Don Pendleton - Terror Descending

A dozen men carrying military ordnance burst out of the cinder-block house firing wildly in every direction. They spread out fast, taking advantage of what little natural cover there was, but the man passing by the outhouse suddenly jerked, the handle of a knife sticking out his neck. Dropping the Webley, the gunner grabbed his neck in both hands, trying to staunch the flow of blood. But the effort was proving to be futile.

“Blue nine!” another man shouted. “Blue nine!” The X-18 grenade launcher in his hands began thumping steadily, sending out a salvo of 30 mm rounds. The canisters hit the ground and rolled, spewing thick volumes of smoke.

Firing their machine guns at the fresh troops, McCarter and Hawkins exchanged a brief look. The drug smugglers used battle codes? Clearly the fat man had not been in charge, but was merely the chemist sent to check the purity of the heroin.

“Black Three!” a burly man shouted, triggering an AK-101 in a long burst.

Crouching, McCarter and Hawkins listened to the noise, getting his position, then triggered their weapons through the weeds. The burly man cried out in pain, and the Kalashnikov stopped firing.

“Two one!” another man cursed, a Remington pump-action shotgun blasting into the billowing smoke at chest level. “Two one!”

Man down, McCarter translated, pulling the pin on a grenade and flipping off the arming lever before throwing it toward the voice.

While the explosive was still counting down, Hawkins peppered the area alongside the building, trying to force the others toward the sphere. A few seconds later, the grenade detonated and several men shrieked in pain.

“Black Five,” a different man shouted in an oddly feminine voice, then added the belching roar of the 30 mm grenade launcher.

The sage brush disintegrated under the assault, and a cactus was pulverized, but nothing much else happened. Then an MP-5 chattered briefly in savage counterpoint and the drug smuggler crumpled over sideways.

“They got Uncle Chollo!” another weight lifter snarled, insanely marching out of the protective smoke. “Gonna kill you—”

Which was as far as he got when there came the sound of distant thunder from the Barrett. His khaki shirt ballooned out the back as his chest erupted, the fabric splitting apart as his internal organs sprayed into the darkness.

“Red ten!” the first man shouted, and the X-18 began chugging shells into the sky. The rounds came down whistling like bombs and hit the ground to form fiery geysers that banished the artificial cloud cover and laid waste to large patches of the sandy desert. Dead bodies flipped into the air, along with rocks and plants.

Trying to drive the gunner into view, James laid down a barrage from his MP-5. But the smuggler stayed within the roiling smoke and continued to pump out high-explosive death.

Unable to proceed in that direction, McCarter and Hawkins separated to try to get around the incoming barrage. But as they did, there came an unexpected explosion from the burning garage. Sounding like a crumpling soda can, the sheet metal roof buckled, then the walls shattered, cinder blocks tumbling away to expose a raging inferno with some sort of machine sitting in the middle on the conflagration, the chassis completely covered with flames.

Ducking behind a cluster of cactus, McCarter recognized the charred wreckage as a Russian T-80, one of the toughest vehicles in existence. The Stony Man commandos couldn’t have stopped the juggernaut if it had managed to get rolling. It was a good thing that they had taken out the garage in the opening strike.

Listening closely to the sound of somebody trying to get a cell phone to work, Hawkins simply could not get a definite fix, so he pulled out a grenade and threw the unprimed sphere in the most likely direction. It hit the ground and rolled into some tall weeds, near a sand dune. A split second later several men abruptly appeared, scrambling to get away. Ruthlessly, Hawkins mowed them down, then grunted from the impact of incoming lead from the other direction. Outflanked! However, the NATO body armor held and the hardball rounds did not achieve penetration.

Badly bruised, but still breathing, Hawkins fired a single round, then began to curse, and started working the arming bolt as if his weapon had jammed. Almost instantly a dark form appeared from within the smoke, rushing his way. But as he cleared the protective smoke, the Barrett spoke once more, and the man doubled over, unable to stand with most of his spine removed.

Realizing the battle was not going their way, the gunner dropped the exhausted drum from the X-18 and fumbled in a bag at his side to produce a spare one when James rose from the smoke to fire the MP-5 only once. Hit in the head, the gunner staggered, and the Stony Man commando was gone before the criminal fell.

“Two one, two one!” a tall man shouted, firing short, controlled bursts from his AK-47 into the thinning smoke. “Delta ten!”

Now the remaining criminals started retreating to the cinder-block building, their assault rifles hosing the smoky darkness in wild desperation. Keeping their backs to the blockhouse, they dropped spent clips to quickly reload when Encizo stepped into view from within the building, holding his MP-5 in both hands. Without a word, he cut loose, the weapon chattering nonstop and chewing the criminals into hamburger until the clip ran empty.

“C-clear…” Encizo panted, then dropped the weapon and collapsed.

Rushing over to the man, McCarter scowled at the sight of fresh blood welling from underneath the commando’s body armor.

“Cal, man down!” the big Briton bellowed, ripping the vest open to inspect the damage. There was a line of holes right along the man’s abdomen. He grimaced, but said nothing.

Suddenly, James and Hawkins arrived with weapons at the ready. At the sight of the blood-soaked Encizo, both men scowled. Then Hawkins assumed a defensive position while James knelt to lay aside his gun and look over the wounds before ripping open a med pack to sprinkle the wounds with sulfur.

“These are pretty bad,” James stated, rummaging inside a medical pack to extract a field dressing and press it gently to the man’s bloody abdomen. “There’s nowhere near enough blood showing.”

Which meant internal bleeding. McCarter had thought so, but hoped he was wrong. “Okay, what do you need?”

“Fast transportation to a decent hospital,” James replied, pulling out a syringe and checking the contents. “The medical supplies that we have in the Hercules won’t do for this kind of injury. He needs immediate surgery.” He injected Encizo’s thigh, the pale man giving no response.

“Done.” But starting to reach for his throat mike, McCarter cursed in frustration, then looked around. “There! Take the Cessna and fly him to Chetumal Airport near Cancun,” he directed. “We’ll race back to the Herc, kill the jamming field and radio the doctors to let them know you’re on the way.”

“T.J., lend a hand,” James commanded. He lifted the unconscious man in his arms and took off at an easy run across the littered desert.

Shouldering his weapon, Hawkins charged over the fallen bodies and blast craters to scramble into the plane and start the engine. It caught with a sputtering roar, and then smoothed to a sustained purr. Working together, the two men gently placed the unconscious Encizo on top of the packaged heroin, then they clambered inside. James stayed with his patient, while Hawkins took the controls and immediately began taxiing along the runway for a fast takeoff.

Turning away, McCarter started around the dune when Manning appeared from the darkness.

“I’m faster,” he said bluntly, the Barrett resting on a broad shoulder. “I’ll meet you there.”