Dick Stivers - Five Rings of Fire

"Listen, asshole," Lyons said, grabbing the fallen goon by the shirt. "If my men were firing this way — with me standing here — I'd personally cut their hands off." Lyons pushed the man's head back to the pillow of sand.

The display had been both impressive and convincing. Lyons's quick action and the immediate response from the athletes had given the Klansmen a course to follow. Their only other option was to die in a state of confusion. Both blacks and whites threw themselves on their stomachs and crawled under the wires. Pol stood at the opening, giving instructions to each person who crawled through. Gadgets led the column toward the helicopters.

Babette moved up beside Lyons.

"Search this area quickly, then get out," Lyons said. "I'd never want to have to defend this place. I swear it was set up not to be defended."

Lyons glanced up to the horizon. Dawn was coloring the landscape. The first light of morning silhouetted the dunes to the east.

"We'll be sitting ducks in five, ten minutes. Get four people to help you. Make that search as fast as possible."

An enemy voice shouted in alarm. "They're escaping..."

It was cut off by a single shot.

Lyons ran to the area where everyone was escaping. Baker stood over the body of another dead Klansman. "They got another," he said. "Everyone else's accounted for. Doubt we'll ever make it out though."

"Paratroopers haven't had a chance to get organized," Lyons said. "We'll..."

A sudden burst of fire dug sand beside them. One member of the enemy had come close enough to kill. Lyons pointed the combo weapon at the muzzle flash and sent a stream of tumblers in a four-leaf-clover pattern. The next sound from the desert was that of death. The enemy's vocal cords struggled with the fact that half his chest had been blown away.

Lyons heard a mild groan even closer to home. He looked down at the ex-cop, the KKK man who led the revolt against the KGB moles. Baker had stopped a bullet. He was dying slowly. Lyons moved over to the Klansman. Blood was trickling out the side of his mouth, down his chin. He gazed up at Lyons, a glazed look in his eyes.

"Forgive..." he said, and then death snatched the sentence from his mouth.

Dawn had opened up a small patch of sky, but the dunes surrounding the encampment and the camouflage netting held the dark. Lyons scoured the perimeter, looking for those paratroopers who had managed to make it that far, that fast.

Gadgets Schwarz crawled over the last sand dune between the line of retreat and the helicopters. There was enough light to outline each person scrambling after him over the sand. They would be ideal targets for anyone coming across their flank.

Years of being on constant alert had conditioned the warrior in Gadgets. He knew time had sided with the unknown enemy, but he did not run and hail the copters. Instead, he approached cautiously.

The two Sikorsky H-76s were sitting side by side. Gadgets signaled for those behind him to wait. He skirted the choppers; in the small space between them he saw the two pilots being interrogated at gunpoint by four rough-looking gunmen.

Gadgets hurried back to the line of Klansmen and athletes. He whispered terse instructions. Armed men disappeared right and left, circling the choppers. Gadgets approached the enemy from the side, keeping the nearest Sikorsky between himself and the enemy. Ten feet from the large helicopter he went to his stomach and crawled under the low belly of the machine.

Mustav's booming voice filled the air. "Drop the guns or die!"

Reacting with a speed that spelled long training, two of the enemy seized the pilots and held .45s to their heads. The other two dropped into battle crouches, ready to return enemy fire. The quickness of reaction, the lack of spoken commands — it all added up to mercenary.

Gadgets, still under the belly of the copter, still out of view, pulled the silenced Beretta from its holster. He took a two-handed prone position, lined the sights on a head and waited.

Carl Lyons could now see the barbed wire across the prison camp. Except for those searching the inside of the camp, everyone had departed. He could make out Pol, waiting by the wire, facing out, scanning the horizon. On either side of him stood Zambian athletes, alert, looking for the enemy.

Seconds dragged through Lyons's body like barbed wire dragged over flesh. Time was running out. He looked at a blood-red desert.

"Everyone's left but us." The voice startled him. He turned to see Babette approaching him. "So far none of the athletes have been killed. Some Klansmen, but no athletes."

"Let's keep it that way," Lyons muttered.

Kelly, Babette and Sam Jackson slid under the razor wire while Pol and Lyons covered their escape. Pol was the next to drop to the ground and put himself under the flesh-shredders. Lyons was the last to go. He was up to his chest in the dirt and wire when the area lit up like noon.

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.