Season of Slaughter Read online

  The blazing-muzzle flashes of the Calicos signaled more bodies jerking under multiple impacts as the long legs of the trench-coat-clad gunman drove him across the terminal’s hallway, stopping just as he spotted a knot of frightened travelers.

  Spinning, Dark fired the way he had come, then hit the ground, sliding on the slick tiles as return fire chased after him, bullets sweeping and punching into the crowd of civilians. People screamed, a chorus of pain and death cries that were a symphony to the man in black.

  “Oh, God! Stop! Stop shooting!” he heard over the din of his enemies’ gunfire.

  Dark stuck his left Calico in his bag and pulled out another grenade. This one was a fragmentation bomb, which he armed and skidded along the floor. It bounced off a window overlooking the airfield, then exploded as it skittered toward the defenders of Dulles International.

  Dark didn’t need to see the effects of hundreds of segments of wire propelled at almost a thousand feet per second to realize he’d cut himself a little bit of breathing room.

  He took a moment to savor the sight of the carnage. It wasn’t every day you unleashed a taste of hell on a major international airport, after all.

  DAVID KOWALSKI SPUN in surprise when he heard the distant rattle of submachine guns. He dropped the magazine he’d been perusing, hands instantly plunging under his jacket, his left clawing for the sleek Beretta 92-F in its shoulder holster, his right flipping out the reassuring weight of the neck wallet bearing his badge and U.S. Marshals identification. He spun, looking to “Carl Stone,” the alias used be Carl Lyons. The big blond guy was already out the front of the duty-free shop.

  The clerk at the counter was torn between shouting at the rush of men scattering perilously perched shelf items to the floor and diving under the counter at the sight of firepower filling their hands.

  “Get on the phone to security!” Kowalski shouted. “Tell them they’ve got a dozen ASLET conference attendees moving to help back them up!”

  “Ass let?” the clerk asked.

  “We’re Feds going for special training! Call!”

  He spun and was heading in the direction of the gunfire when he heard the first grenade rumble in the distance. His thick legs pistoned faster, and though he didn’t have the typical trim, long legs of a classic runner, what he lacked in stride he made up for in thrust. Soon, he was past several of the blacksuits and hot on the heels of Carl Lyons.

  “What took you so long?” Lyons asked.

  “Got the clerk to call security.” Kowalski was already starting to feel breathless from the effort of keeping up with Lyons. He figured that somewhere along the line, the big blond warrior was a semipro athlete, maybe college football. Kowalski always hated running after those types because they never seemed to run out of breath even after the longest chases. “Don’t need the situation confused.”

  “Quick thinking,” Lyons growled. He looked up to see a knot of airport security men suddenly blown off their feet by a billowing cloud accompanied by a thunderclap.

  The injured filled the air with shrieks and screams.

  “Ski, you help with first aid and triage,” Lyons grunted.

  Kowalski paused, looking out the window. “Someone’s outside.”

  Lyons turned his head, spotting the figure walking across the tarmac toward the taxiing airplanes, carrying two massive duffel bags in his hands. Behind him lay the crumpled form of a single man in the blue-and-black uniform of an airport security officer. “He’s going to fire missiles at the jets moving to take off. If he hits them in the right spot, that aviation fuel is going to light them up…”

  “Fielding, Jacobs, you’ve got EMT training. Help these guys,” Kowalski shouted. He’d summoned up from his depths the exact mimicry of his old drill sergeant’s voice. The barks got the men automatically moving, clearing them of doubts of what needed to be done.

  He looked back to Lyons, who nodded in grim approval. “All right. Ski, take Newport, Roberts and Pullman and stop that big bastard on the field. The rest of you, grab a long-arm and on me!”

  Lyons scooped up an M-16 and a couple of magazines and tossed them to Kowalski.

  The stocky blacksuit raced toward the window, aiming his M-16 ahead of him and blowing out the glass. With a running leap, he was through the broken window, legs pumping the air as he realized that bullets were shearing the space behind him. Roberts wasn’t jumping from the second-story window to the tarmac, but instead tumbling in a shredded stump of gory flesh.

  Newport and Pullman made the jump, Pullman landing hard and twisting his ankle.

  Kowalski didn’t fane much better, his knees aching from taking the impact of a twelve-foot drop with very little flex. The pain would really kick in later, when his adrenaline high wore off. He dumped the magazine on his rifle and fed a fresh one home.

