Don Pendleton - Hostile Dawn

“Son of a bitch!” he swore, grimacing as he dropped to one knee.

McCarter looked around and spotted a boulder heap twenty yards to his left. He fired a quick autoburst at the sentry, then rushed to Hale’s side, pulling him up to his feet.

“C’mon, mate.”

McCarter helped the wounded agent straggle along the briar line to the rock formation. Once they reached it, the Briton eased Hale to the ground. Bullets sang off the boulders above their heads as McCarter tore open the other man’s shirt to get a better look at the wound.

“Went clean through. How’s your breathing?”

Hale winced as he dragged in air and let it out slowly, then spit into his hand, checking for blood. “Missed the lung, at any rate.”

“You’ll need to hang back and staunch the blood flow.” McCarter set down his M-16 long enough to pull off his shirt and tear off one of the sleeves. “These won’t be exactly sterilized, but they’ll have to do.”

Once he’d torn the sleeve in two, the Phoenix Force Leader handed the makeshift compresses to Hale, who was now reclining against one of the larger boulders. The CIA agent needed both hands to press the cloth against the entry and exit wounds. Blood quickly seeped through, reddening his fingers.

“Go on,” he told McCarter. “If I’m still kicking when the dust settles, I’m Type O and’ll probably be down a few pints.”

McCarter nodded, putting on his now-sleeveless camo shirt. “We’ll take care of you,” he assured Hale, “and when it’s over I’ll buy you a couple pints of Guinness, too.”

“Deal.”

“Mind if we swap popguns?” McCarter asked, reaching for the CIA agent’s combo. “The grenade launcher might come in handy.”

“Be my guest.”

McCarter handed the other man his M-16, then cast his shirt aside and clutched Hale’s over-under. He scrambled halfway up the boulder heap and was forced to duck when sniper fire glanced off the rocks. From the higher vantage point, he was able to see past the briar line. If he could get to the other side and dogleg to his left, there was a dirt access road that he figured would take him to the camp without having to contend with the thorn bushes.

Inching upward, McCarter propped his borrowed carbine in a niche between two rocks and sighted up on the far guard tower through the M-16’s scope. From his position he wasn’t able to get a clear bead on the sentry, but the enemy gunner had shifted his attention to James and Encizo, who were using their parachutes to clear yet another of the bramble clots. Taking advantage of his foe’s distraction, McCarter sprang forward, bounding up over the top of the rock heap and down to the other side. He hit the ground running and dodged left, crouching low as he made his way to the road. By the time he reached it, the remaining sentry had been taken out, courtesy of Encizo’s M-110.

As McCarter jogged down the road leading toward the camp, he saw the first sign of Hezbollah reinforcements rising up from their underground lair. Like ants, they began to emerge from several different openings and fan out in all directions.

“Not good,” McCarter murmured to himself. “C’mon, T.J., get busy with that bloody Gopher Snake already!”

The TCD-100 had essentially been the creation of Stony Man armorer John Kissinger, but Hawkins had spent time at the Farm’s weapons lab helping Cowboy construct the device and configure its computerized operating system. He’d also worked side by side with Kissinger during the Gopher Snake’s field trials, so it was no surprise that when the weapon was given the green light for the battlefield, Hawkins had been placed in charge of its operation.

As the battle raged around them, Hawkins and Roger Combs had detoured into an earthen culvert that ran along the training camp’s eastern perimeter. Sat cam footage had pinpointed several tunnel openings along the length of the ditch, and while the Stony Man cybercrew considered them to be escape routes, Hawkins figured they could also be used to access the Hezbollah’s underground lair.

There was water in the culvert, ankle-deep and filled with sediment that clawed at the men’s boots, forcing them to move slowly. Hawkins had the Gopher Snake tucked under one arm, leaving the other free to defend himself with a KRISS Super V submachine gun. Combs, who was carrying a pair of full-face gas masks, was similarly armed. The five-pound, .45-caliber firearms were light enough to wield with one hand, and the two warriors had a chance to prove it moments later when three Hezbollah soldiers emerged from the nearest tunnel armed with AK-47s. Combs and Hawkins had the drop on them and burped a quick half dozen rounds their way. The Super V’s muted recoil and muzzle rise allowed for deadly accuracy, especially at such close range, and all three men crumpled into the brackish water without having had a chance to return fire.

The intruders forged ahead, ready to empty their magazines should others appear. Nearing the tunnel, they sidestepped the bodies. When no one else came forward, Hawkins crouched near the raised entrance and unclipped the TCD-100’s remote transceiver from its underhousing.

“Cover me,” he whispered to Combs.

Combs nodded, his eyes on the tunnel. Hawkins adjusted the remote’s settings, then carefully set the Gopher Snake into the mouth of the tunnel. He flicked on the transceiver and stared at the small, embedded screen providing him with an image taken from the wheeled device’s front-mounted camera.

“Okay, little guy,” Hawkins whispered, activating the TCD. “Go do your stuff.”

“G ET UP AND MOVE OUT !” the Hezbollah commandant shouted from the doorway leading to the subterranean barracks. “We’re under attack!”

Half dressed and barely half awake, a dozen recruits staggered from their cots and grabbed assault rifles, then warily followed their burly leader into a leg of the networked tunnels carved out beneath the training camp. The nearest staircase leading up to the surface was to their left. As they approached it, the men came upon a faint haze wafting through the tunnel. Immediately they began to hack and cough, their eyes tearing with a burning sensation.

“Tear gas!” the commandant shouted, blinking furiously as he veered to one side, crashing against the tunnel wall. Glancing down the passageway, he spotted the TCD-100 rolling toward him like some oversize toy. The tear gas spewed from a spray nozzle just below the Gopher Snake’s angled Kevlar shield. His eyes stinging, a wave of nausea sweeping over him, the commandant nonetheless willed himself to raise his AK-47. He was about to unleash a round when strobe lights mounted on the TCD’s shield began to blink with staccato frenzy. The intense, flickering illumination temporarily blinded the man as well as the fighters huddled close to him, and though he managed to fire his weapon, only a few rounds glanced off the TCD-100’s bulletproof shield; the rest pummeled the ground.

Others fired as well with the same futility. Moments later they were brought to their knees when a partition in the Gopher Snake’s shield briefly parted, allowing it to launch a pair of modified XM-84 stun grenades. The flash-enhanced explosions echoed loudly through the enclosed space, further immobilizing the combatants. They fell upon one another, trying to flee the small, wheeled contraption that had effectively neutralized them. As the tear gas thickened around them, the men doubled over and retched violently, too caught up in their misery to notice Hawkins and Combs advancing toward them, their hastily donned gas masks equipped with built-in night-vision goggles that minimized the effect of the tear gas.

Combs gunned down several of the men and Hawkins knocked a few others unconscious with the butt of his KRISS subgun, then cleared the way so that he could use his transceiver to guide the Gopher Snake past them and around the next bend in the tunnel.