Sky Sentinels

At this point it didn’t matter. He and the rest of his men could sort that all out after the thousand or so hostages on the other side of the curtain were safe.

Lyons’s M-16 was already soaked with water from his earlier dip beneath the curtain. But that mattered little with modern firearms. It would still fire. So holding it in front of him, he moved slowly to the corner of the curtain and used the barrel to push it slightly to the side.

Directly through the window was a large choir loft, with terrified men and women dressed in robes still sitting in their chairs. Mixed in with them were more men in khaki uniforms and red scarves.

One of them had to be the man who had almost spotted him earlier.

Behind the pulpit, and making full use of the microphone in front of him, another terrorist dressed in identical fatigues and a red scarf stood spouting Islamic terrorist propaganda in broken English. Lyons could hear him demanding that the congregation all convert to Islam immediately or be killed and go directly to Hell.

Other men with AK-47s, Uzis and a variety of other weaponry stood next to the speaker. Still more patrolled the aisles, and in the balcony Lyons could see that the same thing was going on. These men in red scarves—perhaps Iranian Pasdarans, perhaps simple terrorists in disguise—were covering their hostages from every angle.

What interested Carl Lyons most, however, was a red-scarfed man on the stage sitting next to a Caucasian in a blue suit. Lyons suspected the man in the suit was the minister. In his midforties, he had slightly graying hair. He sat quietly. But his face showed no fear. If anything, what emanated from the pastor was confidence and determination.

Next to the minister, on the floor, was a sinister-looking device that appeared to be comprised of Semtex plastic explosives and a glass container that held a dull, cloudy liquid that was turning yellow.

Nitroglycerin. Most people thought it was clear, and it was when it was new. But as the explosive aged, it took on more color.

And more instability. It might even be set off by the vibrations of a gunshot. It was a true IED—Improvised Explosive Device. Unprofessional and unpredictable.

In addition to a pistol in one hand, the man next to the minister held an electronic device that resembled a television remote control in the other. But Lyons knew this device had only one channel.

Explode.

Lyons stepped back through the water. He could never crawl through the window and get to the bomb or the man with the detonator before the bomb was detonated. And if he shot the terrorist, the gunshot itself might cause the explosion of the shaky nitro. Lyons stood there while the rest of his team took turns looking through the curtain to access the situation for themselves. All of them looked at him when they’d seen the explosive.

The Able Team leader moved back to the corner of the curtain and brushed it slightly to the side again. He looked out to lock eyes with the minister he had seen only moments earlier.

Somehow, for whatever reason, the preacher had turned in his seat enough to stare at the baptistry. And somehow Lyons had known he was going to do just that even before he moved the curtain.

The minister slowly nodded at Lyons.

Lyons nodded back. Although he wasn’t sure why or what the nod meant. He only knew that to do nothing meant the sure deaths of two thousand innocent people seated in the congregation.

Turning toward the rest of the men next to him in the water, the Able Team leader whispered individual assignments. Langford and Hooks would take out the guards at the main doors while Schwarz and Blancanales dived through the opening to handle the terrorists on the stage and in the aisles.

Just before he was about to seize the curtain and jerk it back, Schwarz grabbed his sleeve. “What about the bomb?” he said.

“I’m taking care of it,” Lyons said.

Schwarz frowned, then slowly nodded.

Carl Lyons reached up and grabbed the curtain with one hand, holding his M-16 with the other. He took a final look at each of his men, then suddenly ripped the curtain off the front of the baptistry so hard it came completely off the rings that had held it in place along the top of the window.

H AL B ROGNOLA was a well-known face to the Secret Service agents stationed at the White House. So when he walked purposefully through the final metal detector and sent a loud buzzing down the hall, all he got from the men in the dark suits were nods of acknowledgment.

Brognola nodded back as he strode toward the open door to the Oval Office. Stepping inside, he saw that the chair behind the huge desk was empty. But that wasn’t unusual.

So he turned to his left.

Few Americans knew it, but the Oval Office was used primarily for news briefings and meetings with foreign dignitaries. It was a show office. Most of the papers the President reviewed and signed, as well as the rest of the actual work he did, was conducted in a much smaller, more businesslike room next door. And it was from this door that Brognola heard the familiar voice say, “In here, Hal.”

