Читать книгу Extreme Arsenal - Don Pendleton - Страница 10

Yuma, Arizona

Hermann “Gadgets” Schwarz looked at the assembled scorched garbage strewed across the tabletop at Yuma.

“We’ve had some of our best tech experts look over this,” General Rogers told the Able Team genius as he poked at a charred circuit board. “Nothing that survived could be identified or traced to a manufacturer. At least not with the technology we have on hand.”

Schwarz shook his head slowly as he picked up the burned circuit board piece. “You’ve cataloged and photographed all the pieces, where they were placed in the remote drone?”

Rogers nodded. “Yes. Our techs are attempting to reverse engineer the design, but the missiles and explosive 20 mm shells smashed the machinery and electronics apart brutally.”

Schwarz looked at his notebook. “You have a very concise description of their sensory and stealth capabilities, however.”

“Mostly through close personal experience,” Rogers stated.

“How close?” Schwarz asked.

Rogers looked at the floor between them, then took two paces back. “About this range.”

Schwarz released a low whistle. “You like to lead from the front, sir.”

The general shrugged. “I’m responsible for my men. It didn’t hurt that I was on the run for my life, but…Son, I don’t know who you’re supposed to be, but these things attacked and killed my people, my friends. This place, for all its secrecy and military regimen, is a home for us. We’re as close to a family as we can get here. Do you know what I mean?”

Schwarz glanced toward the entrance where Rosario Blancanales and Carl Lyons stood. They conducted interviews about the Ankylosaur raid with other members of the proving ground staff. “Heart and soul, General.”

“I want to find whoever’s responsible for this and bring them to justice,” Rogers said. “If you need anything, I’ll make sure you get it.”

“Thank you, sir,” Schwarz replied. “Is it okay if I take some of the wreckage to your lab? I want to work with it.”

“No problem,” Rogers answered.

Schwarz gave the general a reassuring smile. “We’ll get these guys. They might be able to run, but they won’t hide for long. Not from us, sir.”

He picked up several pieces and set them in clear plastic bags.

Rogers and the Able Team genius crossed to the entrance of the hangar, where Lyons and Blancanales both stopped and greeted their friend with a nod. Blancanales reflexively gave the general a smart salute, which was returned.

“Another ex-military man?” Rogers asked.

Blancanales nodded. “For security, that’s about all I can say.”

“I understand,” Rogers answered.

“I’m hitting the lab to look at some of these components. I think I can pick something out of the bits and pieces,” Schwarz said. “Think the two of you can handle the recon without me?”

Lyons rolled his eyes. “No problem. I think we can track a few killer robots without you. Go nerd out and we’ll tell you about the exciting hike we took later.”

Schwarz sighed. “You’re too good to me, Ironman.”

“That’s something I thought I’d never hear.” Lyons grunted. “C’mon, Pol. Saddle up and head ’em out.”

“‘Rawhide,’” Blancanales quipped. He pointed toward the 4-wheeled ATVs and slipped on his helmet. “Able style.”

“Don’t let Cowboy hear you say that,” Lyons said, referring to John “Cowboy” Kissinger, the Stony Man Farm armorer.

“I don’t think Cowboy ever rode a horse in his life,” Blancanales answered.

Lyons threw one leg over the seat and sat down. He revved the engine and slipped on his helmet. “Sure you wouldn’t rather come with us?”

“I don’t think there’s going to be anything in the mine,” Schwarz replied. “But if there is, bring me a few chunks back.”

Lyons nodded. “Have a good time.”

Lyons, Blancanales and the team of MPs rode off on their four-wheelers.

Logic told Schwarz that there wouldn’t be any trouble, but something nagged at him. “General? Could you have someone set the lab up for me?”

Rogers looked after Lyons and Blancanales as they left. “You’ve got that feeling, too.”

Schwarz pulled a spare helmet off the ATV they’d set aside for him. He checked the rifle stuck in the saddle, then made sure his personal weapons were secure. “I’ve learned never to distrust my instincts. As soon as they pulled away…”

“I understand. Don’t waste time gabbing with me,” Rogers told him.

Schwarz fired up the ATV and rushed off to join the rest of Able Team.

