Don Pendleton - Extreme Arsenal

Rogers nodded. “I ordered you men to clear the field.”

“We wouldn’t leave you behind,” Astrovik stated. He saw that the general was soaked with cold muddy water, and bent down to scoop up a helmet full of cold goop. The soldier poured it over his own head and face, then crawled to the edge of the ditch.

“Don’t speak. They have some sort of audio detectors, as well,” Rogers whispered as he crawled to the corporal’s side.

“Fall back, sir. I’ll cover your retreat,” Astrovik told him.

Rogers knelt to pick up his muddy SIG, then shook out the excess gunk. He slammed home a spare magazine and watched the machines. “Sorry, son. I lead from the front.”

Astrovik managed a weak smile.

“Look out!” he suddenly blurted. The young corporal knocked Rogers down to the bottom of the ditch as a crescendo of fire and thunder filled the air.

Rogers glanced up to see the damaged Ankylosaur being hammered by the other units into a mangled pulp of unidentifiable metal. Rockets and explosive cannon rounds left a scorched hulk behind. The robots weren’t going to leave much for the Yuma experts to look over after their raid.

Rogers and Astrovik slid from the bottom of the ditch and watched the squat little drones whirl and roll frantically into the distance, disappearing through the scrub. One of the armored machines trailed smoke from a fire, but the general’s men wouldn’t be able to track it.

Looking around, General Stephen Rogers saw that the test base had been all but flattened. Every vehicle was now a twisted mass of crushed metal and rubber. Some blazed from explosive shells that lit the fuel in their ruptured tanks, but there was nothing on wheels that would allow them to chase down the retreating armored assault drones. Rogers cursed under his breath.

A bugle clarion split the air and Astrovik turned on his radio.

“Our spotters lost the drone toward the old mine pass,” Astrovik quickly told Rogers. “They’re retreating.”

Rogers nodded and took the radio. “Can we get air support?”

“General Rogers?” It was Gunnery Sergeant Pym. “I have Lieutenant Van Dyne calling in. U.S.A.F. states they’ll have medevac helicopters here in twenty minutes, but defensive air cover is only thirty seconds away.”

“Good man,” Rogers said.

A heartbeat later, fighter jets roared through the sky overhead. He couldn’t see what they were against the night sky, but as soon as they passed, he could tell by their single cones of exhaust that they were F-16s of some form. He hoped that they had air-to-ground weaponry.

One F-16 cut loose with its 20 mm cannons; the air ripped with the shredding rattle of high-velocity explosive shells. Both jets suddenly swerved as spears of flame lanced into the sky toward them. The drones’ rockets sailed into the night, missing their intended targets, but giving the attackers time to escape even further.

“General, we’ve lost the intruders,” Van Dyne broke in. “They’re invisible to FLIR and radar…The Air Force can’t pick them up on sensors or visually.”

Rogers breathed out a harsh sigh.

“I want a team to follow those things’ heading, Lieutenant,” Rogers ordered. “Call in a mountain operations Ranger team and have them set up with antitank weaponry.”

“It’ll be a few hours, sir,” Van Dyne answered. Despite the carnage, her voice was calm and focused.

Rogers looked in the direction where the Ankylosaurs escaped. The old mine pass was a dead end. Those drones were as good as caught.

But something nibbled at the back of the general’s mind.

He doubted that their assailants were going to be found. Not for a long time.

Rogers thumbed the DVD from his jacket.

Those nightmare robots would be seen again. And from what he’d seen so far this night, they had proved to be an irresistible force for destruction.

“God help us,” Rogers prayed softly as the F-16s orbited the burning base.

England

The London fog rolled in on cue as David McCarter took to the streets with his friend Pat. They walked arm in arm, McCarter his usual brisk, ground-eating stride slowed to accommodate the blond woman’s pace. She walked with her temple rested against his shoulder.

They’d just left the cinema after watching a controversial film and were engaged in light banter concerning the plot.

Something moved in his peripheral vision as he turned to press his point and he stopped. His combat instincts cried out that trouble was brewing.

Pat felt McCarter’s muscles tighten, as rigid as those on a marble statue. “What’s wrong?”

A black-clad figure, wielding a submachine gun, darted across the street to climb a small privacy wall around a home. McCarter pushed Pat into the shadows of a house’s entranceway and shielded her with his back.

“There’s some drama happening,” the Phoenix Force leader whispered softly. Drama, in the slang of the SAS, involved guns and imminent violence. “Stay out of sight, no matter what.”

Pat’s lips pulled tightly into a thin, bloodless line. “You don’t have your mates with you.”

McCarter reached under his jacket and slid out a tiny Charter Arms .38-caliber revolver and pressed it into her hand. “Don’t do anything stupid. If anyone with a gun pops into view, let him have the full load.”

Pat nodded nervously. He gave her hand a quick squeeze and turned toward the house. He was in mid-draw of his favored Browning Hi-Power when he spotted two more mysterious figures dart into view. One pivoted and dropped to a knee to aim at McCarter, who lunged out of the path of a line of silenced autofire. The SAS veteran’s handgun was out by the time he struck the cobblestone road, its luminous front sight a fuzzy green ball. The glowing dot interrupted the torso of the gunman. He fired two quick shots and rolled frantically so as not to provide a stationary target for the other gunner.

The black-clad wraith that he’d hit twisted to punch another burst of silenced bullets into the road. McCarter leaped behind the fender of a Mini Cooper, its chassis rattling as slugs struck home.

“Dammit.” The enemy gunman grunted. “He’s behind cover!”

“Who the…” the other assassin whispered as he stepped onto the sidewalk. McCarter swiveled and took aim at the second attacker’s knee. He tapped off another shot and was rewarded by his target toppling off balance. The victory was brief, though. A salvo of suppressed gunfire rattled against the bumper of the Mini Cooper in response to the Phoenix Force leader’s attack. “That hurt, you miserable…”

McCarter popped up and fired over the roof of the vehicle. This time he pumped out three shots. Sparks flew as bullets exploded against his enemy’s helmet. The gunman staggered backward, then shook the cobwebs out of his head. The Briton ducked back behind the body of the car as the Mini Cooper’s windows detonated under a hail of automatic weapons fire.

As chunks of broken glass rained down on the Phoenix Force leader, he bit back a growl of frustration. The three head shots would have brought down anyone. Even one bullet would have slipped into the gap between the helmet and the goggles of an armored opponent. But the sparks that exploded showed McCarter that even his custom of loading one hollowpoint and one NATO ball round wasn’t enough to penetrate whatever they were wearing. The mix of expanding and deep penetrating ammunition was the Briton’s insurance against opponents who wore body armor. At this range, the NATO ball round should have cracked through even a Kevlar helmet.

The two hardmen were betrayed by their shadows as they approached. They assumed that they had the Phoenix Force commander boxed in, and that was their mistake. As long as he had breath in his lungs and his heart still beat, he wouldn’t give up. He glanced back and saw Pat huddled in the doorway. If the gunmen got any closer, they’d be able to see her, and the tiny Charter Arms .38 would be even more impotent against their protective armor.