Gant was completely shocked.
She'd heard rumours about the Universal Disarm Code. It was the stuff of legend: a numerical code that overrode every US military security system.
Weitzman blinked, fighting the drug. 'It. . . it doesn't. . . exist...'
'No, General,' the tall man said. 'It does exist, and you are one of five people in the US military establishment who know it. Maybe I will have to increase the dosage here.'
The tall man pulled out another syringe, inserted it into Weitzman's exposed arm.
Weitzman groaned, lNo . . .'
The EA-617 serum went into his arm.
And that was when the cockpit windows had exploded under Knight's hailstorm of gunfire.
Schofield dropped into the cockpit of the Hercules, landed next to
Knight.
'Now can I use lethal force?' Knight shouted.
'Be my guest!'
Knight pointed to a TV monitor on the cockpit dashboard—it showed a high-angle view of the Hercules' rear cargo hold.
Schofield saw about a dozen large wooden crates near the cockpit steps, one Humvee with Weitzman crucified on the bonnet, eight bad guys in black combat uniforms, two bad guys in suits and on the floor, up against the wall of the cargo hold, on the left-hand side of the Humvee, her hands cuffed behind her back . . .
. . . Libby Gant.
'Too many to take out with guns,' Schofield said.
'I know,' Knight said. 'So we take guns out of the equation.'
He pulled two small grenades from his combat webbing—small hand-held charges painted pale yellow.
'What are—?' Schofield asked.
'British AC-2 charges. Adhesive-chaff grenades.'
'Anti-firearm charges,' Schofield said, nodding. 'Nice.'
The British SAS, experts in counter-terrorist ops, had developed the AC-2 for operations against armed hostage takers. They were basically standard flash-bang grenades, but with one very special extra feature.
'You ready? Just remember, you get one shot before your gun jams,' Knight said. 'Okay, let's rock this joint.'
At which point, he cracked open the cockpit door and hurled his two AC-2 charges into the cargo hold beyond it.
• • •
The two pale yellow grenades flew into the hold, skipping across the tops of the wooden cargo crates before landing on the floor beside the Humvee and—
—flash-bang!
The standard explosion came first: blinding white flashes of light followed by ear-crashing bangs, designed to deafen and disorient.
And then came the AC-2 grenades' extra feature.
As they exploded, the two grenades sent brilliant starbursts of tiny white-grey particles shooting out in every direction, completely filling the enclosed space of the cargo bay.
The particles looked like confetti, and after they dispersed, they floated in the air, infinitesimally small, forming a white-grey veil over the scene, making it look like a snowglobe that had just been shaken.
Only this wasn't confetti.
It was a special form of adhesive chaff—a sticky stringy compound that stuck to everything.
The cockpit door burst open, and Knight and Schofield charged into the cargo hold.
The nearest IG-88 commando reached for his rifle, but received an arrow-bolt in his forehead—care of the mini-crossbow attached to Knight's right forearm guard.
A second-nearest man also spun quickly, and—shlip!—received an arrow from Knight's left-arm crossbow square in the eye.
It was the third IG-88 commando who actually managed to pull the trigger on his Colt Commando assault rifle.
The machine-gun fired—once. One bullet only. Then it jammed.
It had been 'chaffed'. The sticky adhesive chaff of Knight's grenades had got into its barrel, its receiver, all its moving parts, rendering it useless.
Schofield nailed the man with the butt of his Maghook.
But the other IG-88 men learned quickly, and within seconds, two Warlock hunting knives slammed into the wooden cargo crates beside them.
Knight responded by pulling one of the most evil-looking weapons Schofield had ever seen from his utility vest: a small four-bladed ninja throwing star, or shuriken. It was about as big as Schofield's hand: four viciously-curving blades that extended out from a central hub.
Knight threw the shuriken expertly, side-handed, and it sliced laterally through the air, whistling, before—shnick! shnick!—it cut the throats of two IG-88 commandos standing side-by-side.
Five down, Schofield thought, three to go, plus the two guys in suits . . .
And then suddenly a hand grabbed him— —a stunningly strong grip—
—and Schofield was hurled back toward the cockpit doorway. He hit the floor hard, and looked up to see an enormous IG-88 trooper stalking toward him. The IG-88 man was huge: at least six feet nine, black-skinned, with bulging biceps and a face that bristled with unadulterated fury.
'Wot the fuck d'you fink you're doin'?' the giant black man said. But Schofield was already moving again—he quickly jumped to his feet and unleashed a thunderous blow with his Maghook's butt at the black trooper's jaw. The blow hit home. And the big man didn't even flinch. 'Uh-oh,' Schofield said.
The giant black trooper punched Schofield, sending him flying back into the wind-blasted cockpit like a rag doll. Schofield slammed into the dashboard.
Then the big black trooper picked him up easily and said, 'You came in froo that window. You go out froo that window.'
And without so much as a blink, the gigantic trooper hurled Shane Schofield out through the broken cockpit windows of the Hercules and into the clear open sky.
In the particle-filled cargo hold, Aloysius Knight—charging forward, hurling throwing stars—spun around to check on Schofield . . .
. . . just in time to see him get thrown out through the cockpit windows.
'Holy shit,' Knight breathed. Like himself, Schofield was wearing a parachute, so he'd be okay, but his sudden disappearance didn't help the mathematics of this fight at all.
Knight keyed his radio mike. 'Schofield! You okay?'
A wind-blasted voice replied: 'I'm not gone yetV
Seen from the outside, the Hercules was still cruising steadily at 20,000 feet, still behind and below the VC-10 tanker plane . . . only now it was possessed of a tiny figure hanging off its nose cone.
Schofield clung to the bow of the speeding Hercules, his body assaulted by the speeding wind, 20,000 feet above the world but thanks to his Maghook, now magnetically affixed to the nose of the cargo plane.
His big black attacker—the man's IG-88 nickname was, appropriately, 'Rocko'—stood peering out the cockpit windows above him.
Then Rocko ducked inside and suddenly reappeared with a Colt .45 pistol which had been kept in the cockpit and as such had been unaffected by Knight's chaff grenades.
'Whoa, shit!' Schofield yelled as the first shot went flying over his head.
He'd been hoping that Rocko would just assume he'd fallen to
his death and then head back inside the plane, giving Schofield a chance to climb back in through the cockpit windows.
But not now . . .
And so Schofield did the only thing he could do.
He undipped Gant's Maghook from his belt, and now moving downward with two Maghooks, affixed it to the hull of the Hercules below him—clunk!—and swung down below the nose-cone of the massive plane, out of the line of Rocko's fire, so that he was now hanging from the underbelly of the cargo plane, 20,000 feet above the earth.