Deathbites

2

July 7, 1948 hours, Atlanta, Georgia

Aya Jishin looked over the thirty long-noses crowded into the meeting room. She never thought she would get lonely for the sight of a civilized face, but she was. Nogi did not count. He was of Japanese origin, but too many brushes with Yakuza swords made him look more like an apple doll than a human. His appearance did not matter: he was willing to train barbarians to kill barbarians. That was all that counted.

"Good evening, former victims," she said, addressing the group. "You've been put out of work by automation. Now you're going to put the automators out of business."

The audience had to strain to catch her hoarse, croaked words, but they seemed to think it was worth the trouble. Shouts of assent greeted her opening remark.

She continued. "All of you joined Workers Against Redundancy because computers and automated machines have robbed you of your means of earning a living. WAR welcomed you, just as it's welcoming thousands of others each day. But the thirty of you were meant to do more than write to your congressmen, to be more effective than picketers, to pack more punch than a leaflet delivers. Welcome to the muscle and heart of WAR. You will form the local Harassment Initiation Team, known as HIT."

Being part of a hit team seemed to appeal to the audience. They cheered again.

Jishin waited for the cheering to stop. She expected it, not because she had any illusion that she was an orator, but because the unemployed long-noses had been carefully selected. She was speaking to the angriest of the angry, the ones who would take any excuse to strike out against the system.

She had already delivered the same speech in four other parts of the country, and there were still more HIT groups to start up. Wherever shortsighted government policies created large groups of unemployed, Jishin looked for a potential group of terrorists waiting for someone to come along and aim them at someone.

"We have had successful actions in both California and New Jersey," Jishin told her enthusiastic audience. "Tomorrow Georgia will know the real cost of using machines to rob people of their jobs and their self-respect.''

While waiting for the cheering to again subside, Jishin smiled. There was plenty to smile about. These angry, homicidal long-noses represented only a small fraction of the unemployed. Others who were desperate for social action, but not willing to vent their hostilities in blood, were given jobs as volunteers for Workers Against Redundancy. WAR was the perfect front for selecting and training the psychotic misfits. As long as North American governments put such a low priority on full employment, she would never run out of cannon fodder.

Jishin walked over to a large-scale wall map and picked up a pointer. She instantly had the attention of the group.

"This is Elwood Industries. After tomorrow it will cease to exist."

She paused again, beginning to tire of all the cheering. She wanted to get to the meat of the briefing. That was the difficulty with using locals — too much energy had to be expended working on their enthusiasm. Her own squad of terrorists did not need all this. They knew that the real joy came from killing, torturing and maiming.

The cheering died down and they paid close attention. They knew that Nogi, the martial-arts instructor, would choose only half of them to join him and the seasoned veterans in the assault on Elwood Industries. That meant keen competition for the joys of battle and the even greater joys of combat pay.

Jishin quickly snowed the audience her battle plan.

"So," she concluded, "tomorrow at three-thirty in the afternoon, those of you who qualify will get to write your names in the book of history as Americans who dared to stand up for mankind against the machine."

That was good for three minutes of cheering.

Jishin was glad it was over. She left the rostrum content. Six HIT units in place. No one could stop her now.

July 8, 1430 hours, over the Atlantic

Something poked Carl Lyons in the ribs. He stayed relaxed as though he did not notice. The poke came again, stronger, more insistent.

Lyons's hand flew up in a blur of motion. His forearm connected with something hard that went flying. He tried to roll toward his attacker, but the seat belt restrained him.

Lyons opened his eyes. He was on the Stony Man executive jet. Pilot Jack Grimaldi and teammate Rosario Blancanales were standing over him. Lyons looked down the aisle of the Saberliner and saw Politician's stick lying on the carpeting.

Lyons flipped a lever and a small motor moved his seat to the upright position. He undid the lap belt and stretched before acknowledging the existence of the two men.

"Why'd you poke me with that stick?" Lyons demanded of Blancanales.

"Jack has a top-priority radio call waiting for you," Politician replied. He laughed. Waking Lyons was not as tough this time as it usually was.

"Who's flying this damn thing?" Lyons, still groggy, demanded.

"It's on autopilot," Grimaldi answered.

Lyons followed the pilot to the cockpit. He picked up the mike.

"Scrambler's on the broadcast," the pilot informed him.

Lyons settled into the copilot seat and pressed the transmit button.

"Ironman here."

Hal Brognola's voice sounded mechanical as it came out of the descrambler.

"Grimaldi still on line?"

"Yes. Shoot."

"What's your ETA southeastern seaboard?"

Lyons looked at Grimaldi who held up one clenched fist.

"About an hour," Lyons said.

"I'd like you to stop in Georgia and pick up a woman. We should talk to her, but my main worry is that terrorists will get to her first."

"So, send the federal marshals."

"If I read the situation correctly, the marshals would get wiped," Brognola insisted.

Lyons leaned back. "You'd better fill me in." He signaled to Grimaldi to set the course for Atlanta.

"There's been two computer-research facilities attacked by terrorists. Everyone has been butchered and the buildings bombed into rubble. In both cases the bombs were delayed to get the police when they started to investigate. We've been tracing down every possible link between the two places. The M.O. is the same, but one was in New Jersey and the other in California.

"Then a researcher — named Lao — in Atlanta reported that a new data bank contains the research notes of a Dr. Uemurea. We checked out Uemurea and found that he was killed and his lab destroyed much the same way as the two places that were destroyed here. After that we found that both places in the U.S. which were hit had just started to use the same data bank that Lao tells us has Uemurea's research in it.

