Fireburst

Draping it across his chest, the major yanked free a canister of white phosphorous, pulled the pin, flipped off the safety lever and threw the bomb down a dark hallway.

The canister bounced out of sight, then erupted into a writhing fireball that filled the hallway. Several human torches stumbled out of the flames screaming insanely and waving their arms.

Ignoring the walking corpses, Nasser fired shells down two other hallways. The HE charges detonated thunderously, shaking chunks of plaster off the walls, but invoking no additional death screams.

“Find the rest of them!” Armanjani snarled, moving to the cover of a bridge while firing random shots from the Tariq.

Nasser and Hassan followed his example, hammering the room with high-explosive death. Doors exploded off gilded frames, a chandelier crashed into a pool, a bridge collapsed, and then a false wall fell over, revealing a group of men loading a linked belt of ammunition into the breech of a.50-caliber machine gun.

Shooting as they moved, Armanjani and the others scattered. Half a heartbeat later, the machine gun sputtered into operation, the hammering stream of heavy-caliber combat rounds chewing a path of destruction across the room, across the pools, bridges and finishing the annihilation of the throne.

Ducking behind the waterfall, Hassan cried out as he caught some shrapnel.

Safe behind a concrete column supporting the balcony, Armanjani slapped a fresh clip into his handgun. “Green dog,” he said.

Squatting under a bridge, Nasser nodded and shifted the XM-25 into a new position.

As the stream of .50-caliber rounds moved away from his position, Armanjani stepped into view and emptied the Tariq at the group of men. One of them fell clutching his throat, but the rest answered back with a volley from a variety of handguns, machine pistols and assault rifles. With a strangled cry, the major spun around and dropped.

“We got him!” a man cried, and the others stopped shooting to cheer in victory.

Fools, Nasser thought, swinging up the XM-25 to fire three shells at the domed skylight.

The bulletproof display of stained glass loudly shattered under the trip-hammer detonations of the 25 mm rounds, and a colorful rain of broken shards plummeted downward. The deluge hit the floor in front of the hidden machine gun, and noisily smashed into smaller pieces. The cheering stopped as the members of al Qaeda screamed and clawed at their bleeding faces.

Immediately, Armanjani started throwing more canisters of phosphorous while Nasser reloaded and Hassan cut loose with the Atchisson. In only seconds, the cries of pain ceased, and there was only the crackle of the chemical flames cooking the tattered corpses.

Moving fast, the major and the others charged down the main hallway just before the stacked belts of .50-caliber ammunition started cooking off, a stuttering barrage of wild bullets zinging everywhere.

Only seconds later, the personal ammunition carried by the terrorists did the same thing, exploding inside their guns and pockets. Bloody chunks of raw flesh were blown around in a ghastly abandonment.

“Black dog!” Armanjani yelled, scrambling up a steep flight of curved stairs.

Reloading as they ran, the three members of Ophiuchus ignored the second floor and continued to the third. Briefly, they ran across the exposed span of another bridge, and then directly into the private sleeping quarters of the former president of Iraq.

Easing their steps, the three of them slipped past the rows of barren guest quarters to reach the master bedroom and proceeded directly to the small linen closet.

While the others warily stood guard, Armanjani pushed open the door and fumbled along the top shelf. Unless his memory was wrong, it had to be here somewhere. It had to! In the distance, more ammunition detonated, and the machine gun briefly sputtered into action.

Finding the hidden switch, the major pressed it three times, and a section of the wall moved aside to reveal a steel pole. Grabbing the pole, he slid down into the darkness.

The descent took a lot longer than he remembered, and it seemed impossibly long before Armanjani hit the floor of the sub-basement. Landing in a crouch, he instantly stepped aside. A moment later, Nasser arrived, closely followed by Hassan.

As the sergeant landed, they heard three fast clicks, and the entire length of the pole suddenly jutted razor-sharp blades. With a gasp, Hassan jerked his hands clear.

“I told you to move fast,” Armanjani reminded him harshly.

“Yes, sir, you did,” Sgt. Hassan panted, rubbing his undamaged palms, but unable to remove his eyes from the shimmering display of edged blades. There was a single drop of red blood on one, and he checked to find a finger nicked. That had been close.

Going to an open passageway, Nasser eased into the darkness, only to reappear a minute later.

“Clear,” she announced.

Assuming the lead, Armanjani surged forward, making sure that he never removed his hand from the left wall. The antiradiation maze twisted and turned countless times through total darkness before there was a distant haze of light that grew steadily brighter.

Stepping into bright sunlight, the three people quickly scanned the ruins of a large greenhouse, but they seemed to be alone. The plastic windows, designed to withstand the worst possible sandstorm, were intact, but sandblasted dead-white, so that it was impossible to see what lay outside. Dust hung heavy in the air, and they stirred up small clouds shuffling past the rows of empty shelves and ornate pots. Dead plants lay underfoot, and their boots softly crunched on the desiccated foliage.

“Sir, why did we not simply go back out the front door?” Hassan asked in a terse whisper.

“Didn’t you see the man on the balcony activate a remote control?” Nasser demanded impatiently. “What else could it have been but an antipersonnel device?”

“And where would you place such a thing?” Armanjani asked, peeking around an ornate column to check the next wing of the huge greenhouse.

“Front door, the exact way we got in,” Hassan replied tightly. “Sorry, sir.”

“Not to worry, old friend,” Armanjani said, glancing at the hulking goliath. “That’s why we’re here.”

Continuing on through the dusty buildings, the trio finally reached the last structure. Creeping along the sandy floor, they dimly heard voices discussing the battle.

“What do you think happened?”

“We’ll find out soon enough.”

“Give them another few minutes?”

“Let me finish this cigar first, eh?”

“Fair enough. Got one for me?”

“Of course!”

Rising in unison, the members of Ophiuchus aimed at the unseen enemy on the other side of the white plastic and fired in unison. The plastic windowpanes splintered under the furious assault, and several men screamed in pain, then went silent.

Kicking open the flimsy door, Armanjani moved out of the greenhouse with the others in flanking positions. A dozen bodies were sprawled on the sand, a few of the men still alive and choking on their own blood.

Parked nearby were a pair of Cadillac SUVs, the engines softly purring. The closest vehicle was missing all of the tinted windows along one side, and a corpse, missing most of his face, was slumped over the steering wheel. The second SUV was undamaged, the driver’s door open, the man running for his life along the bank of the lake.

Taking careful aim, Armanjani stroked the trigger of his gun, and the fleeing man flipped over sideways to splash into the water.

With Nasser standing guard, Hassan used his 9 mm Tariq to shoot everybody on the ground twice in the face just to make sure they were dead.

Yanking open the door to the intact SUV, Armanjani wasn’t surprised to find an old man huddled on the floor in the rear compartment.

“Please don’t hurt me!” he begged, tears flowing down his cheeks.

Blowing the man away, Armanjani hauled out the body, then removed the corpse’s white kaffiyeh to mop the fresh blood off the leather seats.

“Think there are any more hidden about?” Hassan asked, reloading the pistol.