Five Rings of Fire

16

The pilots were vital, essential if the athletes were to escape death in the desert at the hands of a mercenary extermination force. If the four gunmen managed to extend the hostage situation for three or four minutes, the athletes, the Klansmen and Able Team would be wiped out. Still, Gadgets could do nothing but wait. Wait for the right moment.

From behind him, back near the camp, the Able Team electronics wizard saw a flash that lit up the sky. Gadgets refused to take his eyes off the enemy.

The waiting paid off. One of the killers looked up at the light, another shouted to the athletes and Klansmen at the dunes.

"Throw down your arms or your pilots buy it."

While the goon was shouting, Gadgets sent three bullets in to destroy the head of the other hostage holder. The gunman dropped to his knees, then dropped onto his face, tasting sand only an instant before he tasted death.

Gadgets quickly swung the whispering gun to sight on the second man, whose gun barrel was wavering near the head of the pilot. That killer's speech ended with a 9mm exclamation mark in the temple. He dropped to a sandy death beside his buddy.

Suddenly the dunes were alive with gunfire. The pilots had the good sense to hit the turf. One of the remaining mercenaries stood his ground and fired, dropping a Klansman with a wild shot to the upper leg. The mere was buried in bullets.

The remaining guncock had gone down with the pilots. The two men wrestled with the gunner, forcing his weapon into the sand. Gadgets carefully lined up the shot, taking great pains to save the pilots. He fired. Bull's-eye. Blood marred the man's forehead. The goon's skull was cracked open by a 9mm beanbreaker.

The athletes and the few remaining Klansmen swarmed over the dune. They climbed into the copters. Gadgets went and offered a hand to each of the pilots, helping pull them off the desert floor. They slapped the dust and dirt off their uniforms. They looked shaky. Gadgets gave them a firm hand on the shoulder.

"Need you now, guys. We're counting on you. Get the machines warmed up and off the ground as soon as I say go. The bastards are closing in on us."

The chopper jockeys wasted no time on questions. They kicked up sand as they scrambled for their machines. Gadgets turned back, trying to hurry people onto the choppers.

Lyons was under the razor wire when the lights hit him. Pol reacted instantly. He sent a half clip from the Ingram to shatter the floodlights and destroy the television camera under them.

Petra Dix, who had the camera shot out of her hands, screamed.

The men of Able Team could hear voices shouting from close by.

"That way! It came from over there."

Two of the Zambians, who had liberated rifles from dead Klansmen and were waiting to get onto the copter, started to snipe at enemies moving in from the north.

Lyons regained his feet, at the same time instructing.

"Run for it. Run like hell."

Dix was still screaming. As he passed her, Lyons grabbed a handful of hair and lifted her toes clear off the sand. She gasped. Having been shot at, almost killed, and now this... Petra Dix was losing every inch of self-control.

"Bitch," Lyons snapped at her. "Almost got everyone killed."

He let go of her hair and she looked up at him, ready to lodge a raging complaint. Lyons stared her down. She shuddered.

"What are you doing here anyway?" Lyons snarled.

"I was after a story and I seemed to have found one. What's happening?"

Lyons shook his head. There was no way to deflect this woman away from a story. No way.

Two killers in combat fatigues, who had entered the compound minutes earlier, now used Lyons's escape route and crawled under the barbed wire. Rising to their feet over a small dune, they came upon a helpless Petra Dix and a spinning Carl Lyons. Lyons confronted the gunners, snapping off a burst from his combo gun. The weapon did its work, wiping away their faces in a bloody smear. Dix watched the man at work. Her breath grew choppy, her knees began to buckle.

Lyons grabbed her and propelled her toward the disappearing line of retreating allies.

"Catch up and keep low," Lyons ordered.

She tottered after the line.

"Lower. Faster," Lyons prodded, pushing her in the back with the hot gun barrel.

He could hear activity behind him. The paratroopers were taking over the compound, unaware that those once in the compound had left. Lyons knew they would discover the total emptiness of the area within a minute. Then they would be on the warpath to find the athletes, the deserted Klansmen and whoever had killed the KGB moles.

Lyons decided it was time to discourage pursuit. He stopped and turned, plucking three fragmentation grenades from a bandolier. The first one landed over the dune just as two heads appeared over the top of the sand. They collapsed back, screaming, as the grenade blew.

Lyons raised the M-203 and fired the next two grenades farther back. He was rewarded with ear-piercing screams. He turned and took off with a burst of speed.

