Rain of Doom

17

Standing behind the truck, his pockets full of tools, Gadgets watched the driver open the trunk of the limousine. A Shia in a Syrian army uniform escorted the driver back to the front of the Mercedes. When the driver's door closed, Gadgets crossed the road to the open trunk.

The raised trunk lid blocked the view of the two men in the back seat. The trunk light illuminating his search, Gadgets opened the top suitcase. Clothes. Slipping his hands into the folded shirts and pants, he found nothing unusual. He put the suitcase aside and opened another.

Ten black plastic units, each the size of an AM transistor radio, lay cushioned on precut blocks of foam. He had no time to study or test them. He knew the purpose and the function of the units. Now he had to modify one.

Using the point of a watchmaker's screwdriver, he snapped open one of the black plastic cases. He saw circuit boards, components, hundreds of expertly soldered connections. Studying the components, he thumbed the power switch. A tiny red diode light on the side of the case glowed. The homing-impulse transmitter gave no other indication of operation.

Gadgets poked the screwdriver into the fine wires and separated the two leads to the switch. With micro-cutters, he snipped the wires from the switch, stripped off a few millimeters of insulation, then twisted the wires together. With a bit of black electrical tape he had stuck to his left thumbnail, he covered the twist in the wires.

Next, he found the two tiny wires leading to the red diode. He snipped the wires to kill the light. A second bit of tape secured the cut wires to the plastic case.

Closing the plastic case, Gadgets glanced to the nearest Shia, who maintained his impassive expression as his eyes flicked to Gadgets. Gadgets took a few more seconds and slipped a minimicrophone-transmitter into the suitcase of directional transmitters, jamming it deep between the foam padding and the suitcase shell.

He closed the case of electronics, returned it exactly where he found it, then replaced the suitcase on top. Signaling the Shia, Gadgets walked away without looking back. The Shia slammed the trunk lid closed.

Spinning its tires on the ice, exhaust clouding in the darkness, the limousine continued away. The taillights swayed as the vehicle bumped over the road, then the red points went over a rise and disappeared.

"All right!" Gadgets jumped into the air and slapped his hands together. "Did it, dudes! I did it. Fifteen thousand points on the pinball machine of foreign policy for the unknown Mr. Wizard!"

"Convoy coming!" Powell shouted. "Troop truck first in the line."

"Wizard!" Lyons ran to Gadgets. "Quit the cheerleader routine. We got the guns in this truck. Come on." Lyons climbed into the back of the troop transport. He reached down to help his partner up. "What did you see in there?"

"I deserve some cheers! You don't know what I just-did, you don't know the perfect justice of it. Remember what I said in Nicaragua about keeping your technology straight? Well, that Dasto just got his twisted."

Lyons slapped his gloved hands together in perfunctory applause as he took his place behind the Browning. "I know what you did. Now tell me what you saw."

"I saw the best electronics and ni-cad batteries that money can buy, that's what."

Gadgets sat down behind the MK-19 full-auto 40mm machine gun. The headlights of the approaching convoy lit the flakes of falling snow. Though they had their backs to the convoy, both Americans raised their collars to cover their faces.

"And everything I saw," Gadgets continued, "was stamped, Made in the US A."

"What?"

"No shit." Gadgets told him, putting valved hearing protectors into his ears. "Everything I saw I've got in my catalogs at home. I didn't see anything ComBloc, nothing that I didn't know about. So we know where the Syrian got his electronics — the US of A."

Squeaking and rattling announced the arrival of the Syrian troop transport. Behind the transport, a line of diesel trucks and trailers slowed. Each of the four trucks pulled two flatbed trailers carrying the shipping containers. There were a total of eight containers. Engines revved as the trucks slowed.

Behind the Browning, Lyons squatted and peered through the slats at the Syrians. He pressed the transmit of his hand-radio. "Pol, you ready?"

"Loaded and locked," Blancanales answered.

"Ready here." Lyons pocketed his radio.

In the road, the Shias checked the transit documents presented by the Syrian officer in command of the platoon.

Behind the transport, in the clouds of diesel smoke and the glare of the headlights, other Shias moved in step with the plan. They went to the truck and trailer rigs and stepped up on the sides of the cabs. When the drivers opened the doors for the search, the Shias waved flashlights inside. Then the flashlights went out. Lyons did not see the Shias step down from the cabs. The doors closed.

A Shia ran to the Syrian transport. He saluted his Soviet advisor and the Soviet — Powell — waved the Syrians on. The driver revved the engine and engaged the gears.

Lyons stood up behind the Browning. Gadgets straightened a link in the belt of 40mm grenades. The Syrian troop transport bumped past the checkpoint and continued to the rise.

The line of trucks and trailers did not move.

A hundred meters past the checkpoint, the troop transport stopped. Powell shouted to the three men of Able Team, "Hit them!"

Heavy weapon reports shattered the night. Lyons held down the firing button of the Browning, firing full-auto .50-caliber into the soldiers crowded into the back of the trailer. The first high-explosive-and-white-phosphorous 40mm grenades hit an instant later. Blancanales scored several perfect shots into the back of the transport. Gadgets's first three grenades hit under the transport.

The Syrian soldiers died instantly, .50-caliber slugs passing through them without slowing, continuing through the sheet metal of the cab to kill the driver and officer. Exploding grenades slashed the dead and dying with thousands of steel-wire razors, the chemical fire of the white phosphorous igniting their flesh and uniforms, their munitions, the diesel fuel of the truck.

