Don Pendleton - Extreme Arsenal

Blancanales and Schwarz put aside their banter and fell into step behind Lyons. They spread out and stalked into the mine entrance.

Blancanales paused and shone his light on the ground. “This floor has been graded.”

Lyons knelt and ran his fingertips over the hard-packed earth. “No signs of treads. Gadgets?”

“They weren’t hovercraft,” Schwarz replied. “But what dust there is has been smoothed out. Look…There are rails.”

Lyons walked over and tapped his flash hider against the bent metal. “Something heavy rolled over this. There’s gouge marks on it, too.”

Blancanales looked at the scarred and mutilated metal, then stared deeper into the tunnel. “Some other machine?”

“A digger?” Schwarz asked. He moved farther down the tunnel, then squinted through his goggles. “Someone knocked a back door through to Yuma’s testing facility.”

Schwarz pulled out a map from his case and flicked his light on it. “The Bear gave me some maps to help me figure out how the attack drones could have escaped.”

“This mountain range is heavy-duty granite, though,” Lyons said. “Right?”

“Mountains usually occur when tectonic plates collide. The higher the mountains, the newer they are and the more force behind their collision. The Blue Ridge Mountains, where the Farm is located, are very old and worn down, but there are fissures and caves throughout them. Geological surveys try to map them out, but you can’t find them all,” Schwarz answered. “Whoever made this attack had this place geographically staked out.”

“And they had just the right size digger to punch a hole big enough from a naturally formed cave, or even an underground river to pop up in this mine,” Lyons finished. His brow furrowed. “It’s been nearly fifteen hours since the initial attack. We might have lost the trail.”

Something rumbled in the darkness.

“Or not…” Blancanales spoke up. He shouldered his rifle and looked through its scope. “Something big’s moving in.”

Lyons snicked the safety off on his Beowulf. “Pull back.”

An engine revved and roared, and floodlights snapped on. The Able Team leader pivoted and opened fire, .50-caliber, tungsten-cored slugs erupting from the muzzle of his rifle. The heavy slugs sparked violently on machinery. Through the lights, the three Stony Man commandos saw the whirling shapes of multiple drill heads spin wildly.

“Aw, hell,” Schwarz muttered as he cut loose with his own weapon. “We found the digger!”

“Fall back!” Lyons bellowed as the machine continued to close.

Blancanales triggered the M-203 attachment under his Beowulf. “Fire in the hole!”

A tunnel-shaking explosion, deadened by the sonic filters on the Wolf Ears, flared. The drilling machine was cast in stark relief. The moment that the high-explosive flashed, three rotating cones of multiple drills were visible, gnashing stone-chewing teeth flickering wickedly like the mouth of some hideous dragon.

The digger paused for a brief moment, shaken by the high-explosive grenade fired by Blancanales, then lurched forward again. Lyons shoved the Able Team veteran behind him and held down the trigger for an extended burst of heavy-caliber, armor-piercing slugs.

The spinning drill heads bounced slugs all over. The machine was all but indestructible as it bore down relentlessly on them.

Lyons dumped the empty magazine from his rifle, then looked back at Blancanales, who forced a fresh grenade into the breech of his launcher.

“I told you to move it!” Lyons growled.

A canister sailed over the two men, interrupting the Able Team commander.

“Heads down!” Schwarz called.

Lyons grunted as Blancanales kicked him out of the way and aimed at the ceiling above the digger.

The double-shock wave shook the whole mine and rolled over Lyons as if it were the treads of the deadly machine itself. Rock tried to flex, but shattered and crumbled. The pressure wave blew the Wolf Ears right off Lyons’s head, and he shook off the thunderbolt that cracked between his ears.

A clap on his shoulder brought him out of a temporary daze and he saw Blancanales shouting at him. The man’s lips moved, but nothing was coming through the ringing in his skull. He glanced over and saw the digger, its drill bits still whirring wildly. It had stopped, though, one light torn from its housing by the shearing force of the double explosion.

“—said are you okay, Ironman?” Blancanales asked.

“Yeah. What did you do?” Lyons asked.

“I dropped some of the roof on that thing, and Gadgets flipped some high explosive under the belly of the beast. Looks like he took care of at least one set of treads, and the collapsed rock pinned the rest down.”

Lyons blinked and saw Schwarz, highlighted by the remaining floodlight on the drill, his rifle aimed at the ground, looking around the sides of the machine when the thing lurched. Schwarz stepped back and fired a short burst into the drill head, but only succeeded in raising more sparks as heavy tungsten bit into solid steel.

“I don’t think it’s dead!” Lyons mocked as Blancanales helped haul him to his feet. They kept out of the range of the churning teeth. He looked around the front, then saw Schwarz shoulder his rifle and fire a single shot.

Smoke billowed and the trio of drill heads slowed.

“Spotted the motor and tried to take it out with a burst,” Schwarz explained. “Pull back some. I’m going to roll a grenade under the other motor.”

Lyons nodded, and he and Blancanales pulled back. The Able Team leader donned his Wolf Ears again and clamped them tight over his head. Schwarz raced back to them, and a new detonation rumbled in the confines of the tunnel. Blancanales and Schwarz spoke again, but it was muffled by the hearing protectors. Lyons tried the microphone switch and shook his head, removing the headset.

“That did it,” Schwarz replied. He looked at the Wolf Ears. “Problems?”

“Yeah,” Lyons answered.

“Let me look at it,” Schwarz told him. “Go check on the digger.”

Lyons nodded and followed Blancanales. The drill bits no longer moved, and Pol slid his frame between the digger’s chewing drill points and the ground. It was a little too close for the brawny ex-cop’s tastes, in case the machine managed one last surge of power. It could easily chew his friend to a pulp and Lyons wouldn’t have a chance to rescue him.

“Looks like we have room to get behind it,” Blancanales called. “The tunnel is pretty clear. A little rubble from the cave-in, but other than that…”

“Can you check to see if this thing’s fully down for the count?” Lyons asked. “I don’t want to have you stuck under this bastard with your shins chopped into ground beef.”

“Sure, hang on. Gadgets’s first grenade peeled open the bottom, and I can see a few engine parts,” Blancanales explained. He clicked on a pocket-size flashlight, then drew an Emerson folding knife. The sturdy blade sliced through cables, though the Able Team commando hissed as a slight jolt burned his fingers.

“You okay?” Lyons asked.

“Yeah. I cut through the main battery cables, and a little bit of the charge came up the blade. I wasn’t in good contact with the metal, though, so nothing more than a small burn,” Blancanales replied. “Taking care of the generator cables now, too.”

The floodlight cut out, and Lyons snapped on his pocket light. Schwarz tapped him on the shoulder and he accepted his Wolf Ears back. “What was wrong?”

“The shock wave knocked the battery wires loose. I stripped the insulation, hand wound it back together again, and taped it up. It won’t be perfect,” Schwarz said, “but you can hear, and the protectors will keep your eardrums safe. I’ll solder it into prime shape when we get back to base.”