The Fate Of Nations: F.I.R.E. Team Alpha: Book One (34 page)

              As the last member of the squad they were fighting fell, another squad appeared at other end of the tenth floor hallway they were fighting their way through. Simultaneously, the two Alpha troopers brought their machine-pistols into play. With a coordination that seemed precisely choreographed, they directed their fire toward opposite ends of the squad’s loose formation; each working their way toward the middle of the ragged enemy line. Stunned by the speed of the Alpha operator’s reaction to their arrival, the newly arrived squad was cut down before they could open fire. Nagura and Williams continued to fight their way downward, clearing enemy resistance as they did so.

                            [][][]

              Carter and Burgett had just acknowledged McNamara’s warning concerning the powered armor. “Are we going up after them?” Burgett asked, peering up the spiral staircase where he knew Mancuso and his guards were currently descending.

              “No,” Carter said. “Harvard and Dancer will drive them to us. We’d be easy targets trying to get up the stairs. They’re responding to our attack as though it was an assassination attempt; they think were just here after Mancuso.”

              Carter paused for am moment. “I can hear them,” said.

              At that instant Carter and Burgett were assailed by searing pain in their heads. It was like vibrating heat that spread from their heads to saturate their bodies. It was as though they were on fire while being dragged through cactus. Thousands of tiny needles seemed to simultaneously and repeatedly pierce the skin and scrape the bones beneath. It was flameless heat burning nerves without actually harming flesh. Burgett screamed, his hands holding his head in an instinctive, futile attempt to block out the pain.

              “One of them is an attack psychic!” Carter shouted, having to let his rifle dangle across his torso on its sling so he could use his hands to steady himself against a wall. Nearly incapacitated by the pain, he looked over his shoulder and saw one of Mancuso’s green and gold clad bodyguards rush from the staircase and shoot Burgett three times with a large, semi-automatic handgun. The rounds knocked Burgett backward and slammed him against the wall. He dropped, unmoving to the floor into a growing pool of blood.

              In too much agony to do anything else, Carter summoned all of his discipline and endurance and hurled himself at the bodyguard. Carter felt the impact of a bullet strike him in the fraction of a second before he propelled his enemy into the wall opposite of where Burgett had fallen. Still fighting the pain of the psychic attack, Carter seized the bodyguard by the sides of his head, shoved both of his thumbs deeply into his enemy’s eyes, and began to repeatedly smash his head into the reinforced concrete of the wall. He felt the skull shatter after it had hit the wall three times; making a sickening crunching sound. Carter continued the pounding until blood and bits of bone fell together on the floor.

              The psychic assault had stopped as the man died but, before Carter senses had fully recovered, he heard footsteps as someone descended the metal staircase. The second bodyguard was suddenly only feet away from him, turning his handgun on Carter. Carter raise his rifle from where it had been slung across is body and squeezed the trigger. Nothing happened. The first bodyguard’s bullet had struck it as Carter had charged him; jamming the firing mechanism.

              He darted to the right just has the second bodyguard fired; the shot missing his head by a fraction of an inch. Carter charged his enemy again. Carter swept the pistol aside with is left hand, thrust the heel of his right palm into the bodyguard’s chin and, in one blindly fast motion, used the edge of the same hand to knock the weapon from the bodyguards grasp.

              Carter tried to draw his own sidearm but, before his hand could reach it, the bodyguard drove the flat of his right hand into Carter’s chest, and hooked his right foot around Carter’s leg to smash the heel in to the back of his knee.

              Carter toppled backward and landed hard. Reflexively, Carter covered his head and throat with his forearms; defending against the rain of killing blows he knew he would follow. A booted foot was driven into his abdomen; forcing the air from his lungs. Another kick slammed into his side, cracking several ribs.

              Guided by instinct and years of training, Carter’s hands caught his enemies foot has he lifted it for another strike and twisted it until his foe had no choice but to pull away or have his ankle dislocated. Carter shoved the foot away and tried again to draw his sidearm.

              The bodyguard fell atop him and seized his hand just as his fingers coiled around the pistol’s grip. Forced to hold onto the gun to stop his enemy from taking it away from him, Carter drew a knife from its sheath on his left thigh and began to repeatedly stabbing the bodyguard in his sides and back. Most of the thrusts glanced of his ribs and created only shallow wounds, but one slipped between the ribs and pierced a lung. A flow of foamy, frothing blood spurted from his mouth along with the sound his labored, gasping breaths.

              Abandoning his attempt to disarm Carter, the bodyguard tore Carter’s damaged rifle from its sling and raised it, a two-handed and club-like, over his head; bringing it down in a desperate, skull destroying blow.

              Carter blocked the blow with his left arm, feeling the bones of his forearm shatter like glass. In the same instant, drew his sidearm and fired. The first shot tore through bodyguard’s lower abdomen as Carter raised the weapon from the holster. The second went into the man’s chest. The third struck under the chin, effectively removing the man’s head from the nose up.

              Carter pushed the blood covered corpse away and crawled to Burgett’s unmoving form; praying that he still lived. Feeling for the arteries in Burgett’s neck he found a strong, regular pulse. Carefully rolling the unconscious operator onto his back, he searched for wounds. Two bullets and struck Burgett’s battle vest and failed to penetrate; the third had grazed his left shoulder and penetrated the weaker armor there. The IBOS system and already stopped the bleeding.

              Carter retrieved the field medical kit from a pocket on his own vest and removed a small capsule. Breaking the capsule open, he moved it back forth under the unconscious man’s nose.

              Burgett awoke to an acrid, burning odor. “Boss?” he asked, batting at the offensive capsule.

              “You OK?” Carter asked.