Brognola crossed the freshly vacuumed carpet and entered the work office. The Man was seated at one end of a long leather couch with stacks of paper arranged next to him.

When the President pointed toward the other end of the couch, Brognola dropped down beside the stacked papers. He wore two hats in the U.S. government. To the public, he was a high-ranking official within the U.S. Department of Justice. But behind the scenes, he was also the Director of Sensitive Operations for Stony Man Farm.

Today, however, he had no doubt which role the President would be expecting him to assume. Had the Man simply had Justice Department business on his mind, he’d have conducted it over the phone.

“I guess I don’t have to tell you about the situation at the Iraq-Iran border,” the President began.

Brognola shook his head. “I haven’t seen a news tape replayed so many times since Rodney King,” he said.

“You realize what the Iranian president is trying to do, I’m sure,” the Man said.

“Sure,” Brognola said. “They’re trying to suck us into another Iraq. Crossing the border and killing and kidnapping American noncombatants was an act of war. Clean and simple. They’re daring us to invade Iran.”

The President nodded. “Exactly,” he affirmed. “Right now, the sympathy of the rest of the world is with us.”

Brognola grunted sarcastically. “That won’t last. Particularly if we start bombing Tehran.”

“You know, I know and Iran knows that we can kick their butts nine ways to Sunday if we want to,” the President said. “But unless we nuke them out of existence, we’ll have to send in more troops to keep order, and it won’t work any better there than it has in Iraq.”

“Or Vietnam or Korea,” Brognola agreed.

“Right,” the Man said. “It’s pretty much all or nothing. We’d have to just forget about civilian casualties altogether and wipe them out. Or sit back and do nothing for years like we did when the Shah went down.” He paused a moment, then said, “But there is a third possibility. A surgical strike that frees the hostages but doesn’t do much, if any, collateral damage. It’s slim, but at least it has a chance.”

Brognola knew what was coming and remained silent.

“Where’s Bolan at the moment?” the Man asked.

“Haven’t heard from him in several days,” Brognola said. “He’s tied up with some things in Bosnia right now.”

“Able Team and Phoenix Force?” the President asked.

“Able Team’s in Oklahoma,” Brognola said.

“Ah, yes.” The President nodded. “The church situation. I understand it’s Iranian-backed terrorists there, too?”

“Maybe yes, maybe no,” Brognola said seriously. “There’s a rumor going around the intel agencies that the men who took over the church are Iranian Revolutionary Guardsmen. Pasdarans, complete with their red neckerchiefs.”

“And Phoenix Force?” the President asked.

“McCarter and his boys are catching a few hours of well-deserved sleep after that affair in South Africa. But I can have them up and ready within the hour.”

The phone on the desk suddenly rang.

“Get that, will you, Hal?” the President said. “Put it on speakerphone.”

“Certainly, sir.” Brognola rose to his feet, took two steps to the desk and pressed the intercom button on the phone.

“Nan, I told you to hold all of my calls while Mr. Brognola was here,” the President said somewhat testily.

His tone didn’t seem to have any effect on his receptionist. “I know,” the voice on the other end of the line said confidently. “But you’ll want this one.”

“Who is it?” the Man asked.

“Javid Azria,” Nan answered.

The President looked at Brognola.

Brognola looked back.

“Put him on,” the Man directed.

A click sounded over the speakerphone and a moment later an Iranian-accented voice said, “Mr. President?”

“Yes, Mr. President?” the Man said back.

Brognola stood where he was, waiting.

“In addition to the church in that cowboy state of yours,” the voice said pompously over the speakerphone, “the third suicide bomber I sent to Israel has just eliminated close to four hundred infidels by detonating himself in one of the decadent Western-inspired night clubs in Tel Aviv.”

The President remained cool. “I hadn’t even heard of the first two yet,” he said, glancing at Brognola. “They must not have been very big.”

The voice that responded turned angry. “They were big enough,” it growled. “Exactly the size I wanted them to be.”

Brognola sat silently. He was listening to one of the biggest egos he’d ever encountered in his long career.

“And, Allah willing, there are far bigger things to come,” said the Iranian president.

