Survivalist - 23 - Call To Battle (24 page)

“I guess so,” Washington answered. That’s checked easily enough.”

“But in a moment, shall we?” Rourke went on. “Assuming it can fly on its own, without a human pilot at the controls, the logical thing for the commando team to do would be to set the machine down quickly in some relatively safe location, then get it airborne again and send it out on remotethrough the weakest portion of the United States sensor net, but keeping in mind they have to make it appear that the craft has an actual, practical destination. Then, they simply blow it up.

“So,” Rourke said, taking one of his thin, dark tobacco cigars from the pocket of his jacket, “we should first confirm that the Admiral’s telicopter was carrying its maximum fuel load before it was taken, then determine maximum range from Pearl, not bothering to deduct Ae amount of flying time needed to reach one of the other nearby

islands because they could top off the tanks easily enough before the craft goes airborne again. Pick likely landing sites-not that they would really use, but that they’d like us to think they’d use-within range from here. Collate the data in conjunction with a computer analysis to determine the thinnest coverage of the U. S. sensor shield. We should be spotting a blip in that area within a reasonably short period of time, and find wreckage from the helicopter.

They’ll blow it up, of course,” Rourke said matter-of-factly. “Once that happens, well know we’re onto their plan. In the meantime, we methodically begin a search of the most likely remote landing spots nearby. Meanwhile, we analyze these possible LZs in light of our suspicion that they’ll be waiting for a subsurface pickup once the heat dies down. That should give us a limited number of sites which can be thoroughly searched. We’ve got a chance!” John Rourke declared. At least he hoped they did.

Tim Shaw thumbed back the hammer of the .45. If the Nazis were utilizing audio-triggered silent alarms, they would already be alerted to the Tac Team’s approach. There was nothing to lose with a dkk either way.

For the past several minutes, he’d been listening to the conversation inside the condo. It was in German and he could not understand rL But once he heard mention of Sebastian’s Reef Country Day School, and he picked out at least three separate times when SS Rank was referred to. And he detected the word “Juden,” which he knew meant “Jews,” followed by laughter. If there weren’t Nazis inside the condo, he’d have a lot of explaining to do. But in his guts, he knew they were.

Tim Shaw moved the microphone away from the wall, flipping power off as he removed the earpiece. The bugging device was ultra-compact and slipped easily into the side pocket of his suitcoat.

Shaw took off his shoes, stuffing them into his raincoat pockets after first transferring the litde three-inch barreled .38 Special revolver to his trouser band. Then he donned the glasses and started moving again, as silentiy as he could. On stockinged feet he moved along the catwalk servicing the ladder leading to the escape elevator. The light from the condo’s nearest window flowed in a yellow wash over the synth-aluminum treads. Unless these Nazis were living back in the Stone Age, they’d have Interrupters laid out. Interrupters were low-frequency laser carrier beams designed to be used with mirrors, establishing a series circuit. When the beam was interrupted by something passing through, the low-charge plasma energy on the carrier beam was unable to reach the next mirror. This momentarily interrupted the power for an alarm circuit, triggering the

circuit and activating either one or several of a number of responses-an audible alarm, aflashing alarm light, acomputer video warning,
etc.

Shaw moved ahead, feeling stupid with the glasses over his eyes, and with them it was harder to see here than ever. The glasses were nothing sophisticated, but the guys in robbery encountered them all the time. Merely sunglasses with exceedingly dark lenses, burglars used them to help spot the pale red light of the laser beams.

And, as Tim Shaw was about to take his next step, he saw a beam and he froze.

He exhaled slowly as he drew his foot back. The presence here of Interrupters almost clinched it, that the Nazi terrorist unit he sought was one with the German-speaking persons he’d heard laughing over references to the Country Day School and to Jews. There was one other important feature of Interrupters; they were terrifically expensive. No rich person would be living in a building like this. But the Nazis would have them for perimeter security.

Shaw backtracked several paces along the exterior landing. A wind was blowing in across the city from the coast and it was almost cold here, the wind itself a mixture of smells of the sea and smells of the city.