THE PLATOON OF RANGERS that Able Team hooked up with had the mine entrance hemmed in. The powerful Fabrique Nationale M-240 machine guns rested on bipods. The 7.62 mm muzzles stared into the darkened cave, ready to unleash a torrent of armor-piercing thunder against anything that made a move out the front. A trio of Dragon antitank missile pods rested on their legs, the big fat tubes similarly aimed. The Dragon warheads had the power to tear apart any modern tank, and if they couldn’t stop the Ankylosaurs, they would at least bring down a huge section of mountainside.

Tons of rubble would stop even the killer robot tanks.

Carl Lyons waited for the Rangers to set up the mighty M-2 .50-caliber machine guns. That would finish the ring of steel that would hem in any escaping drones. He pulled his rifle from the ATV’s saddle sheath and snapped back the bolt, chambering a .50 Beowulf rifle round into his weapon’s breech. The magazine held twelve of the massive rounds in the same space that a normal M-16 would have held a full thirty shots. He traded firepower for purely awesome stopping power. While the .50 Beowulf round was only half as long as the rounds fired by the M-2 machine gun, it was still a significant powerhouse. Kissinger had given Able Team several magazines of tungsten-cored slugs, designed for use against armored vehicles.

Just in case.

Lyons checked the light on the muzzle of his rifle, then looked to the others.

“M-16, Viking style,” Blancanales said. He couldn’t quite hide the tension in his voice.

Schwarz slipped on a pair of Wolf Ears hearing protectors and clicked them on. “Give me a sound check.”

Blancanales and Lyons wore the same hearing protectors. Advanced electronics and padding would prevent ruptured eardrums caused by the thunder of automatic weapons in a cave, but sensitive microphones would pick up softer sounds that could betray an enemy. The three men of Able Team had trained with the Wolf Ears long enough to know that they worked under stressful, nasty and dirty conditions. When they were forced to use full-power, unsuppressed weapons in a tunnel, they often made the effort to wear the hearing protector-amplifiers.

“Testing,” Lyons whispered.

“Yabba dabba doo,” Blancanales spoke softly.

“You guys are confusing me as to which one’s the caveman,” Schwarz quipped.

Lyons slipped his goggles down over his eyes again. He made sure they didn’t displace his Wolf Ears. “Funny. Remind me to laugh later.”

“Whenever I do, you hit me with a newspaper,” Schwarz answered. The Able Team leader only narrowed his gaze. He wasn’t known for his sense of humor, especially this close to a possible engagement.

“Lock and load your rifles,” Lyons ordered as he picked up a large lantern. “I’m on point.”

Blancanales and Schwarz put aside their banter and fell into step behind Lyons. They spread out and stalked into the mine entrance.

Blancanales paused and shone his light on the ground. “This floor has been graded.”

Lyons knelt and ran his fingertips over the hard-packed earth. “No signs of treads. Gadgets?”

“They weren’t hovercraft,” Schwarz replied. “But what dust there is has been smoothed out. Look…There are rails.”

Lyons walked over and tapped his flash hider against the bent metal. “Something heavy rolled over this. There’s gouge marks on it, too.”

Blancanales looked at the scarred and mutilated metal, then stared deeper into the tunnel. “Some other machine?”

“A digger?” Schwarz asked. He moved farther down the tunnel, then squinted through his goggles. “Someone knocked a back door through to Yuma’s testing facility.”

Schwarz pulled out a map from his case and flicked his light on it. “The Bear gave me some maps to help me figure out how the attack drones could have escaped.”

“This mountain range is heavy-duty granite, though,” Lyons said. “Right?”

“Mountains usually occur when tectonic plates collide. The higher the mountains, the newer they are and the more force behind their collision. The Blue Ridge Mountains, where the Farm is located, are very old and worn down, but there are fissures and caves throughout them. Geological surveys try to map them out, but you can’t find them all,” Schwarz answered. “Whoever made this attack had this place geographically staked out.”

“And they had just the right size digger to punch a hole big enough from a naturally formed cave, or even an underground river to pop up in this mine,” Lyons finished. His brow furrowed. “It’s been nearly fifteen hours since the initial attack. We might have lost the trail.”

Something rumbled in the darkness.

“Or not…” Blancanales spoke up. He shouldered his rifle and looked through its scope. “Something big’s moving in.”

Lyons snicked the safety off on his Beowulf. “Pull back.”

An engine revved and roared, and floodlights snapped on. The Able Team leader pivoted and opened fire, .50-caliber, tungsten-cored slugs erupting from the muzzle of his rifle. The heavy slugs sparked violently on machinery. Through the lights, the three Stony Man commandos saw the whirling shapes of multiple drill heads spin wildly.