"It's an outfit called Small Chips. I have a gut feeling that the research facility where Lao works will be next on the list. That's why I want Able Team there as quickly as possible. Those terrorists don't leave any survivors."

"Okay, Stony Man," Lyons said, ready to sign off.

"Hold it!" Brognola barked through the descrambler. "I've got a message coming in from Smyrna, near Atlanta. Stand by to receive."

"Standing by," Lyons told him.

Two minutes later, Brognola was back.

"How close an ETA can you give me, Ironman?"

Lyons glanced at Grimaldi who was operating the onboard computer.

Grimaldi took the mike from Lyons.

"Jack here, Hal. I can set us down at Hartfield in forty-one minutes at the present cruising speed, or I can burn the hell out of it and shave that to thirty-four minutes."

"Not good enough," Brognola said. "I just got word that people are collecting near Elwood Industries in Smyrna. The line went dead in the middle of the telephone conversation. I'm afraid it's going to go down any minute."

"Where is this place?" Grimaldi asked. As the coordinates and street address came in he fed the information to the flight computer. He then punched in a few numbers from his own head. While waiting for the few seconds it took the computer to respond, Grimaldi eased the throttle forward. The modified Rockwell T39 Saber liner screamed its delight and thrust Grimaldi and Lyons into the backs of their seats.

"I didn't think this can could peel air like this," Lyons said.

Grimaldi grinned. "Had the J603s replaced with a pair of J57-55s. They're both Pratt and Whitney's, but these afterburning turbos have more than twice the thrust. I've been looking for an excuse to see what this tour bus will do.

"You boys willing to hit silk?" Grimaldi asked.

"Lot safer than going joyriding with you," Lyons grunted back.

Grimaldi laughed and then spoke into the microphone. "Revised ETA for Elwood. I repeat, for Smyrna, not Hartfield, twenty-three minutes from now."

"Where are you landing?" Brognola demanded.

"I'm not landing, just dumping the freeloaders," Grimaldi replied.

"From a jet!"

"If you speak nice, I'll give them parachutes."

Brognola squawked but his faith in his men quickly overcame his skepticism. He knew they would need every second and every bit of concentration to do the job.

"Good luck," he said. "Signing off."

Already Lyons could detect a slight tremor in the plane. Grimaldi's casual manner was gone as he focused his full powers of concentration on keeping the quivering plane under control.

"Listen carefully," he told Lyons. "We have no time to go over this. I can't leave the controls or try to communicate again.

"I've been wanting to try this jump thing ever since I started flying this baby. You'll find chutes in the rear port locker. Get into them fast. When I cut all the power, get the door open. It opens inward. Be careful, it'll try to pull you out, even though I'll depressurize first.

"Then I'm going to pull the nose way up and this baby is going to stall. At that point, you'll be right over target. The three of you have eight seconds to get out before this baby tries backing up. Do it."

Lyons slapped Grimaldi on the shoulder.

"See you at the airport," he said. Then he made his way back to Pol and Gadgets. "Scramble," he told them. "Gather up any ammunition and weapons you can carry. We jump in ten minutes."

Politician and Gadgets looked at each other. Lyons kept right on going and started pulling parachutes from the rear locker.

"He means it," Gadgets concluded.

He and Pol scrambled in their special flak jackets and started filling pockets with gun clips. Each warrior strapped on a web belt that held more gear. Lyons checked his Colt Python, which he holstered without its sound suppressor on his right hip. He slung the Atchisson Assault shotgun across his back before strapping on the parachute.

Politician grabbed the M-203, a combination M-16 and M-79 grenade launcher. He stored the grenades in a chest pouch. He looked and saw that Lyons had removed the sound suppressor from his Colt. Pol did the same thing with his 93-R before putting it in a breakaway rig on his left shoulder.

Gadgets had an Uzi clipped to his left leg and a 93-R under his left arm. He left the silencer on his weapon. He had radio gear strapped to his chest and a parachute on his back.

Lyons checked all the fastenings for Gadgets.

"What's coming down?" Politician asked. He was checking Lyons's chute to make sure it was on properly.

"Place called Elwood Electronics," Lyons answered. "Grimaldi's computer says come down in a vacant field a quarter mile away and head due west. It may be under terrorist attack by the time we get there. We've got to try and find some scientist named Lao. Brognola wants her delivered to Stony Man."

"How do we identify her?" Pol asked.

"Beats me," Lyons answered. He was inspecting Pol's harness by that time.

The engines wound down from a scream to silence. They immediately went to work on the door, pulling it in and sliding it back.

"Remember," Lyons shouted over the noise, "all of us out in eight seconds. Pol first, Gadgets, then me."

Just then the plane nosed upward and lost speed. The three fighters had to hang on to bulkheads and seats to keep from being shoved to the rear, past the opening.

Lyons slapped Politician on the shoulder. Pol was already holding on to both sides of the doorway. One hard pull and he was gone. Gadgets placed both hands on the tail side of the opening and peeled himself through. He was barely clear of the opening when Lyons pushed off from a seat with both feet and dived through the door after him. Lyons pulled his rip cord almost immediately. He knew the other two would delay for several seconds, using the variation in timing to spread themselves out.

As his shroud lines began to play out, Lyons glanced at the plane. It was motionless above him, almost standing on its tail. Then suddenly it slipped to one side and twisted, falling like a broken toy. Soon it was well below the jumpers. As the wind speed increased, the nose began to lead the rest of the plane. Then the two huge tail jets flamed in and the machine was in a power dive. From above it looked as though the mad air jockey had managed to pull the black bird out of its dive with only a few hundred feet to spare.