“Are you declaring war on the United States, Mr. Azria?” the Man asked, using the Iranian president’s name for the first time.

But the leader of the free world got no response.

All he and Hal Brognola heard was a click as the line went dead.

T HE BAPTISTRY WINDOW was only wide enough to allow three men at a time to crawl through it. And as Hooks, Langford and Schwarz launched themselves upward out of the water, Lyons and Blancanales helped shove them onto the stage.

Counting both terrorists and worshippers, over a thousand heads jerked their way.

As the water-soaked warriors jumped to their feet, the remaining two members of Able Team followed.

It had all taken just enough time for the men in the red neckerchiefs to overcome their surprise and react.

Luckily, Able Team and the OSBI men assisting them reacted a fraction of a second quicker.

Lyons was the first to fire, triggering a 3-round burst from his M-16 into the head of the man who had been shouting from the pulpit. Lyons turned toward where the minister and the dark-complected man holding the remote detonator sat and saw that the minister had already grabbed the other man’s hand. He held it in both of his own, his fingers tight around the device, preventing the terrorist from entering the code that would bring down the entire church.

Hooks and Langford knelt on both sides of the pulpit. The OSBI director was firing his AR-15 steadily in semiauto mode, taking out one door guard per round. Return fire whizzed back toward him, some of it striking the pulpit while other rounds perforated the large cross hanging just above the choir loft. Occasionally a round flew past them into the baptistry and a plopping sound echoed forth as it spent itself in the water.

The members of the choir had all hit the floor. Next to him, Hooks fired his Kel-Tec PLR-16, which had obviously been converted to full-auto. Each tap of his forefinger drove another khaki uniform and red scarf to the ground.

Schwarz and Blancanales were firing their own M-16s into the red-scarfed terrorists in the aisles and balcony. In addition to these warriors, several men and one woman within the congregation itself had risen to their feet and joined the battle, killing the terrorists near to them with hidden pistols. These off-duty cops and citizens with concealed-carry permits had been smart enough to wait for the right time to fight.

Lyons’s well-trained brain had taken in all of these facts in a heartbeat, and now he turned his attention back toward the biggest threat in the church—the amateurish improvised bomb that still stood on the floor next to the chairs where the minister and his guard had been moments earlier. The two men were wrestling on the floor, each doing his best to gain control of the remote electronic detonator.

Skipping from the back of one choir chair to another, Lyons made his way down the rows through the choir loft toward the stage. Moan, cries and shrieks could be heard just beneath his boots.

So far, the vibrations from all of the rounds being fired throughout the church had failed to detonate the IED. But that didn’t mean the next one wouldn’t. Or the one after that. And the minister and terrorist wrestling on the floor were still too close to the device for comfort.

Lyons let his M-16 fall to the end of its sling as he jumped off the last row of choir seats and landed on the stage. A second later he had drawn the Randall Model 1 fighting knife and was diving on top of the grappling men. Lyons knocked the minister to the side, taking his place and grabbing the terrorist’s wrist with his free hand. Before the man had a chance to push any of the buttons, the Able Team leader had thrust the point of the Randall’s seven-inch blade through his wrist. He twisted the knife back and forth. Ligaments and tendons popped as the Able Team leader literally cut the detonator out of the man’s hand with the Randall’s razor-sharp edge.

The man with the scarf screamed at the top of his lungs as blood began to shoot from his wrist. Grabbing the detonator from the man’s useless fingers, Lyons put all of his weight on the Randall, feeling it cut through to the other side of the wrist, penetrate the carpet below, then lodge itself in the wood beneath.

As he rose off the terrorist’s chest, Lyons saw the man try to pull the knife out of his wrist with his other hand. Unsuccessful, he screamed as the pain proved more than he could endure.

The man with the knife through his wrist fell back in agony.

The minister had risen to his feet after being knocked clear by Lyons a moment earlier. The Able Team leader looked at him. His hair and clothing were disheveled and torn from the life-or-death wrestling match in which he’d just been engaged, but his eyes were clear.

Lyons pulled his trademark .357 Magnum Colt Python from his hip holster and twirled it so that the grips faced the minister. “You know how to use this thing?” he asked the preacher.

