James Axler - Sky Hammer

When the cars stopped to pay the toll, one of many along the rather expensive GSP, every vehicle was probed for contraband. Chemical sniffers found a lot of drugs and sometimes a corpse in the trunk. But this day the hidden sensors spiked as weapons-grade plutonium was detected coming off Exit 9.

Quickly, computer records were checked, but since there was no record of such a radioactive source coming onto the superhighway, the state police tagged the report as a possible glitch. The police filed a copy of the report with Homeland Security and a minute later Stony Man knew about it. Since Exit 9 was dangerously close to Sandy Hook, Barbara Price had sent Able Team to do a recon. When the men arrived, they’d expected to find an ore truck full of pitchblende, or maybe a mobile health clinic. Portable X-ray machines used radioactive thulium and often set off detectors by mistake.

Instead, Able Team had discovered a parking lot full of dead tourists and an empty truck that had been full of greasy machinery. But not anymore. Grabbing weapons out of the back of their van, the team got hard and moved in fast. They didn’t like the combination of murder, Sandy Hook and radiation. There was such a thing as nuclear artillery shell….

“Any heat?” Lyons demanded, checking the Atchisson on the run. He wished there were reloads for the hungry weapon, half of the shells were already gone, and this battle was barely ten minutes old.

“Bet your ass, there is,” Schwarz said, firing a burst into some bushes. Leaves flew, but nobody tumbled out dead. Stealth wasn’t a concern, the Red Star agents knew they were here. Schwarz was the electronics expert for the team, and his wristwatch was also a short-range Geiger counter. However, loud clicks during a battle could get a soldier killed, so instead the device vibrated as a warning. At the moment, it was going wild.

“They must be arming the shell,” Blancanales repeated, pausing to roll a dummy grenade into the gift shop.

Inside the building, men cursed in Chinese and came bursting out, firing their weapons. Already in position, Able Team caught the Red Star agents in a withering cross fire and they died to a man.

Then a man and woman stumbled into view from around a corner. The man was carrying a wicker basket and the woman was holding a baby swaddled in blankets in her arms. Neither one was Chinese, they looked more Italian than anything else.

“Don’t shoot!” the man yelled, stepping in front of his wife. “Please! I’ll pay you whatever you want!”

“It’s a trick!” Blancanales cried, raising his M-16.

Dropping the blanket, the snarling woman pulled a compact SDMG machine pistol from inside the plastic doll and started firing. Blancanales blew her away just as the man swung a Skorpion machine gun from behind his back. Schwarz shot the man in the chest to no effect, then Lyons triggered the Atchisson, the maelstrom of double-aught stainless-steel buckshot removing his face and opening the throat and lower belly like a can of spaghetti. Already dead, the Chinese operative spun, his hands instinctively tightening on the weapon, the deadly Skorpion spraying lead randomly as he toppled to the ground. Ricochets went everywhere and Schwarz grunted as a slug hit him in the stomach.

“Goddamn mercs,” he muttered, rubbing his stomach. “The guy must have been wearing body armor.”

“Still hurts like a bitch,” Lyons stated, hefting the Atchisson. Only a few cartridges remained. After that, he was down to grenades and his pistol.

“Bet your ass it does,” Blancanales agreed, checking their flank. Even the titanium and Teflon NATO body armor that the team wore under their shirts still occasionally broke bones when hit by large-caliber weaponry. But a week in hospital was preferable to eternity in the grave.

“Better bed than dead,” Schwarz quipped. “Hey, how’d you know it was a trap?”

“She was holding the baby wrong. The kid would have been dead from strangulation the way she was doing it.”

“Cover me,” Lyons said, knotting a handkerchief around his face. Going to the museum, he checked the door for boobytraps, then swept inside, the Atchisson at the ready.

The place was a shambles, with two whimpering women bound and gagged in the corner. Hostages for the enemy agents to use as bargaining chips if necessary. He had expected something like that. Able Team had fought Red Star before.

Pulling out a knife, Lyon advanced upon them. The older woman fainted while the pretty teenager tried to wiggle away. With a slash, the ex-cop cut ropes from their wrists. Stunned, the teen looked at her freed wrists and then at Lyons, comprehension dawning in her face.

“Don’t y’all worry none, ma’am, “he drawled, affecting a thick Texas accent. “We’re Delta Force.” Sheathing the blade, he snapped an ammonia capsule under the nose of the unconscious woman. She fluttered immediately and then awoke, recoiling in horror.

“It’s okay, Mom!” the teenager said, pulling down her gag. “They’re the U.S. Marines.”

“Really?” the older woman squeaked, having trouble breathing.

“United States’ Special Forces,” Lyons corrected with a brief grin. “Now, y’all follow me outside. Quick, now.”

With joyful tears on her cheeks, the teenager nodded agreement and slipped an arm under the other woman to leverage her off the floor.

“My husband…” the mother started.

Not having found anybody else alive, Lyons looked at the woman and said nothing for a long moment that seemed to last forever. The middle-aged lady went a little pale, then nodded in understanding.

“What about my daddy?” the teen asked, a quaver in her voice.

The mother touched her daughter on the shoulder. “Let’s go,” she said in a calm tone. “Now, dear, no time to waste.”

Going to the door, Lyons whistled sharply. There came an answering whistle and he led the way outside. Schwarz and Blancanales were standing guard near the stairs to the beach, both of them with handkerchiefs tied around their faces.

“Thank you, all,” the mature woman gasped, the cloth strip that had been used as a gag hanging around her throat.

“You’re welcome,” Blancanales said. “Now get!” Turning, he fired a burst at the open sea.

Livid, the two women jerked at the noise, turned and took off at a run. Soon they lost their high heels and continued barefoot much faster.

“Alone?” Schwarz asked, glancing sideways.

Lyons pulled down his mask. “Husband.”

“Damn.”

“Let’s finish this,” Blancanales stated, starting toward the stairs that led to the outside exhibit.

But then he paused. The cannons were no longer visible rising from behind the museum, and just then the floor shook as heavy machinery buried below the ground came to life.

Without a word, Able Team charged. They still had a hundred feet of open ground to cover to reach the guns.

“WHAT IS HAPPENING, comrade?” the mechanic asked, both hands busy in the guts of the hydraulic pump. New lines were attached to the feed and snaked out the door to the middle cannon. More Red Star agents were installing the new firing pin into the weapon, and off by himself, the Beijing technician was unpacking a single artillery shell from a lead-lined picnic cooler.

“Nothing that concerns you,” the colonel snapped, sweeping the sand dunes with a pair of powerful binoculars. “Get back to work.”

“Yes, Commander.”

The colonel knew that everything was going well, but was still unhappy. The parking lot had been cleared of civilians and the museum taken without losing a single man of his cell. The telephones were all disconnected in case they had missed somebody hiding somewhere, and the repairs on the guns were nearly completely. All well and good. But the colonel didn’t like the fact that there was smoke rising from several locations. However, that might have been done to hide the police taking defensive positions, rather than to offer cover for advancing troops. It was highly unlikely that any of the American Special Forces could have arrived yet. This whole mission had been accelerated to lightning speed. Never pause, never rest, go fast, and the lazy Americans would trip over the red tape of their own government.