Across the corridor, near the elevators, Green saw stacked army-drab crates.
Through the inch-wide space, Green watched, waiting for his chance. He held the .45 pistol pointed straight up, the hammer at full cock, safety off. His sweat made the grip clammy. Sweat trickled down his arm. If the terrorist had put Sandy in the auditorium, he'd free her and any other people the terrorists might have taken prisoner. He would tell them about the commando team upstairs. If Sandy wasn't there, he'd take the psycho's M-16 and go find her. He liked Sandy. She had introduced her husband to him at a company party: they were a beautiful young couple with a two-year-old child. It was Green who had called her to work that morning. She was his responsibility. Period.
The psycho's walkie-talkie buzzed. A few words blared from the speaker, then he slung his rifle over his shoulder, went to the elevator, pushed the "up" button. Green knew it would take the terrorist two seconds to unsling his rifle, chamber a round and fire.
Sprinting, his running shoes silent on the corridor carpeting, Green crossed the twenty yards separating them before the young man could jerk the rifle from his shoulder. The .45 was less than a foot from the terrorist's face when Green fired. The slug entered the psycho's gaping mouth, tore his head from his lower jaw, spraying brains and blood and bone over the immaculate chrome of the elevator doors.
Pulling the rifle from the twitching corpse, Green chambered a round, flipped the lever to full auto, and watched the elevator doors. The car came, the doors sliding open to reveal the empty interior.
He turned to the auditorium. Someone on the other side pushed against the doors. Green heard a voice inside: "Is he still there?"
"No," Green answered. "He's dead."
"Who's that?" The voice called through the doors.
"Charlie Green, Eastern European Accounts. Is Sandy Robinson in there?"
"Get us out of here!" voices screamed. "There's a bomb in here!"
Green tore at the ropes binding the door handles.
When they saw the muzzle-flash of the terrorist's M-16 on the helipad below them, the federal agents circling in the second helicopter hit the switch powering the Xenon searchlight. Ten thousand watts of white light created a disorienting noon on the rooftop.
An agent in the helicopter recorded the slaughter on high-resolution video tape for later analysis. It only lasted seconds.
But for Lyons and his partners Blancanales and Schwarz, the few seconds were hours.
From their positions around the helipad, they looked into the confused group of terrorists and hostages, crowded shoulder to shoulder, their heads only inches apart.
Lyons had anticipated this. Before entering the Tower, he had requested, and received, specially loaded 5.56mm cartridges for their CAR-16's. The standard 50-grain military and the 55-grain hollow-point hunting slugs used with the 5.56mm cartridge had a maximum kill range of four hundred yards. At close range, regardless of the slug used, the 2700-feet-per-second muzzle velocity of the CAR'S would create through-and-through wounds, the slug continuing through the body of the target to perhaps kill or maim someone beyond. Knowing that the combat would be at close range, with the terrorists shielding themselves behind hostages, Lyons had Able Team's weapons loaded with specially cast hollow-point slugs.
The 40-grain bullets were actually lead cups, their interior voids packed with common lubricating wax to give the slug additional weight. These slugs, though unstable and inaccurate at distances exceeding one hundred feet, had the advantage of dissipating the bullet's striking energy of 1200 foot/pounds within inches of the point of penetration.
Impact opened the cup from its diameter of 5.56mm to a disc of approximately 25mm, resulting in the instantaneous dissipation of the striking energy and the conversion of the lubricating wax filler into expanding gas.
At the sound of Zuniga's auto-burst, Lyons and Blancanales and Gadgets became mechanical marksmen. To them their work appeared in slow motion.
The first radical hollow-point from Lyons' CAR-16 struck Zuniga just above his right ear. His head ceased to exist, only the blood-spurting stump of his neck and a few ragged strips of jaw and scalp remaining. The impact threw the corpse and the two hostages to the helipad asphalt.
Simultaneously, slugs from Blancanales' and Gadgets' rifles killed Rico and Julio. Staring up at the second helicopter, Rico had turned to ask instructions of his squad leader, his jaw moving to form the first word of the question. Blancanales' slug hit him at the base of his skull. The jaw and brains and pink fragments of skull struck Ana in the face and chest.
Julio had been startled by the sound of Zuniga's burst, was straightening suddenly. Gadgets' bullet hit him just above the collar-bone, slamming his head back as his throat and spine exploded. His head flopped forward, attached to his torso by only a few ligaments and strips of skin, as his corpse fell.
Brains and blood on her face, Ana's eyes went wide at the sight of a jaw falling onto her chest, the teeth brilliantly white in the Xenon light. A scream rising in her throat was never heard, the breath from her contracting lungs hissing through the gore and torn tissue of a throat without a head, spraying blood-mist into the Xenon glare. Lyons' second target fell, the rope binding her hostages falling from her spasming hands.
Lyons sighted on Luisa, touched the trigger as Blancanales' second shot snapped her head forward. Lyons' bullet entered the woman's exploding skull, destroyed her again.
But Carlos ducked, pulled his shields a man and a woman backwards as he scrambled for safety. One-handed, he jerked his rifle up. The female hostage courageously, instinctively blocked the rifle with her elbow, pushing the barrel down. The magazine emptied into the asphalt.
Three slugs caught Carlos simultaneously. Each member of Able Team sighted on whatever part of the terrorist's body was visible from his particular angle. Lyons' shot snapped his spine, dumped the terrorist's guts from his body. Blancanales' shot tore away the terrorist's entire face. Gadgets annihilated his left leg.
"Ceasefire!" Lyons shouted.
Bodies covered the helipad. Some moved, some twitched with the impulses of dying nerves. Able Team scanned the carnage for anyone with a rifle still alive. Hostages twisted away from the corpses. Men and women sobbed. Someone laughed.
The man whom Carlos had held as a shield struggled to his feet and looked down at the disintegrated terrorist in horror. "There's one more downstairs!" he managed. "One of them's still down below!"
Lyons leaped from his position. He saw Blancanales climbing down from the air-conditioning stacks, and ran to him.
"Why did Zuniga kill Alcantara?"
"Alcantara said he learned of a trap," said Blancanales, "that he'd changed the plans. Zuniga asked him how he could have known of a trap, and pulled the trigger on him. But I think it was the way Alcantara was acting Zuniga saw something was wrong."
"What did he say about the detonator?"
"Nothing. He called down to someone else, said they were ready now. And said 'Viva Puerto Rico Libre.' Then he shot Alcantara."
"A suicide man? To trigger the bomb?"
Blancanales changed magazines on his CAR-16. "Let's go find out."
Gadgets ran from the stairwell housing. "I've killed this booby trap," he said, "at least across the stairhead."
"Okay. Now watch the elevator after we go down," commanded Lyons. "The last guy could slip past us somehow."
A tall, middle-aged woman in a blood-splashed pants suit called out to them. "They're all in the auditorium, second floor. There's still time to save them."