The man nodded his head. “Cylinder turns opposite from a Smith & Wesson,” he said.

Those few words convinced Lyons that the preacher knew his guns. “Keep him here,” he said, looking down at the man still pinned to the floor. “Don’t shoot him unless you have to. He may have valuable information for us later.”

The minister nodded as he took a two-handed grip on the Python and aimed it at the terrorist’s head.

Lyons lifted the M-16 and turned toward the congregation. Catching a glimpse of khaki running toward a foyer door at the back of the sanctuary, Lyons directed a 3-round burst into the terrorist’s back. The man dropped to the carpet a foot from the door.

Turning slightly, Lyons saw a member of the congregation wearing a plaid sport coat and dark tie aiming a Glock at one of the terrorists. But another terrorist, behind the man in plaid, was aiming an AK-47 at his back.

Lyons swung the M-16 around and sent another 3-round burst over the heads of the people huddling beneath the pews. The bullets all hit the man in the red scarf in the chest, dropping him out of sight a second before the man in plaid triggered his Glock.

The terrorist the churchgoer had aimed at fell to the man’s pistol fire. He turned his gun on yet another of the intruders, never knowing that the Able Team leader had just saved his life.

Schwarz and Blancanales had moved down off the stage and were creeping along the sides of the sanctuary, using the pews as cover and targeting any terrorist who presented himself. Hooks and Langford were still battling away from the side of the pulpit.

Raising his eyes to the balcony, the Able Team leader saw that only one of the attackers was still on his feet, firing downward over the safety rail. Raising his assault rifle, the Ironman caught him in the chest with yet another burst of fire. The man screamed. Then his scream was cut off and a gurgling sound replaced it as his chest filled with blood.

Falling forward over the rail, he did a half flip before the back of his head struck the top of a pew. By now, the gunfire had begun to subside, and the cracking sound of the falling man’s neck breaking echoed throughout the large sanctuary.

The various law-enforcement officers waiting outside began to enter the sanctuary through the foyer doors, and suddenly the battle was over.

“Check for wounded!” Lyons called to Schwarz and Blancanales. Both men nodded back at him. In the meantime, Langford walked to the pulpit and began talking in a calm voice, doing his best to end the screams of horror and other noise from the people under their seats. In a few seconds, heads began to rise as it became apparent that the nightmare was over.

Lyons returned to where the minister was still covering the man pinned to the floor. “Pastor,” he said, “I need a room where I can talk to this guy. Nice and private.”

The minister nodded as he handed Lyons’s revolver back to him. “I’ll take you to one of the Sunday-school rooms,” he said. “By the way, thanks.” He paused a moment, then said, “You don’t look like regular policemen. Not even like special state agents like our own Gary Hooks.”

“Nobody looks like Gary Hooks is my guess,” Lyons said.

The minister laughed. “He marches to a different drummer, all right. I’m Rick Felton, by the way. Call me Rick.” He stuck out his hand. “And you?”

“Just call me Lyons,” the Able Team leader said.

“You must be federal agents of some kind,” said Felton. “Is that what it is?”

“Sort of,” Lyons said as he knelt next to the man on the floor. “It’s hard to explain.”

Lyons turned his attention to the man on the floor. Reaching down with both hands, he wriggled his fingers beneath the man’s wrist, then yanked upward. There was still screaming and loud moans all over the sanctuary, but this terrorist’s shriek was loud enough to turn all heads their way.

Lyons left the knife in the man’s wrist, using the grip to guide him down off the stage and out through the closest exit. As they descended the steps, he saw both the Oklahoma City Police and Highway Patrol Bomb Squads enter the sanctuary. He pointed toward the bomb behind him, then moved on.

As they neared the door, Schwarz and Blancanales suddenly appeared next to him. “Only two civilian injuries, Ironman,” Schwarz said. “Both superficial flesh wounds.”

“Lucky,” Lyons said as Felton led them down a hallway past the church kitchen.

The minister glanced over his shoulder and shrugged. “I think there might have been a little more than luck involved here, don’t you?” he said. When no one answered, he continued to speak as they walked on. “Tell me how I knew you were in the baptistry,” he said, smiling. “Better yet, tell me how you knew I’d know, and that I’d be willing to fight for the detonator until you got to me. And tell me why none of the congregation was killed, and why that bomb never went off. By all rights, we should all be dead right now. You think that all just happened by coincidence?”