When Lyons arrived at the helicopters, they were full. Both were warming up and the pilot of one was waiting to speak to him. Some people were still waiting to board. Lyons looked for his teammates. Pol and Gadgets were holding the area against the most probable directions of attack. Babette, Kelly and Zak Wilson eyed the third quadrant, Mustav and Jackson the fourth.

The pilot reached Lyons at the same time Petra Dix did. Both spoke at once. Lyons slapped in a new clip and then placed a firm hand over Dix's busy mouth.

"Go ahead," he said to the pilot.

The pilot was clearly uncomfortable with his message. "When we turned our radios back on, we were ordered back to base and told to take no further orders from you, sir. Colonel Follet says he's captured a Soviet spy helicopter over American soil."

"I'm real happy for the hero. You intend to dump the passengers?"

"Between you and me — not a chance."

"Copilots seats filled yet?" Lyons asked.

"Saved them for two of you," the man replied.

Lyons turned to Dix. "There's not enough room for everybody on these birds," he said, fanning a hand at the two jam-packed Sikorskys. "Can your chopper take four more?"

She nodded.

A burst of automatic-rifle fire flew high as Gadgets took out a sniper from the top of a dune. Lyons waved Kelly, Mustav and Wilson over. They arrived on the run.

"One of you in each copilot seat. Hold a gun on these jockeys until they unload everyone at UCLA. The extra person — hop on. Now, move."

The trio sprinted for the copter's doors.

"Thanks," the chopper pilot said. "That lets us off the hook." He took off for his machine.

Lyons thrust five grenades into the arms of Petra Dix. "They're getting too damn close for comfort," he snapped. He loaded a sixth into the M-79 and then, as the sandstorm from the chopper blades began to whip around them, he ran back along the way they had come. Dix hesitated for a moment, but when she saw Pol, Gadgets and Babette following, she hastened to catch up to Lyons.

The crest of the dune ahead of them bristled with M-16s. Very few heads showed — the assault rifles were being aimed at the rising helicopters. Lyons's grenade launcher was the first to speak. The other two Able Team members and Babette joined in with their Ingrams, sweeping the crest of the dune, tearing into heads, kicking up sand. Lyons snatched another grenade from Dix's hand. The M-79 boomed again. Two figures straightened up as nerves were blasted by the impact of thousands of wire shards.

Lyons grabbed another grenade.

"Helicopter is over to the right," Dix shouted. But Lyons did not seem interested in the positioning of the copter; his mind and sights were on the enemy. The second chopper lifted like a monster off the desert floor. All Able Team members felt a great sense of relief. The only bodies on the line were those of Babette Pavlovski and Petra Dix — both volunteers on the war's battlefront — and themselves, professional fighters, a justice-by-fire death squad.

The eastern horizon was bloody with the arrival of the sun. The sky was light. Soon the sun's strength would be unbearable.

Petra Dix watched as Lyons and his cohorts moved straight ahead, into enemy fire. She wondered what the hell she was doing with them. She was covering a story. She did not want to become one.

When Lyons took the last grenade from Dix's carefully kept hands, she turned right and ran. There was a spare camera in the copter. She could take off and use it on remote. She sprinted. Her lungs, unaccustomed to running, heaved madly.

As she scrambled up the side of the dune she remembered that she had the means of transportation for the others. Later, she thought. Later. She topped the dune in a trot and sped down the other side, right into the arms of four men wearing camouflage combat fatigues. Two of the gunners reached out and caught her by the arms.

"Look what dropped in," one said, a sick grin opening up on his sand-swept face.

"Think we've got us a deserter," said another. The pair threw Dix to the ground. She landed with a thud. She realized her time to play reporter was up. This was no longer a game. By leaving Lyons she had left safety. Now she was paying the price.

The four men were not in a good mood. Their asses were on the line. The athletes had escaped. A small team of crack gunners had decimated their ranks. The sun was up and fast becoming blistering. They wanted no more than to kill the enemy that remained and get the hell out of the sandy battlefield.

One of the bastards held a knife to her throat while another searched her for weapons. He grabbed roughly at her crotch, slapped his hands across her breasts. Dix bit her lip trying not to cry. She wanted to scream but the knife at her throat told her not to.

"How many troops over there?" the man with the knife asked.

"Three men and a woman," Dix whispered.

"Bullshit," the other man snarled, slapping her breast with a powerful swat.

"Hon... honest," Dix gasped. "The rest took off in the copters."

One of the men who hadn't spoken yet piped up. "If they've got only four, let's take them and get out of here."

