Don Pendleton - Neutron Force

Tightening his grip on the autoshotgun, Lyons tried not to curse. The Prometheans, as Price had dubbed them, weren’t here to steal the files, but to burn the place down to make sure nobody else got them! And they weren’t going to take any chances on missing some papers hidden in the wall or under a floorboard. That firebomb would reduce the whole house to rubble. The neutron cannon could kill from space, but the deadly beams would have no effect whatsoever on computer disks and simple paper. Those had to be destroyed by hand.

Shouldering his M-16, Schwarz went to the colossal firebomb and pulled the wires free. As he turned, the electronics expert grimaced at the sight of a second firebomb in the kitchen. There was another firebomb at the foot of the stairs.

Fast and silent, the team moved through the first floor, deactivating the explosive charges. Reaching the cellar door, they paused for a wordless conference, but then heard footsteps upstairs on the wooden floor.

Separating into a one-on-one defense formation, the Stony Man commandos walked up the old stairs, carefully keeping to the outer edges where the wood would be the strongest and least likely to creak and betray their presence.

The second and third floors proved to be the same as the first, and the team quickly neutralized the bombs.

Reaching the fourth floor, Lyons paused alongside the railing. He could hear murmuring voices, and somebody was happily whistling. A fierce rage swelled within the man. The bastards were enjoying themselves!

“Hey!” a man shouted. “What the fuck are you doing, asshole?”

Able Team froze, swinging up their weapons for the expected attack. Heavy footsteps stomped closer.

“I wasn’t doing anything, George,” another man replied. But the man was cut off by the sharp smack of a slap, and a rustling sound was made by some small items scattering across the floor.

A glassine envelope went over the edge of the landing, and Blancanales made the catch. Opening his fist, he scowled at a tiny packet full of blue crystals. Interesting.

“You’re a fucking liar, Troy!” the first voice snarled angrily. “I saw you stuffing packs in your pockets!”

“Hey, I only figured—”

Another hard slap sounded, then two more. “If Ravid sent us two pounds of crystal meth to sprinkle around the place, then we use every ounce!” George ordered brusquely. “That son of a bitch knew enough about our strongarm operations to send us to Wadpoole prison for the rest of our freaking lives!”

That caught the team by surprise. These were street toughs blackmailed to plant evidence of a drug lab in the house before burning it down. If the local police found traces of the deadly narcotic in the ashes, their investigation of the blaze would stop right there, assuming it was just case of the drug makers falling out over the business. Ravid. They would remember that name.

“Yeah, yeah, sure,” Troy mumbled. “I was only just—”

“Shut the fuck up,” George snarled. “Hey, Mike, you wanna remind me why we brought the feeb along?”

“Had to. He’s my cousin,” Mike mumbled. “And don’t call him that word again, get me?”

“Go screw a rolling doughnut,” George replied. “Okay, Troy, get the rest of this crap and meet us on the fifth floor. He said they were all to be strewed around the office.”

“Sure, no problem, eh?”

“Did you put the tanks of ammonia in the basement?” a fourth man demanded. “Nobody’s gonna believe this was a crystal meth lab unless there’s lot of ammonia.”

“Sure thing, Jeff, did that first off,” Troy replied quickly. “Ah…do they really make meth from ammonia?”

“Oh, for the love of…Just pick up the envelopes!”

“Right away! Sure, no problem. Hey, you know me…”

The other men tromped away, and there came the sounds of somebody crawling across the floorboards, sweeping up the packets in their hands. Soon, a bald head appeared over the edge of the fourth-floor landing, and Troy gasped at the sight of the Able Team looking back up, their arms full of military ordnance. The man went pale and froze motionless.

Shaking his head, Lyons pressed a finger to his lips for silence, while Blancanales and Schwarz aimed their assault rifles.

“I surrender!” Troy cried, raising both hands, casting a deluge of packets upon the Stony Man commandos. “Don’t shoot me!”

Muffled curses came from the fifth floor, and all of the arming lights on the cheap detonators strapped to the fuel canisters started blinking.

Furiously, Lyons charged up the stairs and fired. The Atchisson ripped off a short burst, and Troy stumbled backward from the barrage of 12-gauge stun bags.

“Freeze! This is the FBI!” Blancanales shouted, adding a long rip from the M-16 assault rifle into the ceiling. With any luck, the hardmen would simply surrender.

“Fuck you, cops!” George yelled, and a pair of black metallic globes sailed over the railing to hit the fourth-floor landing and bounce away.

“Grenades!” Lyons roared, diving aside, his teammates only a heartbeat behind.

The team was still airborne when the charges cut loose, filling the landing with thundering flame. Still kneeling with his arms raised in surrender, Troy was blown apart by the double explosion.

As they hit the floor, there came a sharp patter of antipersonnel shrapnel smacking into the doors and walls. In a bathroom, a plastic fuel canister ruptured, the pink fluid gushing out to spread along the wooden floor, heading dangerously close to the burning ruin of the smashed landing.

Charging into the bathroom, Schwarz tackled the canister, shoving it into the bathtub. Heading into a bedroom, Blancanales ripped the arming wires off a firebomb and went in search of another.

Rising up from behind the fire, Lyons dropped the drum of stun bags and slapped in a drum of fléchettes just as Jeff jumped down the stairs to land heavily on the splintery wood. Grinning fiendishly, the Boston muscle swept the entire fourth floor with an AK-47 assault rifle, the 7.62 mm rounds slamming into pictures, bookcases and the still bodies of the former occupants.

Ducking behind a wingback chair, Lyons fired a short burst from the Atchisson, the hellstorm of steel slivers tearing Jeff apart, arms and legs going in different directions.

Bracing against the recoil, Schwarz fired a 40 mm round up the stairs. The charge detonated against the ceiling, spraying down a hellstorm of plaster and wooden splinters. Somebody screamed, the noise becoming a demented howl as Mike staggered into view. His upper body was riddled with holes, red blood pumping out in a ghastly spray from the ruptured arteries.

Mouthing obscenities, he sprayed his twin Ingram MAC-10 machine pistols, the 9 mm Parabellum rounds hammering down the stairs in crisscrossing streams of glowing tracers and hot lead. From the bedroom, Blancanales peppered the banister, the 5.56 mm rounds chewing a path of destruction along the polished wood. Still shooting, Jeff retreated to the fifth floor. But just as he disappeared, George appeared and fired a line of tracers rounds directly into the pooled gasoline, dripping over the landing. With a whoosh, it ignited and wild flames raced along the floor going straight into the bathroom and up the wallpaper. Standing in the bathtub, Schwarz turned on the shower and angled the spray onto the walls, but the water did little to hinder the lashing orange conflagration.

“You men up there, get the hell out!” Blancanales shouted, slapping in a fresh clip. “The house is on fire!”

“Lead the way, cop!” George retorted from somewhere above. “I’m not going back to Wadpoole! I’d rather die here with you!”

Lyons shot his friend a hard look and Blancanales frowned from the doorway of the bedroom. It sounded crazy, but many men who had spent decades in jail swore death before returning to the rigid discipline of government cellblocks.