“I don’t know,” Lyons said.

Felton glanced up toward the ceiling. “Well, I do,” he said, smiling.

Lyons followed the minister to a door with a metal sign that read Adult II Sunday School. Felton pulled out a key ring and opened it, holding the door wide while Lyons led the captured man inside, still holding the knife. As soon as they were all inside the room, Lyons sat the man wearing the red scarf in a metal folding chair. The man was still making low, whimpering noises that the Able Team leader found irritating. Twisting the knife slightly, he made the prisoner scream.

“Okay,” said Lyons. “You keep whining like a baby and I’ll keep twisting the knife. Or you can act like a man and I’ll treat you like one.”

Their captive rattled off something in Farsi.

“You speak English?” Lyons demanded.

The man shook his head.

Lyons pulled on the knife again and the man screamed, “Yes! I speak English! I speak very good English for you!”

“Somehow I knew you were gonna say that,” Lyons told him. Still holding on to the knife handle, he turned to Felton. It was obvious that the minister was uncomfortable being there while Lyons inflicted even this slight pain on their captive. “Pastor,” he said, “you might want to take Hooks and Langford through the church and see if any of these guys escaped the sanctuary and are hiding someplace. On the other hand, there are probably SWAT teams already doing that, so I’d go back to the sanctuary and get behind the pulpit if I were you. I’m sure your presence would be of great comfort to the congregation during this stressful time.”

Felton was no fool, and his facial expression told Lyons that he knew the Able Team leader simply wanted him out of there. But he nodded, then looked at the bleeding man in the chair. Even though the terrorist had attempted to murder him, his family and a thousand other people in his congregation, the preacher’s eyes held no malice—only a trace of sorrow.

Felton looked up at Lyons, Schwarz and Blancanales. “Do what you have to do to save lives,” he said. “And I’ll keep working on their souls.” He paused for a minute, then started for the door. “Someday the lion will lay down with the lamb,” he quoted as he twisted the doorknob.

“Yes,” Lyons agreed. “But I’m afraid it’s not going to be today.”

CHAPTER TWO

“Gadgets,” Lyons said to Schwarz, the Able Team’s electronics expert, “go double-check what the bomb squads are doing and then hurry back.”

Without a word the Able Team warrior zipped out of the Sunday school room door and disappeared down the hall toward the sanctuary.

Lyons pulled the red-scarfed man’s arm over the table in front of where he was sitting and braced it with his left hand. “This is going to hurt,” he told the terrorist. “Hold your breath.”

With a sudden yank on the Randall’s grip, he withdrew the blade of the custom-made fighting knife.

The terrorist screamed and jerked the injured limb back against his chest, cradling it like a baby with the other arm.

“Do us both a favor,” Blancanales said, irritated. “Act like a man instead of a bitchy little girl. You’re a shame to our entire gender.”

The prisoner quieted down, but small little moans still came from his mouth.

“Do like he said and shut up,” Lyons growled. “Or I’ll do the same to your other arm.” In truth, the Able Team leader had no intention of torturing the man. Torture was too unpredictable. The subject tended to tell his tormenters whatever he thought would make them stop, and it might or might not be the truth.

The fact of the matter was, Lyons had even found pinning the man’s wrist to the stage to get the detonator distasteful. But it had been the only practical way to disarm him. Guiding him into the Sunday-school room with the blade still stuck in his arm had been equally unpleasant. But it, too, had been the fastest and most pragmatic way of getting him out of the sanctuary and to a place where he could be questioned.

Now, as the injured man fell silent and tears streamed down his cheeks, Lyons looked him in the eye. “We’ve got two different routes we can take here,” he said to the man. “You can tell us everything you know about who you are and what your plans were.” He paused for a second, then went on. “Or we can play games until you bleed to death.” He pointed to the man’s wrist where the blood continued to leak in a slow but steady stream. Miraculously, it appeared he hadn’t completely severed any of the major arteries in the process of cutting the tendons and ligaments.