“Aw, hell,” Schwarz muttered as he cut loose with his own weapon. “We found the digger!”

“Fall back!” Lyons bellowed as the machine continued to close.

Blancanales triggered the M-203 attachment under his Beowulf. “Fire in the hole!”

A tunnel-shaking explosion, deadened by the sonic filters on the Wolf Ears, flared. The drilling machine was cast in stark relief. The moment that the high-explosive flashed, three rotating cones of multiple drills were visible, gnashing stone-chewing teeth flickering wickedly like the mouth of some hideous dragon.

The digger paused for a brief moment, shaken by the high-explosive grenade fired by Blancanales, then lurched forward again. Lyons shoved the Able Team veteran behind him and held down the trigger for an extended burst of heavy-caliber, armor-piercing slugs.

The spinning drill heads bounced slugs all over. The machine was all but indestructible as it bore down relentlessly on them.

Lyons dumped the empty magazine from his rifle, then looked back at Blancanales, who forced a fresh grenade into the breech of his launcher.

“I told you to move it!” Lyons growled.

A canister sailed over the two men, interrupting the Able Team commander.

“Heads down!” Schwarz called.

Lyons grunted as Blancanales kicked him out of the way and aimed at the ceiling above the digger.

The double-shock wave shook the whole mine and rolled over Lyons as if it were the treads of the deadly machine itself. Rock tried to flex, but shattered and crumbled. The pressure wave blew the Wolf Ears right off Lyons’s head, and he shook off the thunderbolt that cracked between his ears.

A clap on his shoulder brought him out of a temporary daze and he saw Blancanales shouting at him. The man’s lips moved, but nothing was coming through the ringing in his skull. He glanced over and saw the digger, its drill bits still whirring wildly. It had stopped, though, one light torn from its housing by the shearing force of the double explosion.

“—said are you okay, Ironman?” Blancanales asked.

“Yeah. What did you do?” Lyons asked.

“I dropped some of the roof on that thing, and Gadgets flipped some high explosive under the belly of the beast. Looks like he took care of at least one set of treads, and the collapsed rock pinned the rest down.”

Lyons blinked and saw Schwarz, highlighted by the remaining floodlight on the drill, his rifle aimed at the ground, looking around the sides of the machine when the thing lurched. Schwarz stepped back and fired a short burst into the drill head, but only succeeded in raising more sparks as heavy tungsten bit into solid steel.

“I don’t think it’s dead!” Lyons mocked as Blancanales helped haul him to his feet. They kept out of the range of the churning teeth. He looked around the front, then saw Schwarz shoulder his rifle and fire a single shot.

Smoke billowed and the trio of drill heads slowed.

“Spotted the motor and tried to take it out with a burst,” Schwarz explained. “Pull back some. I’m going to roll a grenade under the other motor.”

Lyons nodded, and he and Blancanales pulled back. The Able Team leader donned his Wolf Ears again and clamped them tight over his head. Schwarz raced back to them, and a new detonation rumbled in the confines of the tunnel. Blancanales and Schwarz spoke again, but it was muffled by the hearing protectors. Lyons tried the microphone switch and shook his head, removing the headset.

“That did it,” Schwarz replied. He looked at the Wolf Ears. “Problems?”

“Yeah,” Lyons answered.

“Let me look at it,” Schwarz told him. “Go check on the digger.”

Lyons nodded and followed Blancanales. The drill bits no longer moved, and Pol slid his frame between the digger’s chewing drill points and the ground. It was a little too close for the brawny ex-cop’s tastes, in case the machine managed one last surge of power. It could easily chew his friend to a pulp and Lyons wouldn’t have a chance to rescue him.

“Looks like we have room to get behind it,” Blancanales called. “The tunnel is pretty clear. A little rubble from the cave-in, but other than that…”

“Can you check to see if this thing’s fully down for the count?” Lyons asked. “I don’t want to have you stuck under this bastard with your shins chopped into ground beef.”

“Sure, hang on. Gadgets’s first grenade peeled open the bottom, and I can see a few engine parts,” Blancanales explained. He clicked on a pocket-size flashlight, then drew an Emerson folding knife. The sturdy blade sliced through cables, though the Able Team commando hissed as a slight jolt burned his fingers.

“You okay?” Lyons asked.

