Don Pendleton - Maelstrom

RAFAEL ENCIZO and Gary Manning spotted the group on ATVs at the same moment Hawkins reported them, and the pair of Phoenix Force warriors immediately bolted into the fray.

“First to targets calls the ball,” McCarter had said. Well, Encizo knew exactly what the hell that meant. While the Phoenix Force leader was charged with all final decisions, it sometimes made sense to let whoever was closest to the enemy direct the action. After all, a field soldier’s report of troop movement and direction was much more accurate than that delivered by some armchair quarterback in the rear. Encizo’s and Manning’s position put them much closer to the approaching ATVs, and that meant they would likely reach the perimeter of the demo field before James and McCarter. In that event, Encizo would take the lead.

The two men reached the demo field and sprinted for the fence line. Encizo could hear Hawkins shouting at somebody from the bleachers, but he didn’t bother to risk a backward glance. The young Texan was probably yelling at the Aussie security team to clear the field of all nonessential personnel. Those weren’t soldiers seated in those stands, they were officers and defense contractors who were slow and well stocked on doughnuts. And the guys by the weapons were nothing but engineers, thereby incapable of putting up a fight with their prototype weapons, except of course Kissinger.

Phoenix Force would handle this.

“Definitely hostiles…at least ten…well armed,” the Cuban reported to them as he breathed heavily from the exertion. “We’re engaging.”

Encizo produced the MP-5K he’d concealed beneath his jacket, and in his peripheral vision he noticed Manning had already drawn a SIG-Sauer P-239 with an extended 8-round magazine. The big Canadian preferred not to indulge in compact machine pistols like the MP-5K, finding them too bulky for a mission of this type. However he was no less deadly with a semi-automatic pistol than Encizo with a machine pistol.

Encizo was the first to demonstrate that fact as he stopped near the fence, knelt and steadied his sights on the first target. He’d set the MP-5K for 3-round bursts, and the first trio of rounds took one of the ATV riders in the chest. Blood stained the man’s shirt as the impact lifted him from his ride. The ATV careened toward the fence, spinning only at the last moment, the two left wheels striking the fence, which held firm despite the weight of the vehicle.

Manning missed once in his opening salvo, but round two caught another rider in the gut. The driver keeled over, and his ATV slowed considerably as the man clutched his abdomen. Even from that distance, Encizo could see the agony on the guy’s face. The driver looked up in time to see that he was going to hit the fence and he tried to avoid it, but the ground was still damp from rains that morning and the ATV slid into the fence. The rider was hurled face-first and the impact twisted his head at an odd angle. Encizo could tell the guy was dead from a broken neck before the body hit the ground. The warrior looked for his next target, but McCarter’s voice interrupted the action.

“Incoming!”

Manning and Encizo threw themselves to the ground in time to avoid the whistling projectile that passed only yards above them. A moment later the ground shook as a blast erupted. Encizo risked a glance long enough to determine the source of the attack. A few of the ATV riders had stayed back and were providing covering fire utilizing CIS 40GLs. The Singapore-made grenade launcher was almost identical in design to the M-203—it fired 40 mm grenades with a maximum effective range up to 400 meters.

“That’s some heavy shit we’re up against here,” Manning muttered.

“Tell me about it,” Encizo replied.

“Get some cover,” McCarter advised even as the two Phoenix Force commandos were on their feet and converging on their position. “We’ll lay down some fire for you.”

“Roger,” Manning answered through his transceiver.

The sounds of James’s and McCarter’s MP-5Ks resounded through the air as they laid down a full-auto onslaught against the enemy troops. Encizo knew there was no way they could hope to repel an attack of this kind, and that the fence would serve only as a minor barrier.

The best bet was to evacuate the innocents and hope some window of opportunity opened.

JOHN KISSINGER WASN’T exactly a warrior, but he knew how to take care of himself. Unfortunately he’d been serving in the capacity of VIP to the weapons demonstration and, being that close to the prototypes, he wasn’t allowed to carry a firearm.

Not that it really mattered. A pistol was no good against high-explosive grenades anyway—at least not when the grenadiers were at the range they were. Staying alive seemed a bit more important to Kissinger and he saw it as his duty to keep the weapons operators and engineers that way, as well. After all, they were fellow gun junkies, and Kissinger watched out for his own kind. Besides, the men of Phoenix Force could take care of themselves. The best he could do was to get the innocents out of the way.

“Move!” he told the engineers and operators. “Go for that cover over there!”

Kissinger waved them in the direction of a low-slung building that ran parallel to the bleachers. It was made of heavy concrete and steel, with a small open-air observation window that provided a full view of the field. It was actually a bunker-style observatory, designed for inclement weather and to provide some relative protection during demonstrations similar to this one.

One of the operators tripped and Kissinger reached down and hauled him to his feet. He practically dragged the guy as he rushed toward the cover of the observation building. They had just reached the door as the second grenade struck the bleachers and sent an explosive blast of sharp, superheated aluminum shrapnel in every direction. A pang of fear stabbed at Kissinger’s heart even as he pushed the operator—whose name he remembered was Randy Wallis—through the door of the building. The armorer turned his attention toward the bleachers and breathed a sigh of relief when he saw they were already empty.

HAWKINS HAD BEEN the first to spot the team of ATV riders approaching the demo field, and he knew immediately they weren’t an Olympic cross-country team just out for some fun. He’d started screaming orders at the surprised military observers and contractors. A couple of the generals in the crowd had at first acted as if he were nuts, giving Hawkins stern looks that signaled he was violating military protocol. The explosion of the first 40 mm grenade a mere twenty-five yards from their position turned annoyance into pandemonium, ending any further doubts the observers might have had about Hawkins’s maintaining a military decorum. People scrambled down the five rows of bleachers, moving toward the bunker-like building in the rear under the direction of Hawkins and the head of security, a young and inexperienced lad named Thaddeus Kornsby. What the youth lacked in experienced he made up for in enthusiasm and steadiness under fire. His handling of the situation was admirable.

Which is why Hawkins felt anger wash over him when, halfway to the building, he turned at the sound of the second explosion that blew apart the bleachers and toppled Kornsby, who was now short his left arm. The young security officer stared blankly into Hawkins’s eyes, oblivious to the sound of the woman pinned under him, who was screaming and kicking. Hawkins realized something the woman, covered in the gore that had erupted from the stump of Kornsby’s wound, didn’t. He’d sustained his injuries throwing himself on top of her to save her life.

Hawkins turned and rushed to retrieve both of them before the situation could get any worse. Although he really didn’t see how that could be possible.