Full-powered loads? Subsonic but full powered? Want to see it?"

Lyons laughed. "Yeah. Sure do."

Hard rubber squeaked on the concrete. Konzaki wheeled back to Lyons with a plastic tray on his lap. "There's one and only one policy in this workshop: Mack Bolan and his soldiers get the weapons they want. They get research and quality, but first they get what they want. Here it is."

He lifted away the tray's lid. Lyons saw a Parkerized-black Colt automatic fitted with a blunt suppressor. He took the weapon from its bed of silicon cloth, pressed the release to drop the empty magazine, slipped back the slide, locked it.

The slide had been modified and shortened, the barrel machined to accept the oval cylinder of the suppressor. A fold-down lever and enlarged trigger guard provided a two-handed hold. The arc of the safety continued into the grip, became a fire selector. Like the markings on the Beretta, a single white dot and three dots indicated semiauto and three-shot full-auto bursts.

"You're a genius."

"And you only see the obvious changes," Konzaki responded. "I've worked on that off and on since I received the Berettas. Basically, I pirated the Beretta design. I had to machine a new slide, a custom-locking block assembly, a new barrel, sear mechanism. I increased the twist of the barrel's rifling to cut the bullet velocity and increase the accuracy. The suppressor started out at over a foot in length. Look at it now — the entire pistol length comes to only twelve inches. Somewhat awkward compared to the standard Army-issue pistol, but considering..."

"This is fantastic. And it fires full-powered rounds?"

"Most .45 cartridges don't go supersonic. Hot loads, maybe. But your standard ball rounds, with the increased twist of the barrel, no. This weapon will throw a 230-grain slug at a thousand feet per second to generate over four hundred pounds of muzzle energy. Hollowpoints deliver almost as much energy and more shock power. The subsonic nines never produced more than two hundred."

"Where's the ammo? Let's go shooting!"

"Look at the magazines. The pistol accepts not only the standard seven-round magazine, but extended ten— and fifteen-round magazines. Someone does manufacture a thirty-round magazine but it's almost two feet long."

"Tell me more!"

Konzaki laughed. "Like a kid with a new toy."

Bumping over a back country road, Konzaki swerved the hand-controlled pickup around rocks and ruts. Lyons loaded an Atchisson drum magazine with twenty rounds of double-ought number-two steel buckshot. On the seat between the men, a clutter of magazines, weapons and aluminum canes rattled with every bump.

The Virginia hills glowed in the morning light, spring leaves brilliant against smears of raw earth and vividly green grass. The truck splashed through mud and rainwater, swerved through a space in the fence.

"Where we going?" Lyons asked, jamming the last round in the drum magazine.

"Don't know. Just wandering around."

"Don't go anywhere with people. Or county sheriffs. Who needs trying to explain this Atchisson…"

Konzaki left the tire-rutted pasture, wove through trees. An eroded hillside appeared. The legless man jerked back the brake bar, put the automatic transmission in neutral.

"Look like a backstop to you?" he asked Lyons, pointing to the sheer dirt wall of the hill.

"Good enough."

Konzaki grabbed his canes, swung out of the truck. The spring clamps were tight around his huge forearms as his fists gripped the handles. He moved fast, using artificial legs and the canes to steady himself on the matted woodland debris. He took ear protectors from the open back of the pickup, tossed a set to Lyons, jammed a pair on his own head. Then he lifted out a folding table and a folding chair.

"Need any help with those things?" Lyons asked.

"No problem. It's all modified." A strap on the table went over one shoulder, a strap on the chair over the other. "I do this all the time. By myself, with my kids. With Julie. My wife works in an office in State. Never gets any exercise. We go out in the country, I have to carry all the things. She can't walk a mile on broken ground without blisters."

"Bet you never get blisters," bantered Lyons. "Even with new shoes."

He followed Konzaki across the road. A cleared section of woods allowed a firing lane. Stumps here and there jutted out of the grass and ferns. A smiling Konzaki found a place without mud, set down the table, unfolded the legs, put the table on its feet.

"There's another chair in the truck. And get the milk crate and the sandbag."

In a few minutes, they had chairs and a shooting table assembled. A fresh breeze swayed the trees around them. Konzaki leaned back in his chair, stared up at the branches and the blue sky.

"This is great!" he shouted out, his breath still clouding slightly in the early spring air. He turned to Lyons. "The Agency was strictly suit and tie, all day long, every day. Never again."

"Hey, man. I didn't come out here to picnic…"

"So shoot something! You waiting for permission? Put that twenty-round magazine on the Atchisson, see if you can burn it out."

"Is that a dare?" Lyons grinned. He lifted the gun from the crate and jammed the drum magazine in the assault shotgun as he stood up. He snapped the stock to his shoulder and fired.

High-velocity steel balls blasted tree stumps as Lyons whipped the sights from one target to another, firing semiauto single shots.

"Three-round bursts!" Konzaki shouted.

Flicking down the fire selector one click, Lyons sighted on a tree fifty feet away, fired again. The weapon slammed his shoulder back, but he held the sights in line. A storm of steel shredded the side of the tree, ripped leaves and branches from the brush behind it.

"Again!"

Another tree went to pieces, then another.

"Full auto! Empty it!"

Lyons pushed the lever down all the way, dropped the weapon to his waist, walked forward, pulled back the trigger. Straining against the recoil, he continued forward, spraying several trees with a maelstrom of high-velocity steel. Branches exploded in bursts of chopped debris, wood flew, bark showered the ground. Finally the Atchisson's action locked back.

"Now put in another magazine, load the first round, but don't fire!"

"Yeah, sure." Lyons felt queasy from the recoil beating; his hands were numb, his teeth ached. He dropped the empty drum, pushed in a seven-round box mag and burned his hand on the receiver when he hit the action release to strip off the first shotshell.

"Damn, it's hot."

"Hold it away from you. It might pop…"

They waited a few seconds, then Konzaki took the Atchisson from Lyons and released the magazine. He turned the ejection port to the ground, snapped back the actuator. When the shotshell hit the dirt, he shifted his left leg to set his foot down on top of the hot shell.

"What're you doing?"

"If it explodes from the chamber heat, I can buy a new foot…"

Hinging open the weapon, Konzaki looked into the receiver. "Ever notice that shotgun shells aren't brass?"

"Nah, man. Thought brass came in designer colors."

"Look. Melted plastic in the chamber. This shell — " Konzaki stooped down, picked up the cooled round " — would have been fused in there. No full-auto firefights with the Atchisson until I come up with improved casings."

Lyons laughed. "Andy, firefights with the Atchisson don't last that long."

"Maybe aluminum."

"Now the .45."

Slapping in a magazine, he pulled back the slide of the autopistol to feed a round. He held the piece with both hands — right hand on the grip, left hand on the fold-down lever, left thumb hooked through the oversize trigger guard. He sighted over the phosphorous sights at a distant tree and squeezed off a shot.

He heard the slug smash into the wood. But no muzzle blast. He slipped off his ear protectors, fired again. The crack of the slug punching into the tree broke the woodland silence. He aimed into the air, fired, finally heard the muzzle sound: not a blast, more a rushing sound. Sudden, then over. The slug zipped off into empty sky.

Lyons set the safety as he turned to Konzaki. "This is it! When will it be ready?"

"When do you need it?"

A shrill beep came from the pocket of Lyons's jacket. The tone repeated three times. Then three times again. Both men knew what the code meant.

"Now."