14

July 13, 1738 hours, Kansas City, Kansas

Carl Lyons watched the twelve men come out of the terminal building and divide into three taxis. The drivers stowed the heavy dunnage bags, two per cab, in the trunks and the cars pulled out in procession.

Lyons spoke into a microphone. "That's our boys. Let's follow them."

From a van farther along the road, Gadgets acknowledged. "We have them in our rearview mirror."

Lyons pulled his rented T-bird in behind the three cabs. He could see the van ahead, innocently leading the way. Pol would be driving, Gadgets keeping track of the quarry and the communications.

After a few miles the cavalcade turned into a doughnut-shop parking lot. Terrorists clambered out of all three taxis and went inside. Lyons saw the van pull over to the curb, three blocks ahead.

"Keep a parallel track," he told Gadgets over his radio. "If you stop and then pull back into the parade, they'll spot you for sure. It shouldn't be too hard. We know where they're headed."

"We know where we thinkthey're headed," Gadgets answered.

"That'll have to do. Hold position until you see them start up. Then get out of sight. Something smells here. I'm going to go in."

Lyons pulled into the parking lot and went in. He noticed that only some of the terrorists were buying coffee and doughnuts. Those who were were getting them to go. One man was at the pay phone.

Lyons bought some doughnuts to go. About that moment, the guy on the telephone finished his call and headed for the door. Immediately the other eleven followed.

Lyons wandered back to his car and continued the pursuit. The base of his neck was tingling. He did not like that telephone call.

Lyons spoke into the microphone. "Gadgets?"

"Running one block south."

"Cut in the afterburners and get there fast. Got EVA two or three blocks away. I think one or both of us is being led down the garden path."

"We're gone."

Lyons slapped his jacket, checking the positioning of the big Python. It rode comfortably in the custom breakaway clip under his left arm. He then reached over the seat, dragged a large salesman's sample case into the front seat, and undid the catches.

At the next traffic light, he slipped on a bandolier filled with clips. He also had time to strap a thigh holster and Ingram to his left leg. The light changed and he hurried to close the gap with the three taxis. At one point he held the car straight while he jammed a clip into the Atchisson Assault shotgun. He levered a round into the chamber and set the piece back down within the case.

Ahead, the caravan had sped up. If Lyons's figured the map correctly, they were five minutes from the old, four-story department store that WAR used as a barracks and training center.

When the cars ahead picked up speed once more, Lyons knew he had been spotted for sure. He began to close the gap. Rush-hour traffic was starting to thin out and the Thunderbird was more maneuverable than the taxis. Lyons felt it was better to push them than let them get away too easily.

The cars turned into an alley that ran along the side of the HIT headquarters. Lyons turned in after them, hoping to use the car to bottle them in a dead end.

Just as he committed himself. Gadgets squawked over the radio. "Don't go into the alley beside the building. It's a set."

Lyons jammed on the brakes and thumbed the radio button at the same time.

"Too late. I'm in."

"Try to make it into the building," Gadgets said as Lyons dropped the microphone.

Lyons grabbed the Atchisson and put it on full auto. He jumped from the car and raked the sky with a six-shot clip. The sky was suddenly filled with four hundred pieces of lead, all looking for someone to rip open. The snipers who were leaning over the edges of the building to strafe Lyons's car with their M-16s never got a chance to pull the trigger. Three were killed. Three were unhit, but had jerked back and were in no position to fire.

Lyons leaped to the top of the T-bird. From there he crashed headfirst through a second-floor window of the HIT headquarters.

Behind him, he heard the snipers firing too late at nothing at all. He found himself alone in a barracks room. He slapped a new clip into the Atchisson and headed for the door.

Lyons crouched low and swung the door open. Automatic fire raked the doorway. He tumbled back and waited, but no one charged.

There was suddenly the sound of firing somewhere else in the building — Pol and Gadgets were on their way. Lyons pulled a mattress from one of the bunks and tossed it out the door. It stopped about three clips worth of ammunition. The next mattress landed on top of the remains of the first. It attracted even less lead. The third mattress collected one short burst. The fourth and fifth landed on top of the pile undamaged.

Having lulled the enemy, Lyons thrust the Atchisson around the doorway and fired a three-round burst to one side. He was back, away from the opening before there was any return fire. When the firing died down, someone was still screaming.

The sixth mattress collected another sixty or seven rounds of .223 ammo. Then heavy firing broke out to one side of the doorway as Gadgets and Pol arrived.

Lyons ignored the direction of the firing and dropped behind his thick wall of mattresses. The terror goons at the other end of the hall had begun a charge to help their fellow killers. They found themselves facing the end of the Atchisson.

While Pol and Gadgets mopped up one end of the hall, Lyons reasoned with the terrorists who were charging from the other end. The steady boom, boom, boom of the Atchisson demolished all arguments for terrorism.

"Where are the pros?" Lyons demanded as soon as the rest of Able Team joined him.

"Gone. They never stopped," Gadgets reported.

Lyons led the way down a side hall, opening doors as he went, but there seemed to be nobody left in the building. Suddenly Lyons stopped and listened.

"Sirens already, and we have a dozen killers running around and no idea where they are," he said over his shoulder.

"Not right," Pol corrected him. "While you stopped at the doughnut shop, Gadgets went back and put a beeper on one of the taxis just in case."

"Let's go," Lyons said, leading the way downstairs at a full run.

Pol drove the van while Gadgets used the radio. Lyons followed in the T-bird. Soon they were headed north.

"Looks as if we're headed back to the airport," Lyons said through the microphone.

"More likely Fairfax Municipal Airport this time," Gadgets replied. "It's on the other side of the river."

A little later Gadgets broadcast again. "The signal is coming back toward us."

Lyons sped the T-bird around the van. As soon as he spotted one of the taxis he had been following, he steered the Ford into the oncoming lanes and stopped it in front of the taxi. It took a few millimeters from the brake lining, but the driver managed to stop the cab on time.

He stuck his head out the window and yelled. "You nut! Get yourself wiped out by someone else."

Lyons walked up to the driver's window. Then he pulled a wad of money from his pocket. As the driver watched he peeled off a five and a twenty.

"Your fare from the airport, downtown and back here, where did you drop them?"

The driver stuck his hand out the window. Lyons put the money into it.

"Acme Charter Service. The orange building over there. They're as nuts as you are."

Lyons laughed and tossed another five into the cab before returning to his car.

"Not nearly as nuts as I am," he told the startled driver.

"Yeah. They chartered an executive jet to St. Paul. You'll never catch up to them," the clerk at the charter-flight office told them.