Dick Stivers - Five Rings of Fire

But things would change, Young thought. Things would change.

Young's men were trained American veterans with no place to use their deadly skills. After Nam they could not adjust to the tedium of civilian living. It had taken Young five years and three million of the Kremlin's precious American dollars, but he had managed to recruit and train these social misfits. The idea had been to have both the blacks and the Klansmen found dead, killed by American guns. It would have been a beautiful black mark against America. It would have been a great propaganda coup, especially since, coinciding with the barbaric murder, many black American athletes would be turning their backs on their homeland, moving to Communist countries.

Now this. Now all of this, because of some crack tactical squad. The bastards will pay, Young thought. They'll pay.

Captain Young rounded up nine troopers. The ten men loaded themselves into the five surviving, slightly damaged, buggies and started along the tracks left by the escaping vehicles. The five vehicles spread out in a V-formation, giving them a wide scan and enabling them to proceed at a high speed without throwing sand on each other.

Young was banking on the fact that even if the two enemy buggies managed to break the circle and pick up their friend, they would not be able to break back out in a hurry. Before they could fight their way out, his men would have them. And if they didn't get them, the sun would. The desert was firing up like the blast furnaces of hell. In the heat, the smaller force would expend its energy sooner.

As he retreated from his firing spot near camp, Lyons searched the bandolier. He took out the one remaining grenade, then threw the bandolier away. From here on in he'd put his life on the 5.56-caliber bullets from the M-16 portion of his gun.

Lyons knew his teammates had sprung two buggies.

Lyons knew he had scant seconds before the enemy trying to box him in would meet the troops that had charged out of the camp.

Lyons knew when that happened he'd be caught. Dead in the middle.

Carl Lyons had tried his best to tone down his self-professed craziness; but he had not lost it.

With a grin on his face he turned and ran straight up the dune — back toward the compound.

Lyons's boots churned up sand as he sprinted up the side of a dune. He heard the heated grunts and panting of troops running up the other side toward him. Not breaking pace, not even bothering to pull the pin from the grenade in his hand, he threw it over the crest of the dune.

"Grenade," he shouted as he reached the crest.

"Grenade," an enemy echoed from the other side.

Lyons topped the crest as camouflaged bodies dived in all directions to escape the lethal shrapnel they believed was on the way. A good soldier knows that survival depends on instant reflexes. No one noticed the pin was still in the grenade.

Lyons did not slow his pace. His lungs burned in the arid battleground. He let the downhill side of the dune propel his feet. As he ran he emptied the M-79's clip into the fallen troops. They were sitting ducks. Five dead sitting ducks.

At the bottom of the slope he grabbed the grenade and continued up the next slope, a smaller dune. He was almost to the top before six more men, coming in from the far left, got the big blonde in their sights. He heard a bolt click. He dived over the top of the dune, tucking, rolling, halfway to the bottom. As soon as he could gather his feet under him, he pulled the grenade's pin and let the killer fly.

Six men ate sand and shrapnel. Six men died.

Again Lyons, having snatched a fresh clip from his remaining bandolier and slammed it home, took off toward the camp. Lyons had one more cooling pack in his jacket. He was seeping water but had no time to stop. Even in their flak jackets, the men of Able Team were finding the hellish heat hard to combat.

Blancanales heard the shooting above the roar of his machine. He veered toward the sound. The blast made by the grenade helped him to home in on the spot. It was difficult to judge distance by sound in the rolling dunes.

Gadgets saw that Pol's vehicle was changing course, moving toward the camp. Suicide, he thought. But he shouted to Babette, "Swing wider.''

The gutsy woman nodded, acted, swinging wider. Gadgets, full of admiration for her driving skills, held on for his life. He knew that in any war the chance of meeting death was high — but he didn't want to meet death as a passenger in a dune buggy.

Politician swept over another dune and surprise-attacked two goons with his vehicle. As they swung to face him, he bounced them off the fender. He continued tightening his spiral until he was headed directly for the camp.

Babette was doing her best navigating in the sandstorm Pol was leaving behind. As they crested another ridge, to the left they spotted the crew that had been trying to box Lyons in. Gadgets turned and managed to empty half a clip at them before they were lost in a cloud of sand behind the buggy. Babette dropped the buggy into the next trough. Schwarz struggled to keep his stomach out of his mouth.

Lyons paused for a second, gasping deep, dry breaths of air. Ahead of him was the prison camp, easily entered now with the tent thrown over the wire. Behind him was the roar of the buggies and the stutter of an Ingram. To his left and closing in fast was another set of buggies. Lyons was pissed. He thought he had shelled the machines into another world. Obviously not.

With a quick glance he could see that his Able Team partners had swung wide into the desert while the enemy had followed the perimeter of the camp. His teammates would not reach him in time to slow down and pick him up. Lyons started running for all he was worth, racing for the tent draped over the razor wire.

Pol swore when he saw what a close race they were running. He swung his Ingram on the sling until it rested across his left forearm. He steered the buggy with his left forearm, keeping the right arm wrapped around the machine pistol. Spotting Lyons, he veered so that his buggy would arc between his buddy and the approaching force.

At the top of the next rise, both Babette and Gadgets got an eyeful of what was happening. Like a seasoned pro Babette swerved harder left to bring the approaching vehicles between themselves and the camp.

Politician spewed sand between Lyons and the enemy. He was having a hard time controlling the speeding machine. He swung the wheel farther left until he was rushing to meet the enemy, aiming to pass between the goons and the camp's razor wire. As he sped past, he fired bursts until the clip was empty. As he passed them, he was ducking low.

Blancanales's shots, in spite of the jouncing, pegged one driver who lost control. The driver, clutching a torn chest, got his passenger hung up in the razor wire. The buggy came to rest in the compound, its engine stalled, its driver dead.

The return shots fired at Pol's speeding form zipped wide and high.

As the enemy battled the sandstorm, and Pol's firestorm, Babette and Gadgets swooped in from the other side. It was a quick sweep — the pair keeping as low as possible, Gadgets remaining in a firing position throughout the pass. Gadgets's Ingram leveled two gunners and spilled the blood of another driver.

By the time the three remaining vehicles — five remaining enemies — recovered from Able Team's one-two punch, they had passed Lyons. The big blond gunner had hit the sand. When the goons passed, he was kneeling, spraying shots as another clip expired.

Lyons didn't wait to see the results. He got back on his feet and took off again, changing clips on the run.