The man with the knife turned Dix onto her stomach. He took the knife and passed it along her spine. She felt nothing more than a light tingle as the knife sliced through her two-hundred-dollar bush jacket and her bra. The goon pulled her jacket and her bra off, leaving her naked from the waist up. "Tie her feet," the man told his companion. "And hands."

The man, grinning a gap-toothed grin, slobbered on the newswoman as he tied her up.

"We'll have some fun when we're through," he drooled.

Dix appealed to the other men. "You can't leave me here. I'll die of exposure."

"Only if a snake don't get you first," one answered.

"I hope you live," another said. "'Cause when we get back we'll make sure you die of something a lot more fun than exposure."

In the rising heat, Petra Dix shivered.

When the newswoman had bolted away from Able Team, Babette had turned to chase her.

"Don't," Lyons commanded.

Babette returned to her place in their advance on the enemy.

The foursome crested the dune in a line that spread out for twenty feet. Instead of being met by fierce resistance and a storm of bullets, they only encountered three bodies.

Slowly they advanced. One of the men was still alive. He tried playing possum but gave himself away when he twitched as the breeze slapped sand in his face. Pol noticed the movement.

Blancanales stood over the goon. The man had no weapon.

"Which way did they go?"

The man slowly opened one eye, then the other. The supine figure looked up the barrel of Pol's Ingram. He pointed back toward the prison camp. Blood was seeping from various wounds on his body.

"How many?" Pol asked.

The man was silent. Pol brought the conversation back to life with a nudge of his gun.

"Fuck you," the goon screamed, throwing a fistful of sand in Pol's face. The Able Team member turned in time to keep the sand out of his eyes. The goon tried to make a run for it. Pol dropped him with three bullets.

Blancanales looked at Lyons and shrugged. "Looks like they're trying to bottle us."

Lyons pointed a course forty-five degrees shy of moving straight back to the camp. "That'll keep us ahead of the cork and move us closer to the dune buggies. That group straight ahead isn't closing in.''

"They'll probably try an ambush at the camp," Gadgets said.

The four warriors set off at a stiff jog. At the crest of each dune they threw themselves on their stomachs and crawled over. Each person knew that the sun would soon be rising to deadly heights and that they could not survive long if they allowed themselves to be herded out into the desert.

By the time they peered over the top of the final dune and saw the camp ahead, they were drenched in sweat. They surveyed the scene with slow care, spotting, noting the location of as many of the enemy as they could find. They slid back five feet to whisper, each watching the horizon over the head of the person facing them.

" 'Bout thirty?" Gadgets guessed.

The others nodded in agreement.

"Gotta wonder how many are out there," Pol said. "How many of the bastards are behind us?"

"Only one twin-engine plane," Lyons pointed out.

"No more than thirty behind us,'' Pol figured.

"Let's take advantage of the fact that the camp was meant to be wiped out," Lyons said. "I'll create a diversion. You three get a couple of buggies out of there."

Lyons started to skirt the camp, looking for the best place to set up a temporary fire base. The other three crawled along a route that would take them as close as possible to the gate of the compound. They finally reached the dune — now slightly flattened by the wind — from which Lyons and Babette had breached the gate the first time they had entered the enemy camp.

"Fence is high," Pol whispered. "Can we all get over?" Babette and Gadgets nodded.

Lyons began his diversion with two HE blasts into the razor wire, about a hundred feet from the gate. The blasts sent sand flying like geysers, leaving a two-foot crawl hole under the sagging accordion wire. The enemy was well trained: while the majority raced to the point under attack, some held the perimeter.

Schwarz and Blancanales, silenced Berettas in hand and Ingrams in tow, fired from the ridge of the dune. They waited until Lyons showed himself and began blasting with the M-16 portion of the over/under gun. The noise made by Lyons covered the faint, deadly coughs of the Berettas.

While the majority of gunners focused their wrath on Lyons, and while the remainder were intent on covering their own fire sectors, Pol and Gadgets quietly opened a small area.

Gadgets took Babette's Ingram and bandolier. The threesome charged down the dune to the gate. Lyons had popped down for the two seconds it took him to change clips. Now he was up again, twenty feet from where he had first revealed himself to the enemy. His second clip cut down anyone careless enough to get away from cover.

Two of the hardmen had the sense to check their flank. Gadgets made them wish they hadn't. He put a burst in each.

Babette rolled over the fence, bounced to her feet, and caught both Ingrams. She shouldered one and spun to cover Gadgets and Pol with the other.