"Stop! Stop!" Powell shouted. The heavy weapons went silent. Unslinging a Kalashnikov, Powell ran to the burning truck. He circled the wreck, crouching as ammunition popped. One scream came from the cab. Powell sighted into the flames and triggered a quick burst. Then he ran back to the Americans and Shias.

"That's it, gentlemen," Powell yelled. "The rockets are now ours!"

Gadgets jumped from behind the grenade launcher, ran back to the trailers. Lyons and Powell followed. Shias opened the doors of the four trucks and threw out the bodies of the Syrian drivers.

Climbing up on a container in one of the trailers, Gadgets checked the bolts along the roof. Then he worked his way to the front of the container. He saw Lyons and Powell standing below him.

"Whoever designed all this had his act together. Supersimple. Unscrew the wing nuts on those bolts, then unlatch this thing here and the roof comes off. If you're going, say, sixty miles an hour, you can just eject the roof. They must've spent years working out all the technical details on this hit."

"You checking the rockets?" Lyons shouted over the noise of the idling diesel engines.

"I'll check the rockets, you get this convoy ready to move. Faster we move, more chance we'll make our score."

"What about the base?" Powell asked. "Thought you came here to hit it."

Lyons laughed. "After this, the Syrians... they'll bomb it. They'll bring bulldozers and bury it. Anything to cover up the evidence."

In a Zil limousine borrowed from the Soviet embassy, Zhgenti and Desmarais watched the Iranian embassy, one short block away. Other vehicles — military trucks, unmarked civilian cars, panel trucks — served as observation posts for his men on other streets. And behind the walls of a vacant mansion in this quarter of French colonial-period estates, two platoons of Syrian commandos waited in reserve.

The military vehicles would not appear suspicious. On this night of rebellion and chaotic warfare, Syrian security units had taken positions everywhere in the city. No common people braved the streets. Soldiers maintained martial peace in the Syrian capital.

"If the Americans come," Zhgentisaid, "they die."

"Whenthey come!" Desmarais countered. "Not if. I am sure."

"You are so familiar with them that you can foretell their moves?"

"They are ruthless killers, death-squad goons. They have no restraints. Their government does not control them. They do as they will. If they came to kill Iranians, they will come to the embassy. They care nothing for international law or the rights of diplomats, they will..."

"The Iranians?" Zhgenti asked, confused by her impassioned diatribe.

"No! The fascists! The Americans! But their own lust for murder will betray them, lead them into the trap we've set."

"If they come..." Zhgenti commented. "And do you still have your camera? You can record our victory for the newspapers of the world."

"Yes, here. I hope it still works." She slipped the expensive camera from her shoulder, removed the lens cap, looked through the viewfinder, tested the batteries, turned the focus and f-stop rings. "Somehow, after everything I've gone through tonight, it still operates. But if they come before dawn, it will be useless."

Zhgenti smiled. "For you, just for you, my little Canadian..."

"Quebecois!" Desmarais corrected.

"Oh, yes! As a gesture of socialist comradeship, I will order the Syrians to fire white flares. To light the night for the record of history. The photos will be important for the newspapers. And as Lenin said, 'The press is the greatest weapon of socialism.' Good, yes? He understood the value of stories and photos. But I think we will have long to wait."

They sat in silence for a few minutes, watching the lights of the Iranian embassy. In response to the political and religious crisis in Syria, the Iranians had assembled all their staff, all the consuls and attaches, on the grounds of the embassy. The Syrian intelligence service had told Zhgenti that the Iranians denied any part in the fundamentalist assault on the Assad regime. But in response to Syrian surveillance, the Iranians put out a call for all the Iranian diplomatic corps to gather within their embassy.

As Zhgenti and Desmarais watched, vehicles arrived. But none left.

Bored and tired, knowing his men and the Syrian agents also waited for the Americans, Zhgenti relaxed. He watched the Canadian woman watching for the men she hoped to see die.

A very pretty woman. Also a traitor to her country and an enemy to all North Americans. When the Soviet Union took the Americas, she would be among the first to die. International socialism needed no whores like her, selling out her country for expense accounts and free airline tickets.

But a very pretty woman. And willing to do things of interest to a man. A shameless woman. He had seen what she did with that rich Arab, that Muslim warlord with a limousine.

Now Zhgenti had a limousine. Would she do the same for him? He hadn't had a woman since last week in Bulgaria. That woman had been an honest whore, but not very attractive, exhausted by years of caring alone for her children after her husband was executed by the KGB. Rejected by her family, the widow had turned to part-time prostitution to buy her children a few hard-currency gifts — good shoes, textbooks, a few tins of meat for the holidays.

An honest prostitute. But not as pretty as this woman who sat with him now.

"Frenchie," Zhgenti said to Desmarais. "How did you get away from the Americans? Show me."

"What?"

"It will pass the time."

"What are you talking about?"

"Like in that other limousine..."

Desmarais reached for the door handle. Zhgenti grabbed her arm and jerked her closer. His thick lips touched the smooth, soft skin of her face.

"You want a bad report to our superiors? You play a very tricky game, my little Canadian. All your lies, all your ways of lying. Perhaps they will terminate your contract. Perhaps they will issue instructions for me to terminate your contract. Or perhaps I will terminate you immediately, and then explain. You have your choice. Do like you did for the Arab."

She did.

As the night unfolded, Zhgenti enjoyed her three more times. Finally, exhausted, only one eye open to watch her, his right hand secure on the pistol in his coat pocket, Zhgenti compared the technique of the Canadian to the pleasures of the middle-aged Bulgarian prostitute.

Rather automatic and mechanical and cold.

Like her lies.