“Yeah. I cut through the main battery cables, and a little bit of the charge came up the blade. I wasn’t in good contact with the metal, though, so nothing more than a small burn,” Blancanales replied. “Taking care of the generator cables now, too.”

The floodlight cut out, and Lyons snapped on his pocket light. Schwarz tapped him on the shoulder and he accepted his Wolf Ears back. “What was wrong?”

“The shock wave knocked the battery wires loose. I stripped the insulation, hand wound it back together again, and taped it up. It won’t be perfect,” Schwarz said, “but you can hear, and the protectors will keep your eardrums safe. I’ll solder it into prime shape when we get back to base.”

“Good,” Lyons answered. “All right. Tie some rope around your rifle and pack. Pol’s going to haul our stuff through so we can get past this hunk of junk.”

“You think we might find something at the other end,” Schwarz replied.

“Yeah,” Lyons answered.

Schwarz looked at the machine, then frowned. “Hang on.”

He reached into his pack and pulled out a meter. “Pol! Shut off your comm for a minute! You too, Carl.”

Lyons nodded and did as his partner said.

“I’m picking up some readings,” Schwarz said. “A carrier wave.”

“But Pol killed the power,” Lyons replied.

Schwarz backed up and continued to look at his field meter. “It’s got its ears live for something. Wait…starting to pick up a signal the closer to the entrance I get. Pol?”

“I’m checking,” Blancanales called back. “Yeah! I feel this thing packed with plastic explosive.”

“Let me get in there,” Schwarz ordered. He pulled out another device and handed it to Lyons. “This is a jammer. Stand right where I was, and keep this thing on until I tell you to turn it off. Someone’s transmitting a detonation code to some explosives in the machine.”

“Enough to bring down the tunnel and take out a search party,” Lyons mused.

“You catch on fast,” Schwarz replied. Blancanales slid out from under the digger and Schwarz slipped underneath after clamping wire cutter handles in his teeth.

Blancanales crouched and added his light to Schwarz’s efforts under the machine. Lyons, no expert at demolitions disposal, stood with the jammer, sullen and silent. He didn’t like standing by helplessly, but he knew that his lack of experience with disarming explosives would only be a hindrance. Gadgets and the Politician were weaned on C-4 from their A-Team experience. If anyone could handle the booby-trapped juggernaut, it was his partners.

Lyons took a deep breath and waited for the deadly digger to be tamed.

ROSARIO BLANCANALES accepted the central processor from Hermann Schwarz.

“Save that. Bear and the others are going to have a field day working on its programming,” Schwarz told his old friend.

Blancanales nodded. “How did this thing move without radio controls?”

“The processor. It must be an artificial intelligence unit. Fairly basic. We set off the digger’s motion detectors as soon as we got too close,” Schwarz answered. Something snapped in the hollowed gut of the machine. “Damn. We woke it up. It’s got infrared sensors.”

Blancanales shook his head. “As soon as it got the detonation signal, it would have dropped the whole mountain onto us.”

“Or whoever went in. I’m thinking that they expected a platoon of soldiers, sweeping the darkness with IR to keep from being ‘seen,’” Schwarz replied. “It would have been like waking up Ironman with a floodlight in the face.”

Schwarz shimmied out from under the machine with a handful of radio components. “The detonators.”

“Look like standard radio units,” Blancanales replied.

“They are, but we can trace them. I’ll pull out the C-4, and then we’ll get the Rangers to pull out the digger,” Schwarz told him. “We’re going overland.”

Blancanales smiled. “The transmitter for the detonation signal would likely be manned.”

Schwarz nodded. “Beats a tunnel fight, especially if the drones rolled through an underground river. We don’t have scuba gear with us.”

“Good thinking,” Blancanales congratulated. “I’m sure Carl would like the breathing room too.”

Schwarz took out the squashed blocks of explosives and set them apart from the detonators. “Scorched earth, and a bunch more dead soldiers. The bastard behind these robots is starting to piss me off.”

Blancanales knew that the electronics genius was a mellow, slow-to-anger man. It stemmed from his Southern California upbringing, and the endless patience it took to work with ever-shrinking electronic components. The fact that he mentioned being upset meant that Schwarz’s blood had to have been boiling. Though he was part of the Stony Man Farm operation, he was still a veteran of the United States Army, and the death of brother soldiers always struck him hard. And unlike Carl Lyons, who mastered his berserker’s temper long ago, Schwarz got very cold when he got angry.