  “Freeze! Federal officer!” Kowalski bellowed. He didn’t expect the mysterious giant with the duffel bags to stop, but he hoped at least to catch the guy’s attention. His finger pulled through the two-stage trigger break in anticipation of a better torso shot. The big man moved, all right.

  He danced effortlessly out of the path of Kowalski’s first fusillade of autofire. The muscular monster moved with the grace of some giant cat, slipping back to tear open the first duffel bag and pull out a missile launcher. Before Ski could chase down with the rest of the magazine, the man ducked behind a refueling truck.

  “Hold your fire!” Kowalski shouted.

  Newport held his fire, and Ski looked back to Pullman. The injured blacksuit wasn’t getting up from where he’d collapsed on his injured leg, but he was positioned in a classic “seated rifleman” pose, the sling of his M-16 wrapped tight around his off-hand forearm. Even in the face of personal injury, Kowalski wasn’t giving up.

  “Get prone, Pullman!” Ski ordered.

  The stocky Pullman swung his legs beneath him and winced as his elbows scraped concrete. His mustached face was pressed close behind the sights of the M-16, and he presented a much smaller target now.

  Kowalski and Newport raced to the rear of the refueling truck. The big blonde hadn’t made a move, but nobody would dare take a shot. If the fuel inside the “little” tank was ignited, the fireball would kill everything for a hundred feet, including innocents inside the terminal.

  Kowalski waved his hand to Newport, who apparently got the picture. Kowalski was using the standard L.A.P.D. SWAT sign language, a nationally recognized system that allowed approaching officers to communicate without alerting a perpetrator.

  He swung around the left of the truck. Newport took the right. It was a lightning-quick dash; no way the big blond could react to two people charging him all-out.

  Kowalski rammed into what felt like a brick wall and tumbled backward.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Carl Lyons crouched against the corner as Parabellum rounds ripped and roared from the bottomless helical magazines of the madman’s Calico SMGs. With a surge of his thick, powerful legs, the Able Team leader somersaulted out onto the floor, tracking up with his Colt Python .357 Magnum slugs slashing at the tall figure in black.

  Whoever this guy was, he walked like a miniature version of Godzilla, wading through the boot-deep dead and injured as if they were rubble not worthy of a second glance.

  Kowalski had given a loud police warning to the guy outside, issued with a bellowing set of lungs that would do any Marine proud. Lyons didn’t waste time with a warning. Instead his first action against the murderer with the black, fluttering coat was to open fire.

  The man in black leather seemed to ignore the two solid hits that Lyons placed on target and the Ironman knew it had to be body armor. He was shifting up, trying for a head shot, when a storm of 9 mm slugs ripped at the tile leading up to him. With a fraction of a heartbeat to spare, Lyons rolled, curling up in a ball as twin lines of detonations snarled past him, marble-colored ceramic erupting in countless volcanoes. A pair of slugs managed to knife across Lyons’s forearm, wide strips torn from his h
eavily muscled limb.

  “Tag, you’re it,” Dark said, chuckling, backing away as blacksuits poured around the corner to Lyons’s defense.

  “Play tag with this!” the blond commando growled. Aiming low and lunging to his feet, Lyons only managed to nick the thigh of the mass murderer with his third shot.

  Dark took a half stumble, then spun, sweeping at chest height.

  “Down!” Lyons bellowed, diving to the floor again. He felt a bullet pluck at his hair as he slammed into the floor. His Colt Python skittered loose from his hands, knocked free by the impact. He kept moving forward, hands clawing at floor, forcing himself not to look back at the men who were probably dead or injured from the madman’s latest fusillade.

  He’d have plenty of time to take care of the injured once he put a total stop to this madman.

  Dark’s twin Calicos, spitting out fireballs of deadly fury, were swiveling to track him. Lyons could hear shouting over the rat-tat-tat of the dual machine pistols.

  “Adonis! Adonis! Get that missile up and away!” Dark shouted.

  The Calicos ran empty just as their black muzzles stared Lyons in the eyes.

  “One hundred shots only, creep,” Lyons growled. He took Dark with his shoulder, ramming home with all the force of his two hundred pounds. It was like shoulder-blocking a child’s blow-up punching bag. Dark gave resistance for a moment, then disappeared, the trench coat snapping and slapping across Lyons’s face.