              “Define OK,” Burgett countered.

              “Can you stand?” Carter asked.

              Burgett pulled himself up to his knees, still bracing himself against the wall. Cater used his right hand to haul him the rest of the way to his feet. “I’m good,” Burgett said, his head clearing.”I just had the wind knocked out of me.”

              “Can you fight?” Carter asked.

              Burgett took hold of his rifle and nodded. “Good to go,” he said. “What about you, Boss?” gesturing to Carters injured arm.

              “Yeah, that’s well and truly broken,” Carter said. “The IBOS is doing a pretty good job with the pain, though.”

              “I wonder why both of Mancuso’s guards didn’t rush us while the psychic was mind-fucking us. If they had, we would have been screwed.”

              “I don’t think he could direct is power; he affected every one with his a certain range,” Carter surmised. “The other bodyguard had to stay out of range so he didn’t get hit by the psychic as badly as we did.”

              Seeing that Burgett had sufficiently recovered, Carter moved toward the staircase. “Let’s get Mancuso,” he said.

              “Mancuso!” Carter shouted up the stairs. “Your bodyguards are dead. I know you’re up there; I can hear you breathing. It will go easier for you if you come down. I have people above you. There is nowhere to go.”

              After a few moments later Mancuso struggled in view; dressed only in a pair of scarlet, silk pajamas and slippers. Without his cane he leaned heavily on the staircase’s railing. Negotiating each step with difficulty Mancuso raised his trembling hands. “I surrender,” he said; his voice was broken and fearful. “I will cause you no trouble.”

              “I know,” Carter said before shooting Mancuso twice in the head.

              Burgett immediately searched the corpse. “I have a mini-computer,” he said holing up the palm sized device he had retrieved from Mancuso’s waistband.

              Carter nodded. “Grab it and let’s go.”

                                [][][]

              The guards that had attempted to defend the maintenance room had fallen quickly once the supporting Mark-23 power suits had been destroyed. Sains was already removing the access panel and filter to the air conditioning system in preparation for deploying the VX-B nerve gas. “Good to go here, Grumble,” Sains said, placing the canister in the central air duct.

              “Get your masks back on,” McNamara ordered, before pulling his own gas mask over his face. Once he had seen that all the operators had their masks in place, he activated his radio.

              “Grumble to all call signs,” he said into his microphone. The maintenance room is secured; we are ready to deploy.

              “Prowler for Grumble,” Carters voice replied through McNamara’s headphone speaker. “Gadget and Prowler confirm; you are ready to deploy,” Carter as Burgett helped him pulls his mask on without the use of his injured arm. Burgett then donned his own mask

              “Harvard and Dancer confirm; you are ready to deploy,” Williams relied as he and Nagura put on their own masks.

              “Grumble to all call signs status.” McNamara ordered.

              The operators with McNamara gave him a thumbs-up gesture to indicating that they were ready for the gas to be deployed.

              The remaining team members confirmed their readiness, in turn.

              “Prowler, ready for deployment.”

              “Gadget, ready for deployment.”

              “Dancer, ready for deployment.”

              “Harvard, ready for deployment.”

              McNamara opened the gas canister as Sains turned the circulation fans on to maximum speed. Seconds later the sounds of choking, convulsing men could be heard throughout the building. This was followed by a silence broken only by the low hum of the circulation fans.

              “Remember,” McNamara said. “This gas is still lethal for three minutes after release; so keep the masks on for at least four minutes.”

              “Prowler for all call signs,” Carters voice said of the radio network, “rally at the tunnel stairwell.”

              Minutes later, the team had reassembled. “Is every one alright?” Carter asked passing his eyes over each team member.

              Defontain looked up from examining Burgett’s wounded shoulder. “The IBOS did a decent job on this wound,” she said. “But your arm should be immobilized,” she added taking a sling from her field medical kit and helping Carter fit his arm into it.

              “Alright,” Carter said, checking his watch. “We proceed as planned. Gambler, Brains, you go set up your sniping nest. Gadget, send the go code.” Roth and Sains left to comply with Carter’s orders.

              Burgett extracted a long range field radio from his pack and an eighteen inch external antenna to it. Entering a series of commands into the notebook-sized device he transmitted a preprogrammed micro-burst message to the other FIRE teams and their higher commands. The entire transmission took less than a second

              Seconds later Burgett looked up and smiled. “All teams report in position and ready to assault, Boss!”

              “Let’s move,” Carter said, leading the way down the spiral staircase.

              They made their way down a short access tunnel having to step over several enemy troops that had been killed by nerve gas. At the end of the corridor a set of locked fire doors blocked entrance to evacuation tunnel’s check point. “The gas won’t have penetrated beyond this point, so the guards at the tunnel entrance will still be alive,” Carter said. “And watch out for those automated guns. Gadget, get set to blow the door, Grumble, Harvard, and Defontain, get ready with the IMS-7s.” The three operators each took a knee and prepared the shoulder fired missiles for firing.

              Two minutes later, Burgett had finished placing the charges on the fire doors. “I’m set, Boss,” he reported.

              Carter assured himself that all his operators were at a safe distance from the coming explosion. “Do it,” he said.

              “Firing!” Burgett said, activating his detonator.

              The shaped charges destroyed the door’s lock and hinges allowing it to fall neatly into the corridor sending a metallic clanging sound echoing down the hallway. Before the echo had ceased the three Alpha operators fired their missiles.

              The first, fired by McNamara, pierced the armored guard box cleanly and detonated while four feet from the ground. It sprayed hundreds of tungsten carbide pellets in all directions. The four guards that occupied the box were reduced to hole-ridden, bloody masses of mangled flesh.