“We’ll take care of this,” Blancanales told him. “That’s our job. Revenge for the good guys…semiofficial style.”

“Prosecution to the max,” Lyons added. He picked up the C-4 to take it to the Rangers at the entrance. “I heard you two talking. We’re going overland?”

Schwarz nodded. His lips were drawn tight, trying to control his emotions.

“I’ll see if we can get a pilot,” Lyons replied. “Gadgets…”

Schwarz glanced up.

“They’re dead. They just don’t know it,” Lyons reassured.

Schwarz nodded tightly, as if the muscles in his neck were coiled to the breaking point. “I gotcha, big guy. Prosecution to the max.”

THE CANYON WAS too tight to land a UH-60, but a Hughs 500D “Little Bird” could set down nicely. The pilot was a clean-cut kid named Lieutenant Tim Sarlets.

“You boys call for a ride?” he asked.

“Yeah,” Schwarz replied. He climbed into the shotgun seat. He had one of his radio monitors in his lap, and looked at the Army pilot. “We’re going to be doing a little circling, triangulating a radio signal. Think you can do that?”

“Sure thing,” Sarlets answered. “Any other requests?”

“Keep us low,” Lyons told him. “We don’t want whoever we’re triangulating to spot us coming.”

Sarlets gave the big, blond ex-cop a short salute. “Roger that. I kind of figured you didn’t want to be seen.”

“I like this guy. Can we keep him around?” Blancanales asked.

“We’ll have to ask the boss,” Lyons responded.

Loaded up, the men of Able Team strapped in and the Little Bird rocketed skyward.

CARL LYONS PERCHED in the open side-door of the helicopter. In the darkness below, somewhere, a radio transmitter broadcast a signal that was intended to kill dozens of American soldiers on their home soil. On top of a massacre by armored juggernauts, the tragedy would have been compounded as more brave men died and the trail to the murderous masterminds would have been closed off by a collapsed mountain.

His knuckles flexed white around the grip of his Beowulf M-4. He’d replaced the magazine of tungsten-cored antimatériel rounds with a load of 350-grain jacketed hollowpoint bullets. Even against a living opponent who wore body armor, they’d shatter bones and mangle muscle behind Kevlar. Through the night-vision goggles attached to the helicopter helmet, the terrain beneath him was a weird, alien world of green hazy stone and deep shadows. He spotted movement and shouldered the Beowulf, but held his fire as a goat trotted out of a dark recess. Lyons lowered the rifle and shook his head.

“Anything yet?” he asked, impatience gnawing at his core.

Schwarz looked up from his map. He marked off another zone where the radio signal started to fade. “One more sweep, Ironman.”

“Good.” Lyons grunted. He double-checked the 40 mm high explosive round in the M-203 launcher stored under the barrel. Just because it was unlikely that they would run into the deadly drones that swept down on Yuma didn’t mean he didn’t want to have something that could devastate the slaughtering robots.

Schwarz’s murmurings, readings of the field monitor as he registered signal strength, were a low drone, a constant reminder that this was slow, tedious work. Lyons strained his ears, listening for the readings. He picked up Gadgets’s mutters of a lower signal strength and tensed even before the electronics genius made his announcement.

“That’s the box,” Lyons stated. He pointed toward a ripple of shadows and outcroppings. “Sarlets, put us down. We’re on foot from here.”

“I’ve got no clean spots to land. This is rough terrain,” the pilot answered.

“That’s good news,” Blancanales replied. “They couldn’t bring heavy antiaircraft along.”

“How about a crane helicopter?” Schwarz asked.

Lyons shook his head. “This place is too close to Yuma to pull that kind of—”

“The drones were invisible to radar,” Gadgets reminded him.

The Able Team leader’s jaw set firmly as he scanned the shadowy terrain ahead. “If they had stealth robot tanks, then they could build a stealth helicopter.”

A red light buzzed on the control console. “We’re hot! Target radar lock!” the pilot announced as he wrenched the helicopter hard.

Strapped in, Lyons felt jerked like a puppy on a leash. Out of the darkness, he saw a flaming halo growing in intensity and following the aircraft’s movements as the chopper thrashed.

He knew exactly what the flaming halo was—the rocket exhaust of an antiaircraft missile, the lethal shaft of its warhead forming the black void in the center of a hellfire ring.

Death shrieked at the men of Able Team on a jet of flame.