that’s it,” Manning admonished. The enemy gunship stabilized for one moment and pointed straight at them. The initial machine-gun bursts slammed into the earth on either side of the Stony Man commandos.
“And we’re in their blind spot,” Manning added. He pulled the trigger on the X-26 Taser. The little pocket-size unit cut loose with its charge, and the rocket motor fired to life. The 77 mm warhead leaped out of its tube and speared through the bulbous head of the gunship, lancing it like a soap bubble filled with napalm. The shock wave bowled over James and Manning, flaming wreckage fluttering down in a burning snow that ignited patches of the Phoenix Force warriors’ suits.
The hot licks of flame jolted the two stunned Stony Man fighters and forced them to roll to put out the burning tongues that flared on their clothes.
Their immediate emergency over, James and Manning surveyed the area. Others in the courtyard had been hiding behind stone walls and marble tables, and those who had been injured were being tended to by fellow employees.
“Come on,” James said, helping Manning to his feet. “You got enough left to deal with a marauding force of ninja killers?”
“I guess I’ll have to.”
The Canadian pulled his sleek Desert Eagle and followed the black commando into the Computer Center.
CHAPTER FIVE
Yuma, Arizona
Carl Lyons perched like a gargoyle cast in bronze and black, his knees deeply bowed, hard blue eyes scanning the rolling hills that had proven so treacherous the night before. He glanced back over one bulging shoulder. “Anything on the radio?”
Hermann Schwarz shook his head. “This place is a blanket of space noise.”
Lyons looked at the approaches to their cave. “Pol?”
“Sarlets is sleeping now,” Rosario Blancanales answered. “It was the least I could let him do after we hauled him through this range.”
Lyons grimaced. “I hated moving him, too, Pol. But if we stayed at the helicopter…”
“I know, Carl,” Blancanales replied. “I made sure he’d recovered from shock before he went to sleep. I don’t think he has a concussion, so he’ll be able to rest.”
Lyons looked at his watch. It had been nearly dawn when the enemy missile had torn off the stabilizing rudder on their chopper. Sarlets, despite receiving a six-inch jagged shard of shrapnel in his abdomen and burns across his right arm and leg, managed to get them onto the ground in one piece. Their priority was to get the Army pilot to safety before a hunting party showed up to finish off the helicopter.
The bottles of Ringer’s solution that Schwarz and Blancanales insisted Able Team carry on every mission, from their experience in the Green Berets, had proved invaluable in keeping Sarlets from dangerous blood loss while Blancanales sewed and taped his stomach injury shut.
“He’s lucky. If the shard had sliced his bowel or intestine, we’d have to deal with a serious infection,” Blancanales, the Able Team medic, stated.
Lyons slid his rough hand over the receiver of his Beowulf M-4, watching the approaches. “A small enough favor. There’s still a few man-size germs running around.”
“You think that there’d be an assault squad attached to the missile launcher?” Blancanales asked.
“Otherwise we wouldn’t be under radio jamming in the area,” Schwarz answered. “We’ve been out of contact with the base for four hours, though. General Rogers might have someone looking for us by now.”
“And risk another helicopter crew and search team being shot out of the sky?” Blancanales asked. “This was a trap, and we fell for it hook, line and sinker.”
“Rogers will send a search party,” Lyons said. “But he’ll make sure that they’re covered, and it takes time to set up that kind of security.”
Suddenly the Able Team commander lifted his closed fist and the trio fell silent. Schwarz and Blancanales drew their silenced pistols while Lyons moved forward and nestled in the shadows of a rock. The big ex-cop pulled his silenced Para-Ordnance 1911, pointed at his eyes, then to the right-hand gully. The Stony Man warriors set up in their hides, and Blancanales hefted a small rock.
Lyons gestured with his fist and Blancanales whipped the stone at the wall. The loud clatter resounded and two shadowy shapes blurred just behind the corner of an outcropping.
Silence reigned uneasily in the rocky canyon for several long, heart-stopping moments.
Then a dull, snorting rumble filled the air. Lyons braced himself against a verbal reaction, but he knew that the exhausted, injured and unconscious Sarlets couldn’t help it. He was snoring.
His lips drew tight into a mirthless smile a moment later, and he silently egged on the sleeping pilot to continue his unconscious racket, wishing that Sarlets could snore even more loudly.
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