Dick Stivers - Kill School

A hundred meters away, headlights raced toward the gate, autoweapons flashing from the sides. Lyons sprayed a blast of steel shot, then a bag fell from the sky, av-gas bursting in front of the fascists, a whoosh of petroflame instantly incinerating the men in the open jeep. Beyond the burning fascists, pillars of flame blazed upward.

Lyons screamed to the others, "Count everyone! Everyone with us?"

Blood sprayed with his words. He tasted the blood. Internal wounds.

Betrayed in Washington, battered beyond what any man could bear, pushed now to the furthest wall, Carl Lyons prepared to die. But life — the living in the midst of the dead — would not let him go.

"Specialist!"

Lyons squinted into the flames. Floyd Jefferson staggered from the smoke and shadows, one leg bloody. Floyd turned and sprayed rounds from his M-16, then lurched a few more steps and fell. Lyons groaned, raised himself and ran in agony to the journalist. He jerked him to his feet by his camera strap.

"Easy man! That's my equipment you're..."

One-handed, Lyons triggered a point-blank 12-gauge blast into the chest of a fascist.

"Can you run?" Lyons asked, blood filling his throat, his nasal passages.

Before Floyd could reply, Lyons whipped around, saw a gray form shouldering a rifle. Able Team's iron crazyman fired one-handed again, then fell in pain and rolled on the asphalt. He saw Floyd snapping photos of the inferno. He scrambled to his feet, lurched to the bleeding journalist and dragged him along with him.

Ahead, he saw his partners leading the group through the hole in the security fences. Lyons put his hand-radio to lips cherry red with blood.

"Eagle! We're going out the perimeter. Do the place. Do it all! Burn it!"

"Burn, baby, burn!" Floyd raved as it in fever, snapping more photos. "Did I get my hundred dollars' worth!"

"What are you talking about?"

"I had to pay one of those Salvadorans to stay behind," Floyd said, limping next to Lyons toward the darkness of the fence. "Portrait of a warrior's last stand! Boy, did I get what I came for."

"I didn't," grunted Lyons, pausing for his eyes to adjust to the darkness at the gate.

"No?"

"Quesada's in there somewhere."

They slipped through the fence and followed the glowing blue line through the darkness. Floyd pointed back to the Nazi base. Flames soared high into the night. He laughed.

"Even odds Quesada's in Hell right now." he said. "And if he isn't..."

The young reporter stopped a moment for emphasis. "He's got you after him," he smiled, standing against a backdrop of fire, "for as long as he lives. And that, my friend, is exactly the same thing."