Cairo Countdown

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 thisto him…"

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 break a major terrorist operation the next day. Let's see what the electronics crew came up with…"

As the three men crossed the asphalt to the door of the hangar's office, Katz, limping slightly as always, touched the tiny hearing aid behind his ear. He smiled at what he heard.

Technicians saluted Parks as he entered the office. "We found no micro-transmitters or corn-line interceptions, sir. We found nothing at all."

A street of whitewashed shops glowed with the soft colors of a theater's neon. Crowding around the entrance, teenagers waved tickets at a fat man. Other teenagers left the theater, boys punching and shoving one another. Abdul and Lyons rolled through the intersection.

Lyons pointed to the crowd. "What's going on there? Politics?"

Abdul glanced at the marquee. "Bruce Lee."

Smiling, Lyons checked his modified Colt. He undid his belt, secured several mag pouches. His hand radio buzzed. It was Schwarz.

"News from Katz, Ironman. Air force technicians have swept the hangars, telephone lines, the perimeter. No electronics."

"Talk show's over," Lyons said. "We're at the alley. On our way in…"

Abdul parked the taxi. Then he slid an Uzi from under his seat and followed Lyons into a narrow alley. Lights behind sooty windows cast no illumination into the narrow corridor of shadow and filth. Above them, voices screamed from tenements. Radio songs in the strange chromatic scale of Arabia drifted down. Lyons pulled back the hammer of his .45, held the silenced autopistol ready.

He heard Abdul's steps behind him. Lyons slowed as he came to a tangle of trash. A faint light revealed a twisted length of steel jutting from a building. At six feet above the paving stones, it posed no danger to Egyptians. Lyons memorized the position of the hazard. If he had to run out of the alley, he didn't want the angle iron to take off the top of his head.

"Two more doors," Abdul whispered.

Silently, Lyons slid out his hand radio. Abdul went to the door. Lyons clicked the radio's transmit key, once, then three times. He repeated the code, heard Blancanales and Gadgets acknowledge with clicks. He returned the radio to the flap pocket and checked the Atchisson slung on his back. No tangles, no hang-ups.

Abdul eased the door open. Dry hinges creaked. A low voice challenged him from inside.

Answering in quick Arabic, Abdul stepped back, putting the Uzi behind his back. A flashlight splashed light into the alley. Lyons watched as the muzzle of an AK appeared, then the shadowy form of the sentry holding the autorifle and flashlight.

A .45 slug exploded the silhouette's skull as Lyons shoved the AK muzzle aside. The sentry died before he could jerk the rifle's trigger. Lyons covered the narrow passage leading into the tenement as Abdul concealed the corpse.

They slipped inside and eased the door closed. Lyons took out his radio again. He pulled out the tiny earphones, plugged it into his ear, keyed the transmit.

"Wizard, Pol. Sentries. Hold where you are. We'll clear those street doors for you."

Clicks acknowledged.

Lyons crept through the darkness, feeling his way with his feet. Both his hands were on the Colt. The fire selector was set on burst. The old floor of the tenement vibrated with footsteps above them. A radio voice wailed. They followed the passage past two bricked-up doorways. Finally, a wood-plank door stopped them. Lyons and Abdul waited, listened. They heard only the radio. Abdul pointed to himself as he reached for the handle.

Steel scraped on concrete, the door flew open, knocking Abdul back. A form pushed through the doorway. Lyons saw the outline of a slung rifle. He fired.

Three .45 slugs slammed the terrorist sideways, fragments of skull and brain raining down in the passage. Lyons looked away from the headless corpse, saw a second shadow in the doorway.

A voice screamed in Arabic. Three hollowpoint slugs smashed into the terrorist's chest, the impact driving out his last word in an explosion of breath and blood. The Colt's slide locked back.

Lyons's earphone buzzed, the voice of Blancanales blasting directly into his ear, the words shouted, desperate, "Lyons! Lyons! They..."

The voice cut off. Something had happened out front. But Lyons could do nothing to help his partners.

Feet pounded on steel steps. Dropping the magazine with one hand, Lyons snatched a second from his belt. He jammed in the load of seven 190-grain hollowpoints, then glanced around the corner.

A group of young men were crowding down the stairs. One had an old submachine gun, the others knives. Lyons sighted on the one with the autoweapon, put a slug into his heart. The impact threw the dead teenager against the others. They grabbed him, didn't see Lyons as he stepped out in a combat crouch to sight on them. Lurching and spinning with the impacts, the other three fell dead or dying. Lyons watched the shadows above the stairs. He pulled out his radio with his left hand.

More feet rang on the stairs. In a suicidal rush, a wild-eyed old mullah with an AK threw himself at the American. Lyons looked into the 7.62mm bore of the autoweapon. He brought his .45 Colt Commander on line. His finger touched the trigger an instant too late.