Sky Sentinels

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.

But he had to have at least nicked one.

Snatching the red scarf from around the man’s neck, the Able Team leader used it to wipe the blood off his knife. Then, dropping the Randall back into its sheath, he said, “Let’s start with your name. What is it?”

The man closed his eyes but the tears still flowed from under his eyelids. “Umar,” he finally mumbled.

Lyons leaned down, stuck a thumb on top of both of Umar’s eyelids and opened them for him. What he saw inside was a man who was as terrified now as the poor, defenseless congregation in the sanctuary had been during the earlier siege. “Okay, Umar,” he said. “Tell me who you and who the rest of the men are.”

Umar paused a moment, as if trying to think of an answer that would satisfy Lyons but still not betray his countrymen. But when he saw Lyons’s hand drop back down to the grip of the Randall knife, he said, “We are the Pasdaran. What you call the Iranian Revolutionary Guard.”

Schwarz had reentered the room and now stood on the other side of the man with the punctured wrist. “Right,” he said, leaning down on the other side and sticking his nose an inch away from Umar’s. “And I’m George Washington, father of this country.”

Umar shook his head back and forth violently. “No!” he declared, his eyes still on Lyons’s hand gripping the knife. “It is the truth. We have been sent here by President Azria himself.”

Lyons straightened but still stared hard at the man across the table. Could that be true? Javid Azria, the president of Iran, was a megalomaniac every bit as crazy as North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il. And regardless of Azria’s claim to the contrary, everyone knew Iran had been working on a nuclear program ever since he had taken control of the country. And Azria had either refused or stonewalled all attempts by the UN to inspect that program.

If Azria had already worked out the kinks in his nukes, it might just have resulted in the courage to send official troops onto American soil. That possibility cast a whole new shadow over an already dire scenario.

“What were you supposed to do here?” Lyons demanded.

Umar took a deep breath, then looked down at his wrist, which was still spouting blood.

“I wouldn’t waste too much time if I were you,” said Rosario Blancanales, who stood directly behind the man. “You’ve probably lost a pint or two already. Feeling a little light-headed?”

Umar slowly nodded to indicate that Blancanales was right.

“Then I’d talk fast if I was you,” Lyons said. “While you still can. Believe me, you tell us the truth—the whole truth—and you’ll get immediate medical attention. You’ve got my promise on that. If you don’t, we’ll just watch you slowly pass out and then die right here.” He leaned closer and added, “It’s your decision.”

“We are Revolutionary Guard,” he said. “And our orders, which came directly from the president’s mouth, were to find a large church in the area of the U.S. known as the Bible Belt, take it over during a Sunday-morning service and blow it up.”

“And you were planning to blow yourselves up with it?” Lyons asked.

Umar nodded his head, and it was apparent to all three Able Team warriors that the line separating terrorists from officially sanctioned government soldiers had finally been crossed. It was also obvious that Umar was getting close to the point where he’d pass out.

“So it was a suicide mission?” Schwarz said.

Umar nodded. “Yes,” he said, his voice weak.

Lyons knew he’d have to hurry if he planned on getting more intelligence information out of this bleeding Pasdaran. As if to emphasize his thoughts, Umar’s chin suddenly fell to his chest and his eyes closed again.

Lyons slapped him across the face. “You’re faking it, you little scumbag,” he said. “You think we just gave you a way out of all this. You’re wrong.”

Either the slap or Lyons’s words or both brought the Pasdaran’s head and eyelids back up immediately.

“So I can assume that you’re not the only squad of Pasdarans in the country?” Lyons said.

Umar nodded. “There are dozens,” he said.