"Let's get ready. We'll have to walk the rest of the way. Soft armament. The wolves are going to reach the sheep first. Try the gray jump suits and use body armor."

All members of Able Team scrambled to equip themselves and be ready in time to jump.

"Why gray?" Gadgets asked as he put on the jump suit over the custom-made flak suit with its heating-cooling system.

Lyons was selecting id folders from an attache case full. He passed two out to his teammates and pocketed one himself.

"Just a hunch. The most probable target is one of these modern ultrasecure places with no windows."

"Got you," Pol answered. "Good thinking."

"I'm packing extra Gerber Mark l's," Gadgets remarked.

"We may need C-4. Pack lots," Lyons told Gadgets. "Also dig out those infrared flashlights and the goggles that go with them."

"Those damn things must weigh five pounds," Pol complained.

"I'm going to carry an Ingram," Gadgets said.

"No .45s! Uzis with disintegrating ammo and flash suppressors for everyone," Lyons barked. "Move it. We must be about there. Silenced Beretta 93-Rs in the shoulder rigs. Stun grenades only."

Grimaldi stuck his head around the door to the flight deck. "Probable target confirmed. I dump you in 150 seconds from... now. Good luck."

Able Team nodded. Their mental clocks were counting down as they scrambled into the parachutes.

Officer Pat Malone and his partner, Officer Inez Gallic, were the first to answer the report of explosions and gunfire in a new industrial park, east of the University of Utah. It was in one of the new buildings, Anderson Androids Ltd.

The terrorist techniques had been crude, but effective. They had gone to the only entry — it consisted of an outside door, a very small entrance hall, and two electronic doors that led farther into the building — opened the outer door and tossed in a large bundle of explosive. They had then ducked back out and braced the outer doors. The force of the explosion in the small foyer had blown both of the security doors right off their hinges, but the outside doors, which had been braced, were still functional.

Now the terrorists had automatic rifles covering the only entrance to the building. There were not even any windows that could be broken for entry. The building was nothing more than a very fancy concrete box. Those inside were completely dependent on artificial lighting, and air-conditioning.

Inez finished on the radio to headquarters and walked back to where Malone was covering the entrance to the building with his service revolver.

"SWAT on its way?" Malone asked.

His partner shook her head. "Federal specialists be here in another four minutes. Reinforcements are putting up a containment net, but we're to stay out of the building."

"Suits me."

The sky was suddenly filled with the scream of a black jet. The jet, much larger than a fighter, sizzled over the horizon from a low altitude and then began to climb straight up over the industrial park. The engines suddenly flamed out. The plane slowed until it hung motionless in the sky, only about fifteen hundred feet over the building.

"God!" the female cop exclaimed. "It's going to crash right about here."

Just when the plane was almost still, three black forms appeared by the tail. Then the plane lost its grip on the sky. It slipped to one side and came rushing at the earth, left wing first.

Officers Pat Malone and Inez Gallis threw themselves flat on the carefully manicured lawn of the building they were watching. Then they rolled on their side to watch the plane fall toward them.

Slowly, slowly, the left wing began to drag and the nose came forward. Then, with a puff of smoke, the two engines burst into ignition. The plane continued its earthward course, pushed by two huge turbojets attached to the body just behind the wings.

Suddenly the nose began to lift. The plane bottomed out of its dive and screamed away less than fifty feet from the tops of the buildings.

"I didn't see that," Malone said. His voice shook.

Then he remembered the three black forms. He looked back at the spot where the plane had hung motionless in the sky and was surprised to see that three parachutes were already beginning to billow open.

"That isn't really possible, is it?" Inez asked.

"I'm sure it's not," Malone confirmed.

The three jumpers landed perfectly on the soft sod of the company lawn. A tall blond man unsnapped his chute and ran toward the two police officers. They waited, still not quite believing what they were seeing.

The man stood well over six feet tall. He had a shock of blond hair peeking out from under a gray watch cap. His fatigues were gray and there was gray skin cover smeared carelessly on his face. A deadly looking Uzi with a flash suppressor rode on his right thigh in a quick-release clip.

"Malone and Gallic?" The voice was clipped, the words impatient.

"Yes," Malone answered.

"You were told to expect us."

Malone grinned. "Didn't expect anything quite so dramatic. Where's the rest of the crew?"

Carl Lyons gestured to the other two jumpers. Like their leader, they had unsnapped their chutes and let the wind have them. They were consulting a piece of paper and finding a particular spot on the cement wall at one side of the building.

"Just the three of you?''

Cold eyes ignored the question.

"You may need backup," Lyons said. "You might find terrorists coming out this door. I would advise placing yourself against the wall and shooting anyone who comes out the door with a weapon in his or her hand."

"You're kidding."

"I don't kid," Lyons replied.

He then turned his back on the two cops and began to walk around the building. At the next corner Lyons found the power lines leading into the building. He emptied a clip from the Uzi into the connectors. The power lines fell free, crackling their charge into the grass.

"Can either of you throw a grenade?" Lyons asked the cops when he came back.

Gallic nodded. "I was pretty good in the army."

Lyons pulled two concussion grenades off his webbing.

"Get your partner to hold the door. Toss both these in and get the door shut when I give you the sign.''

He left them standing waiting at the only door to the building. Gallic stood where she could see up the side of the building. Malone stood where he could grab the door.

"Now!" yelled his partner.

He yanked the door open and two grenades sizzled past him into the small entrance area. He let go of the door and ran along the front of the building. Automatic fire from inside was so late that it succeeded only in bouncing from the heavy glass of the closing door.

Then the two grenades blasted the door back open. From the side of the building came the sharp crack of another explosion. Malone held his position, revolver trained on the exit. He was relieved to see a riot truck screaming up to the building.

"What's happening?" he yelled to Inez.

"They blasted a hole in the side of the building. I never saw people move so fast. They were all inside before the rubble stopped falling."

Malone shook his head. Only three of them. They were going to have to move faster than bullets. How the hell were they going to get the hostages out in the dark?

The inside of the building was not dark. As soon as the power was cut, the emergency generator had cut in. Between batteries and the latest technology, the power pickup had been so smooth that it was not even noticeable.

Able Team came into a large storeroom as Gadgets had planned. Even here, one emergency light bulb burned.

"Kill it," Lyons ordered.

Gadgets unscrewed the light bulb and spit on the base. He then balanced a quarter over the bulb and screwed it back into the socket.