He turned up the collar of his raincoat as he leaned against the wall. From his raincoat pockets, Shaw took his shoes, putting them down softly on the catwalk, slipping his feet into them. He removed the sunglasses, stuck them into the breast pocket of his suitcoat. Then he took his radio from the same pocket where one of the shoes had been. “Listen up, Eddy, rest of you guys on both teams,” Shaw barely whispered into the device. “Found Interrupters. I can feel it. These are the people we want. Eddy, you and your guys be ready at the front. We’re goin’ in back here in about sixty seconds. If ya hear guns, it’s the bad guys. If it’s the wrong condo, Fll be on the radio fast. Out.”

His three Tac Team men were already moving up to join him, had heard the message he’d broadcasted just as the men with his son Ed had heard. There was no need to repeat anything.

Shaw looked at his watch, barely able to see its face. He gave up, counting off seconds in his head. There was no way to get past the Interrupters, because if they were laid out at all properly they would be positioned at differing heights and maybe a burglar going against an undefended target had the time to climb through what amounted to a spiderweb of laser light without touching anything, but armed men going after a group of suspected terrorists, more heavily armed than they, certainly did not.

Tim Shaw’s rough calculations made it that nearly a minute had passed. He rasped to the three men, “Billy, Mick, get on the other side of the friggin’ window and cover while Sam and I go in. Be fast, cause you’re gonna hit an Interrupter beam about three steps from now and they’re gonna know we’re out here.” And, with any luck, they’d head for the front door of the condo and walk right into the rest of the Tac Team guys that Ed had waiting for them with shotguns and energy weapons, then surrender because they knew they were trapped.

But there was a better than even chance they’d go down shooting, and Tim Shaw was ready for that, too.

Shaw pulled his fedora from his head and stuffed it into his raincoat pocket, crushing it but there was nothing else he could do. Beneath his raincoat, slung crossbody from right shoulder to the left side of his chest, was a gas mask bag. He took the mask from inside the bag and pulled the mask over his head, popping the cheeks to make a seal. “Go,” Shaw snapped.

Billy and Mick ran the length of the catwalk. As Billy reached the spot where Tim Shaw had seen the Interrupter, an alarm began to sound from inside the condo, barely audible but distinct enough that Shaw was certain what it was. Shaw, Sam beside him, was already moving, the .45 in his right hand, the .38 Special in his left.

As they neared the window, Shaw stepped aside, flattening himself against the wall as Sam fired a tear gas grenade from his launcher, the grenade shattering the window. If there were innocent people inside, there’d be a lot of explaining to do. And, there was always the possibility someone could get hurt from flying synth-glass, but there was no other way.

The tear gas round exploded as the second round was fired.

Shaw stepped away from the wall, kicking in the rest of the glass.

Gunfire tore through the opening and Shaw stepped back, bullets whining past him, pale blue energy bolts flickering and hissing •cross the night air. Billy announced over a bullhorn, “This is the Honolulu police. You are ordered to lay down your weapons. Sur-icnder and you will not be - “

There was a loud clanging sound and Tim Shaw saw a grenade hit the catwalk surface. Shaw reached for it, to scoop it up and flip it over into the walkway below them, but Sam shoved him back as Sam reached for it himself. Shaw couldn’t react fast enough to stop him.

The grenade was in midair when it exploded, Sam thrown back against the wall of the building, pieces of shrapnel peppering the wall and peppering Sam’s left arm and left leg, too, blood stains growing. Sam shouted, Tm all right! Get the fuckers!”

Tim Shaw shouted to Billy and Mick, Throw that damn bullhorn away and cover me!”

Before either man could answer him, Shaw threw himself through the shattered window opening and into the cloud of gas beyond. Shaw fired the .45 in his right hand and the .38 that was in his left, his eyes trying to pierce the clouds of tear gas for targets. From behind him, he could hear Billy and Mick entering. Shaw stumbled over something, fell to his knees, pushed himself to his feet and realized that what he’d fallen over was a body.

As the nightwind blowing in through the shattered window swirled the gas cloud, Shaw could see the condo’s front door. The door was open. Shaw shouted, “Mick! Hold the position by the window. Billy! Stick with me, right side.”

Shaw reached the doorway, three shots left in the .45, the litde .38 Special with only one.