The Able Team members took the fence. They had penetrated enemy ground. They had been spotted.

Gadgets grabbed his Ingram from Babette and greased the closest goon. Blancanales and the gymnastics coach scattered to the area housing the dune buggies. Babette sent out a stream of fire. Blancanales started two buggies.

Opening the gate, Gadgets felt the slight impact of a bullet grazing his flak jacket. Covering fire, now coming from two directions, kept the enemy down and Schwarz alive.

When the two buggies began to move, Gadgets emptied his Ingram at the enemy. There were no easy targets. The gunners were kissing the sand. The clip emptied just as Babette came charging by in a buggy. The Able Team member grabbed the edge of the windshield, kicking his legs up, letting the momentum of the vehicle swing him over the low door and into the passenger seat.

Gadgets barely had his legs tucked in when a blast rocked the compound, almost lifted the buggy from the ground. Two more shock waves rocked them as they sped away under a hail of bullets. Lyons had barely given them time to make a safe sortie before shooting three HEs into the other buggies. The force of the blast and the flying debris did nothing for the aim of the paratroopers left in the compound.

The two roaring buggies, Blancanales playing catch up to Babette's lead, swept around the first dune out of the fire zone. They circled toward Lyons's position. Phase one of the battle plan complete.

The blitz to liberate the two buggies and destroy the rest had taken only two minutes. By the time the two buggies had roared through the open gate, the surly Captain Young had his paratroopers, and the situation, under control.

"There's only one man up there, you pussies. Take him before the buggies reach him."

Two men tore up a small tent and threw it over the wire. Ten men charged over.

Young unhitched a communicator from his belt.

"Curly. You there?"

"Yeah, Cap."

"How far are you from sector eight?"

"In seven. Almost on top of it."

"A lone gunner. Take him out, now!"

"Got it. Out."

Young stopped five more men who were about to charge out over the tent.

"Rescue as many vehicles as you can. They're our only way out."

The men turned and ran toward the blazing buggies. Several had been protected from direct fire by the wreckage of the others. Lyons had laid the grenades along the edge of the closely packed vehicles. Young's men, prepared to annihilate the camp, had wire cutters. They soon had some fence opened up. They worked feverishly to get a few buggies clear before more gas tanks blew.

Young watched his men work. Not bad for Americans, he thought. But they had botched the ultimate plan — to wipe out the Zambian athletes. Young believed six of his KGB training instructors could have done the job right. He tuned in his small transistor and continued to coordinate his force. He shook his head. They had all made the night jump safely — all sixty-two. Now, his best estimate left thirty alive. As far as he could tell, there were only five or six of the enemy left behind when the copters took off. How in hell did they do so much damage, so much killing?

But things would change, Young thought. Things would change.

Young's men were trained American veterans with no place to use their deadly skills. After Nam they could not adjust to the tedium of civilian living. It had taken Young five years and three million of the Kremlin's precious American dollars, but he had managed to recruit and train these social misfits. The idea had been to have both the blacks and the Klansmen found dead, killed by American guns. It would have been a beautiful black mark against America. It would have been a great propaganda coup, especially since, coinciding with the barbaric murder, many black American athletes would be turning their backs on their homeland, moving to Communist countries.

Now this. Now all of this, because of some crack tactical squad. The bastards will pay, Young thought. They'll pay.

Captain Young rounded up nine troopers. The ten men loaded themselves into the five surviving, slightly damaged, buggies and started along the tracks left by the escaping vehicles. The five vehicles spread out in a V-formation, giving them a wide scan and enabling them to proceed at a high speed without throwing sand on each other.

Young was banking on the fact that even if the two enemy buggies managed to break the circle and pick up their friend, they would not be able to break back out in a hurry. Before they could fight their way out, his men would have them. And if they didn't get them, the sun would. The desert was firing up like the blast furnaces of hell. In the heat, the smaller force would expend its energy sooner.

As he retreated from his firing spot near camp, Lyons searched the bandolier. He took out the one remaining grenade, then threw the bandolier away. From here on in he'd put his life on the 5.56-caliber bullets from the M-16 portion of his gun.

Lyons knew his teammates had sprung two buggies.

Lyons knew he had scant seconds before the enemy trying to box him in would meet the troops that had charged out of the camp.

Lyons knew when that happened he'd be caught. Dead in the middle.

Carl Lyons had tried his best to tone down his self-professed craziness; but he had not lost it.

With a grin on his face he turned and ran straight up the dune — back toward the compound.