"Huh?"

"Too much shit around here," the old man said.

Suddenly the hook was a blur. The hard metal cracked into the temple. Bert Bannon slumped forward, his knees buckled and he collapsed. His last breaths were taken with his head immersed in an overflowing toilet.

Katz calmly went about his business. First he removed the sections of a tripod from his tool bag. When he had assembled the tripod, he carried it outside the washroom and placed it in a clear area about ten feet from the door.

The commander delivering the briefing was telling his troops, "We want lots of blood and lots of misery. You don't make headlines by being neat and clean."

Katz returned to the can. In a moment he came out lugging a pair of motorcycle batteries and leads.

There were a few whispers when some sort of Gatling gun was carried out and set on the tripod. An ammo belt was dragged after it, the first bullet already locked in the breech. Katz quickly connected the leads from the batteries to the electric motor on the gun that was designed primarily for helicopter use. The belt held standard 7.62 by 51mm NATO ammunition. The gun was capable of chewing up ten of those rounds each second and spitting them through one of the six rotating barrels at 2850 feet per second.

By the time the Phoenix Force leader grabbed the twin handles and began to swing the machine gun, the terrorists were beginning to suspect that all was not well. Mutters rose, attracting the attention of the speaker. He had time to glance in the direction of the distraction before the GE Minigun began delivering death. An entire row of heads received 150-grain goodbyes.

Some of the terrorists dived onto the floor while they fumbled for handguns. They were swept up with bullets. Others tried to outrun death, but failed. A few made it to the office. They could have saved the effort. The machine-gun fire did not seem to realize there was anything there. It swept through the two-by-four and wood partitions, leveling terrorists.

A minute and a half later, when the last round had quieted the last groan, Katz was the only one moving. He carried the canvas tool bag to the Minigun and quickly disassembled it and put it back in the bag. Then, easily throwing the eighty-five pounds of gear on his shoulder, he produced an Uzi and headed for the stairs.

No one tried to stop him.

Katz threw his bag of tools into the rented van and drove away. No one was remotely curious about an old tradesman leaving an old building.

July 14, 1012 hours, Houston, Texas

The commander of the Texas Harassment Initiation Team looked over his men. He was proud of them. He had recruited and trained them himself. He was about to prove that he was worth every cent of the three thousand dollars a week he had been paid. This unit was not about to fall on its face like some of the others had. He decided to make his summary of the briefing extremely short.

"Remember, A and B teams close in on the target. First, eliminate all the workers except the computer scientists — we'll use drugs to debrief them later. Then let the specialists take what they need from both the electronic and paper files before you destroy and retreat.

"C and D teams, you have the more difficult job. Someone is going to try to stop us. You are to keep a quarter-mile circumference around Aand Bteams at all times, during the raid and during the travel to and from. The moment another force tries to hit Aand Bteams, you close in and eliminate. Is everything clear?''

No one said anything.

"Then get to your assigned cars and let's put the show on the road."

Houston is a city where no one moves without a car.

HIT had their office and training center outside the 610 circle, near Genoa Airport. They had their own cinder-block building and parking lot. In the lot the group leaders began directing the men to their assigned transportation.

The last man was out of the building and the first car was moving out of the gate of the parking compound when the machine gun on the roof opened fire.

Tracers zeroed in on the engine of the lead car, bringing it to a standstill in the middle of the exit gate. The tracers then probed the back of the car until they found the gas tank. The only two terrorists to escape the inferno were cut down within inches of the car.

From a rooftop over five hundred yards away another light machine gun opened fire. A three-round burst perforated every terrorist who tried to regain the door to the building. Soon the door was well blockaded by the bodies piled against it.

"Take out those gun emplacements!" The command was shouted from between two cars. It was easier to issue the command than it was to perform the feat. Every time a head showed, a three-round burst went through the vehicle and the body behind it.

The tracers continued to stream from the roof of the terrorist stronghold. Gas tank after gas tank ruptured into a geyser of flames. Soon commands could no longer be heard over the screams of the dying. Two minutes later, the only sound in the enclosed parking lot was the crackle of flames and the pings of stretching metal.

Gary Manning on the roof of the terrorist hideout gave the thumbs-up sign to David McCarter who had been doing the sharpshooting from the roof of the more distant building. McCarter grinned and waved.

Both quickly picked up their Heckler & Koch HK21E machine guns and began their retreat. McCarter used his paratroop training to jump from the low building, cradling the machine gun in his arms. He held it almost tenderly, thinking that he could have done the same high-accuracy job from twice the distance with that beautifully machined, twenty-two inch barrel. He laid the gun on the back seat of a rented Lincoln and peeled rubber to the front of the HIT building.

Manning came around the corner and put his Heckler & Koch HK21E on top of McCarter's. He then threw a couple of jackets over the hardware and climbed into the front. The first siren could be heard faintly.

"Piece of cake," Manning said as he moved sedately away from the building.

"Let's go get us some Houston hospitality." McCarter grinned.

18

July 14, 1050 hrs, Salt Lake City, Utah

A weary Carl Lyons sat at the back of the Stony Man executive jet.

Rosario Blancanales walked back toward him.

"Carl, Katz's on the blower," he said. "He's got bad news."

Lyons grumbled to himself all the way up the aisle of the plane. He collapsed into the copilot seat without acknowledging Jack Grimaldi. He snatched up the microphone and growled into it.

"Yeah, Katz."

"I just came from a get-together in Seattle," Katz said, his voice sounding scratchy through the descrambler. "Old Ma Jishin's been gossiping on the telephone again. Time for all raids is now eleven hundred hours, local time."

Lyons glanced at his watch. "That's six minutes from now."

"Right."

Lyons glanced at Grimaldi, whose fingers were flying over his custom flight computer. He did not have to ask the question.

Grimaldi reported. "I can have you over Anderson Androids, the most probable target, in eleven minutes. Can we get a confirm?"

"You going to stand this can on its tail again?"

"Why not? It's fun."

Lyons spoke into the mike again. "Katz, we can reach the target about five minutes after hit time. We need a monitor on the police channels and a confirmation of the target.''

"I'll arrange for the police to give it to you. That way they'll be expecting some 'experts.' You have id if they ask?"

"I'll dig it out. Thanks, Katz."

"No problem. Out."

Lyons went back to Pol and Gadgets.