Power Grab

“That what happened to the three puddles they pulled out of that shopping mall?”

“No way to tell,” Schwarz said, “but it’s the most likely explanation. Of course, we don’t know for certain that trying to deactivate the bomb like this won’t set it off.”

“We don’t?” Lyons asked. He caught the wink that Schwarz shot Blancanales, though.

“How long does it take?” Blancanales asked. He waved off a pair of women in shorts and tank tops who were starting to edge closer from the hedgerow parking lot. “Please, ladies,” he ordered. “Move along.”

“Still pulling the chicks, eh?” Schwarz said without looking up from his work.

“You know it,” Blancanales said smoothly.

The status LEDs on Schwarz’s scanner suddenly turned green. There was a metal clicking noise from inside the bomb casing. Schwarz looked at Lyons, then to Blancanales, and placed the scanner back in a padded pouch on his web gear.

“What are you—?” Lyons started to say.

Schwarz reached out and pressed the buttons on either side of the case. He opened the bomb like a suitcase and let the top rest against the table, revealing the inset spheres of the explosives.

Blancanales whistled.

Schwarz reached inside and, as Lyons winced, pressed a catch that released each of the spheres. Then he removed them. A contact wire trailed from each sphere. Schwarz produced a multitool from his web gear and used the wire cutters to snip the wires just aft of the connection to each sphere. Then he placed the spheres gently back in their receptacles.

The Able Team electronics genius pointed to the bomb case.

“The bouncing betty balls here,” he said, “have simple contact switches connecting their fuses to the computer’s brain. When they’re expelled from the bomb through breakaway hatches in the outer casing, they pull free from the fuses, and that’s what causes them to go off. They’re harmless now.”

“Really?” Lyons asked.

“Well, as harmless as a sphere of plastic explosive laced with solidified nerve toxin ever gets. I’m not saying I’d leave them out for the neighborhood kids to play with.”

“Good call,” Lyons said. “Let’s collect those and get the hell out of here.” He was grateful for the chopper still beating the air in the field nearby, its rotor thrum a heartbeat to the action here in the market. Getting on that chopper and flying away meant they wouldn’t have to deal with any awkward questions from the local law enforcement.

“Wait!” Schwarz said. He pulled the scanner from his web gear; it was beeping. “I’m getting…yes, I’m getting another localized signal. It’s not a full trace, just back-scatter, but it’s strong. The profile fits that of a device that’s online but not activated.”

“Another device…here?” Lyons asked.

“Yes, somewhere close.” Schwarz nodded.

“Go,” Lyons ordered. “Find it.”

Schwarz was off again, the scanner in his hands pointed in front of him. His M-16 was still slung and he used his free hand to pull the Beretta 93-R to allow him to track and shoot at the same time.

“This way,” Schwarz directed.

They followed the electronics expert as he made his way into the hedgerow parking lot. Here, winding rows of man-tall shrubbery separated each curving dirt path. Cars were parked on either side of the paths, and to exit the market, drivers would have to take a circuitous route through the twisting rows and back around the rear of the market to reach the nearest paved road.

Schwarz began moving back and forth among the rows of parked cars, spooking even more civilians. Lyons and Blancanales urged them to get back beyond the police cordon, the flashing lights of which he could see beyond the hedgerows.

“Get out of here!” Lyons snarled at one group of teenagers.

Schwarz moved like a dog following a scent, this way and that, watching the telltales of the scanner unit rise and fall. At the end of the furthest hedgerow, Lyons put a hand on Schwarz’s shoulder and told him to stop.

“What?” Schwarz asked.

“There,” Lyons said. He pointed.

Sitting at the end of the parking lane was a battered black cargo van. The windows were tinted, darker than was probably legal, and a cardboard sun screen bearing the cartoon image of a giant pair of sunglasses obscured the front windshield.

The van rocked slightly to the left, then the right.

“Signal’s coming from there,” Schwarz confirmed. “And obviously there’s someone in there.”

“Or a lot of someones,” Lyons said. He nodded to Blancanales, who nodded back and broke away, moving around to cover the rear right quarter of the vehicle. “Now for the part I hate.”

“What part is that?” Schwarz asked from his position at the front of the van.

“The part where they start shooting after I demand they come out,” Lyons said. “You in the van!” he roared at full volume.

Lyons was hitting the dirt even before the shots came, but they came. The hollow metallic clatter of a Kalashnikov beat the interior of the van like a drum. Bullets sprayed from the rear windows and even blindly through the body of the vehicle. The engine started.

“Go for the tires,” Lyons ordered.

Blancanales and Schwarz immediately fired into the front and rear tires of the vehicle, which was already moving. The dirt and gravel beneath the shredded wheels flew up in great plumes as the vehicle’s powerful engine urged it forward. Lyons pushed himself to his feet and jogged ahead; the van might be moving, but it wasn’t doing so very quickly. Lining up his shot carefully to prevent catching his partners’ positions, he lowered the barrel of the USAS-12, flicked the weapon’s selector switch to full-auto and held back the trigger.

Heavy 12-gauge slugs poured from the barrel of the weapon. Lyons rode out the tremendous muzzle-rise of the weapon, firing from the hip, watching the heavy slugs tear apart the grille of the van. The hood was blown up on its hinges as the engine screamed in torment. The van shuddered to a halt.

The sliding door was shoved aside, as the rear doors were thrown open.

“Here they come,” Lyons said, his words carried to Able Team by his transceiver.

“Got it,” Blancanales said.

“Let ’er rip,” Schwarz said.

The terrorists spilled out, almost falling over each other. There were three of them. The one who scrambled out the side door was easy pickings; he tried to level his Kalashnikov at Lyons. The big cop let his USAS-12 fall to the end of its single-point sling and withdrew his Colt Python with deadly speed, pulling through double-action to send a Magnum round punching through the man’s face.

Schwarz and Blancanales fired short, measured bursts of their own, dropping their adversaries. Lyons holstered his Python and reloaded a new drum magazine in his shotgun. He advanced on the van.

“Check them!” Lyons said. “If anybody’s still alive we need medical attention rolling.” A live prisoner might mean valuable intelligence about the terrorist network Ovan was fielding. Lyons didn’t like the idea that technology was their only lead in this mission. The cop in him told him they needed something else, some human element, some information that would give them an edge over their enemies. With only an electronic leash to lead them around, they were vulnerable. If they lost the initiative he wasn’t sure they’d be able to get it back, and that worried him. Too many lives were riding on this…and the terrorist attack on the mall was already all over the news, cycling through the twenty-four-hour cable networks. More attacks would raise public response to the level of panic. Nobody wanted that…and Able Team, thanks to their one-of-a-kind gizmo and the Warlock network, were the three men standing between Ovan’s terrorists and complete chaos in the United States.

No, he didn’t like the idea at all. But he would do his job, and so would Blancanales and Schwarz. They always did.

“Nothing here,” Schwarz said.

“Mine’s dead,” Blancanales reported.

Lyons didn’t bother to look at his man; there was no surviving the head shot that gunner had suffered.

Inside the van, he found another one.