style="font-size:15px;"> “Lead on,” Lyons urged as Schwarz once more took the lead.
Lyons felt exposed and worried that Schwarz was especially vulnerable. He liked that phone in the hands of the dead terrorist even less. The Warlock network had indicated that signals were coming from this location, and Able Team had opted to investigate the stadium first because it offered huge target potential. If the terrorists had come and gone, leaving their bombs behind, it was just possible that the smart bombs hadn’t yet detonated and could be neutralized without a gun battle. Much as he hated the thought of the terrorists planting their bombs and escaping undetected, Lyons had to admit that it would be preferable not to start spraying bullets in the company of…how many people? The stadium looked like it easily held a few thousand as he ran his eyes over the vacant and occupied seats.
They’d flashed their Justice Department ID coming through the gates, and now security personnel in black polo shirts were wandering around nearby, obviously wondering what was going on. Lyons figured his team could afford to ignore them for now. As long as they didn’t get in the way and as long as nothing went boom, it hardly mattered if a few of the locals gave Able Team the stink eye as they passed.
As they moved from the upper decks to the lower, and then to some access areas that were on the basement level of the stadium, Lyons fought an uneasy feeling of being watched. He hoped it was just his imagination. But if he was that dying terrorist and he’d had a chance to make one last phone call before he died, wouldn’t he have tried to warn the others in his network? It only made sense. And if they had been warned, and they were on-site, there was no telling what they might have planned.
Screw it. Lyons was disgusted with himself even for spending so much time dwelling on it. No matter how dangerous the job, of course, he and Blancanales and Schwarz would do it. The idea of worrying about their own hides when American lives were at stake never even entered into the equation. It was just that he, as team leader, had to worry from time to time. He had to worry about what would happen if they failed in their mission. That was the one thing Stony Man Farm could never do: fail. They had lost battles before and the ugly reality was that they would lose them again. But they could not afford to lose the war. The war was why Lyons had given up any hope of a normal life to dedicate himself to Able Team and to the Farm. He knew his teammates shared his drive and had made the same sacrifices.
They had lost many good men and women getting to this point. And it was all worth it. They fought because they had to. They fought because their country needed them. They fought because predators, monsters, killers like Ovan’s terrorists, sought to murder innocent men, women and children, and there had to be warriors like the men and women of Stony Man Farm to stand between those killers and the rest of the world.
“This door is locked,” Schwarz said. He was facing a fire door. The corridor of the access level was getting smaller. Lyons couldn’t tell where it went, but it was probably used for maintenance purposes. “This padlock looks brand-new.” The chain on the doors was indeed bright and polished, while the rest of the metal on that level looked scuffed and slightly rusted.
“I have a key,” Lyons said. He planted his combat-booted foot against the door, hard. Then he kicked it again. Then he did it again.
“You’re not going to break the padlock like that, Carl,” Schwarz said dryly.
“Don’t care about the padlock,” Lyons grunted. He heard the shriek of metal on metal as something started go give. “Care about the hinges.”
The hinges gave. The door, which had never been designed to sustain such an onslaught, fell aside at an angle, hanging on twisted flanges. Lyons shoved it aside and then waved down the corridor.
“Why, thank you, sir,” Schwarz said with an exaggerated flourish.
“Shut up and find me a bomb,” Lyons growled.
At the end of the corridor, they found a cluster of machinery whose purpose Lyons couldn’t guess.
“Sprinkler system,” Schwarz said.
“Thought they used AstroTurf in all these stadiums,” Lyons argued.
“Don’t you ever use the web browser on your phone?” Schwarz teased, referring to the secure satellite phones they all carried. “Read up on your local history, Carl. This stadium has had real turf for a few years now.”
“And I’m very happy for them.” Lyons’s growl turned deeper. “Find me a frigging bomb.”
The bomb casings looked like the ones they had found in Ithaca, New York, and they were chained together through the suitcaselike handles in a cluster at the rear of the machinery.
“Pol, the door,” Lyons directed. “Cover our backs. I’ll keep an eye on Gadgets.”
“And I get bomb duty,” Schwarz said. He pressed the scanner he had used to track the bombs to each of the devices, running the scanner across each bomb in a constantly moving pattern.
“Can’t you do one after the other?” Lyons asked.
“I’d rather get them all moving toward neutralization at once,” Schwarz said. “It helps disrupt the processors so that if the bombs are, well, thinking of going off, they won’t.”
“Great,” Lyons said.
“These are fully activated,” Schwarz explained, “and they’ve almost completed their calibration cycles. We were lucky. These could have gone off down here and spread a toxic cloud through most of the stadium.” Not far above them, they could hear the roar of the crowd as the home team did something worth cheering. The music playing over the PA reverberated through the ceiling. Lyons could feel it in his chest.
“We’ve got company!” Blancanales shouted from the doorway.
“What?” Lyons asked.
“Hostiles!” Blancanales yelled. “Coming down the corridor!”
Lyons cursed under his breath. Well, there was one way to handle it.
“Come on!” he shouted to Blancanales. “Gadgets! Watch your ass!”
“Thanks for thinking of me!” Schwarz called after them.
Lyons pulled his Colt Python from its shoulder holster. Blancanales, understanding the bold play the Able Team leader was running, raised his own weapon. Lyons just needed to verify that they weren’t staring down some errant security guards or even local police called to see what the hell was going on.
A pistol fired in their direction. Lyons could feel the bullet pass his face.
There was a knot of men moving down the corridor, all of them armed with handguns. Lyons could see one particularly large man behind the others. They were shouting to each other in something that almost sounded like Russian to Lyons’s ears; it was like the voice he had heard on the phone. It was probably Turkmen, and that meant that these men were Ovan’s operatives. It also meant they’d been lying in wait for Able Team, and that was very, very bad.
Forward, toward the danger. That was the only way.
Lyons roared, flattened himself against the wall of the corridor and started shooting.
The boom of the .357 Magnum rounds was deafening in the corridor. His first shots took out one, then another