Billy held a riot shotgun at high port close against his chest, ready to snap the muzzle down to action. Tim Shaw upped the safety on the .45, locked it under his armpit, dumped the cylinder for the Centennial and pocketed the empties along with the still-unfired cartridge, ramming a speedloader against the Smith & Wesson’s ejector star, five fresh rounds in place. The .38 Special revolver went into his belt as he transferred magazines in the Colt, a fresh one up the well.

“You shoot, but keep it at an angle. Then I roll out and you cover, m signal for you. Be careful and don’t fuckin’ shoot me by mistake.”

Thanks a hell of a lot, Tim!”

“Yeah, so shoot already.”

Billy fired a high one into the ceiling of the corridors and Tim Shaw went through in the same instant. Billy jacked out the empty. Shaw fired the .45 that was in his right fist twice, but high and at a steep angle because he had no target and didn’t want to kill an innocent who might be in the corridor above.

That left six in the Colt and five in the Smith.

There was gunfire in the stairwell below and Shaw shouted to Billy, “Control the corridor and don’t let anybody down after me! Tm gone!” Shaw hit the steps, taking them down two at a time, the tear gas clouds here wispy thin and nearly dissipated. There was a flash from an energy weapon, then another and another and Shaw stabbed his .45 toward the origin of the gunfire as he threw himself right against the stairwell wall and fired, then again and again and again.

There was an explosion, the energy weapon firing into the stair treads, plasma energy flickering along the handrails. Shaw took a jolt and fell.

There was the sound of shotguns from below, then more energy weapons, then shotguns again.

Shaw lay across the stair treads just up from the landing, the right side of his body shaking.

A man’s form appeared over him. In thickly accented English, the man snarled, “American policeman is shiess!” And the man turned the muzzle of an energy rifle toward Tim Shaw’s chest.

Tim Shaw’s right hand still tingled so badly he could not close his fist tightly enough around the butt of the .45 to fire it.

But there was nothing wrong with Tim Shaw’s left hand which punched the Smith & Wesson .38 Special toward the Nazi’s face and double actioned the trigger five times fast. The energy rifle fired into the steps less than a foot from Shaw’s head and Shaw rolled, the man’s body rocking back, the energy rifle firing again as a scream started from the man’s lips but never made it, dying halfway out

Shaw thrust the emptied revolver into the pocket of his raincoat, took the. 45 from his still semi-useless right hand. He clawed his way to a standing position beside the rail. The gas was almost totally dissipated. Shaw’s right hand was good enough to rip the mask away from his face.

Immediately below him, halfway down the next flight of stairs, one of the Nazis fired his energy rifle into the already fallen body of Jim Thundercloud, one of the Tac Team guys.

Tuck you!” Tun Shaw shouted and, as the Nazi looked up, Tim Shaw emptied his .45 into Thundercloud’s killer’s face.

The ground shook beneath Thorn Rolvaag’s feet, the mountain’s very fabric trembling. The voice of Carl Bremen, who was beside him, seemed to tremble slightly as Bremen asked, “Isn’t this more activity than you expected, professor?”

“A litde bit more,” Rolvaag said, lying. When he’d last checked seismic readings just moments before leaving the house, a Naval escort there to take him to the nearest open field where a helicopter waited, readings had indicated nothing like this. And Rolvaag was afraid now (although he said nothing to young Bremen) that the eruption might have gone too far for his Diversion Theory to have any practical effect, if indeed it could be implemented.

The reason Rolvaag had waited-taken the time to have a quick dinner,
etc.
- was that high observation thermal-image photography of the volcano was not yet ready. He had to know which pipes witiiin the volcano had the greatest magma buildup and the greatest potential for violent discharge, then have them mapped to the base of the volcano which lay beneath the sea.

The initial photography had been excellent, but only so far as it went. The aircraft, which was airborne now over the volcano at over fifty thousand feet, was utilized for submarine surveillance. Its instruments, with any luck, would accurately map the heat signatures of the major pipes to their base where the pipe reached the level of the ocean floor. It was at this point that the Diversion Theory would be tested.

Cracks in the shield surrounding the crater were already appearing, brightly glowing yellow-orange lines of liquid fire oozing from between the rocks.