"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.
"That should kill the local fuse," he reported.
The three warriors put on the infrared goggles. When Pol turned on his infrared flashlight, it showed the door quite plainly.
They moved cautiously out of the storage room.
"More light to the left," Lyons said. "Gadgets, find that emergency generator and take it out."
"It doesn't show on the sketchy building plan that we were sent. I'll stick with you until we find the elevators. The stairs to the basement are close to the elevator well."
The three warriors started to jog down a corridor toward the center of the building.
Suddenly two terrorists appeared around a corner. They were dragging a struggling woman between them. Politician was closest to the two goons. The stick in his hand whistled and bounced off the temple of one. He dropped.
The second terrorist spun, bringing his M-16 up as he turned. He was far too slow. The stick bounced back over the head of the victim and poked the terrorist in the throat. He fell back unable to even call out. Politician followed through by grabbing the other end of the <span style="font-style: italic;">jo</span> in his left hand and pressing the stick across the terrorist's windpipe. In a moment he was backed up against the corridor wall, fighting to take the crushing pressure from his air supply.
"Where is the main force?" Politician asked.
"Go to hell," he choked.
"I can tell you that," the woman said.
As soon as she spoke, Lyons's Beretta let out a quiet gasp. The terrorist under Pol's stick acquired a hole in his temple. He folded like a deck chair.
"When these creeps hit, everyone headed for the top floor and barricaded the doors. These killers are still trying to get through the barricade. I hid on this floor. I was trying to sneak out to telephone the police, but they were watching the emergency door as well as the main one.''
"I thought there was only one door," Gadgets said.
She shook her head. "There's one that looks like a cement block. It only opens from the inside."
"Pol, let's start picking off enemy," Lyons said. "Gadgets, get those lights."
Gadgets turned to the woman. "Can you find the emergency generator?"
She nodded.
"Let's go."
Gadgets and the woman went down a flight of metal stairs. Lyons and Politician turned around to go up. Suddenly an explosion washed down the steps, nearly knocking them off their feet.
"The terrorists are on the third floor now," Lyons said grimly. He started to take the stairs quickly, in spite of the noise he made.
Gadgets and the woman reached a subbasement. She threw her light weight into opening the heavy door at the foot of the stairs and almost got herself killed. A hail of bullets deflected from the partly open door and whined around the concrete stairwell.
Gadgets leaped down the last four stairs and slammed his weight against the door to close it. Then he quickly pulled the pin from a concussion grenade and opened the door just enough to toss it in.
The muffled whump of the grenade started opening the heavy door. Gadgets helped it open farther. He already had the Uzi out of its clip and ready. Two terrorists did a brief death shuffle as a figure-eight burst finished the job the stun grenade had begun.
"You sure move fast," the woman breathed.
Gadgets grinned as he quickly disabled the emergency generator.
"As soon as the power was cut off, they must have sent these two to protect the generator. They're very efficient," the woman mused.
Gadgets adjusted the infrared goggles. They were uncomfortable, but necessary. Then with the Uzi in one hand and the infrared projector in the other, he instructed the woman. "Grab my belt. I'll lead you to a way out. If I start shooting or someone starts shooting at us, hit the floor. I'll come back for you."
"Ahh, okay." Some of her confidence seemed to have gone with the light.
He pushed on the heavy door. A bright light hit the infrared goggles, almost blinding him because of the built-in amplification. He rolled away from the door as bullets dug at the doorframe.
"This the only entrance to the generator room?" Gadgets asked the woman.
"Yeah," she confirmed in a shaky voice.
Lyons and Politician were half a flight from the blasted door when the emergency light went out. Two terror goons had been left behind to prevent victims from escaping the top floor. Lyons continued up the stairs.
He surprised the pair with two small flashes and low coughs from a silenced gun at point-blank range. For those two killers the darkness became permanent.
Pol caught up to Lyons and the pair moved quietly through the carpeted halls of the high-tech building. Their infrared goggles separated humans from background. In the infrared light they could tell whether the person was armed. Armed terrorists met a karate blow to the temple or a single 9mm parabellum.
Workers were told in whispers that the stairs were clear for now. They were told to crawl to the stairwell and get out of the fire zone.
Ten minutes of silent confusion reigned on the top floor. The trickle of evacuees became a flow. The bodies of terrorists began to litter the halls.
Then, a match flared over a body. Politician's Uzi was leveled in an instant, but he held his fire. He could not tell what innocents might be farther down the hall. He broke into a run toward the terrorist, but the match went out and the goggles took two seconds to readjust to the lower intensity of infrared light. By the time Pol could see, the terrorist had leaped into a side room and was yelling.