  A rapidly descending elbow hit Lyons in the small of his back, but the Able Team leader was moving so fast, the strike slipped off him. He skidded to a halt, looking back at the man who, gathering his leather trench coat tightly around him, smirked at the big, blond ex-cop.

  “You’re either lucky or you’re good,” Dark said.

  “Being both never hurt,” Lyons attested. This time his leap wasn’t a football tackle but the savage pounce of a predatory cat, his arms lashing out. He didn’t manage to grapple Dark, but he felt his hand go numb from where he punched the murderer in the collarbone. There was a loud grunt of pain, but the tall pillar of black leather and attitude spun, bringing a forearm up into Lyons’s ribs.

  Air exploded from his lungs and he slapped face-first into the ground.

  Lyons pushed himself off his belly, curling up and rolling to one side as he heard the batlike rustle of the trench coat’s tail flaps beat the air like wings. Any slower, the big ex-cop realized, and those two, steel-soled boots that shattered floor tile like eggshells would have crushed him into a pulpy red mess. Lyons lashed upward, snapping a kick into Dark’s midsection, blowing him off his heels, making him scramble backward.

  Lyons was up again in a moment, bringing up his forearms as Dark waded in with shuto palm strikes and kenpo knuckle punches. He blocked and deflected most of the strokes, cursing himself for being thrown onto the defensive. Usually his tactics were to attack, not pussyfoot around.

  Doing just that left the Able Team leader reeling backward. If he survived this battle, his forearms would be blackened masses of bruises. With a sudden wriggle, Lyons was out of the path of the darting fists and suddenly inside the range of those long, looping arms. Dark had about an extra six inches of reach, but that was a weakness because arms that long usually belonged to fighters who would fight at maximum distance. Lyons had learned to fight with long kicks and punches, and close-range strikes and knees.

  Leading with his left knee and following up with a pistoning right hand, Lyons felt Dark’s torso thump loudly with his impacts. A head butt rebounded off the terrorist’s nose and lips, sending a cascading spray of gore pouring down into the Able Team leader’s eyes. Half blinded by the blood, he was encouraged and even inspired to inflict more damage. He was a wild animal, moving in for the kill. A quick alternating hammering of lefts and rights struck Dark in the ribs and abdominal muscles. The savage barbarian that Lyons had become reached around to try to smash the kidneys of his prey, but the tall target in black always kept half twisted away from the mauling clubs swinging at his vulnerable organs.

  Pain exploded under Lyons’s jaw, flipping his head back. A knee managed to snap through his defenses and catch him right under the navel. The rocket-like knee-stroke made him convulse. Hands clasped behind Lyons’s skull and pulled him forward. In desperation, like a heavily muscled turtle, the big ex-cop tucked his head in tight, his shoulder muscles sheathing his spine and lower skull in thick, heavy sinews.

  Dark tossed Lyons over his hip, dropping him to the ground. The floor was cold and harsh but he knew how to take a fall. Lyons wrapped his bullet-gouged arm around the black-denim-clad leg of his adversary and wrenched hard, sending the man stumbling off his feet and into a double kick that only through grace and agility didn’t end in shattered ribs.

  “Adonis!” Dark called.

  Lyons glanced out the window as he saw something streak from the ground. He rolled to a combat crouch, pulling his backup Colt .45 from its holster. Maybe a .45-caliber slug would stop a missile in midflight toward its run against an airplane.

  The missile was homing in on a jumbo jet hanging heavily in the sky, and Lyons opened fire, hoping against hope to hit the lazily climbing rocket, glass shattering as his first slugs burst through to chase the missile.

  Then the damn thing swerved, looping crazily.

  Lyons prayed for a second that his gunfire had cut off the missile, but horror stabbed deep into his heart as he realized that the missile had a lock.

  It was tearing toward the radar tower down the airstrip.

  “Dammit, no!” Lyons bellowed. Suddenly the gun was kicked from his hand.

  The fight with Dark wasn’t over yet.

  ADONIS LET the empty launcher drop as he watched the radar tower disappear. It was painted a dull maroon red, but when the shaped-charge warhead struck it at 400 meters per second, it disappeared into a yellow-white flash of flame, blackened steel chunks tumbling through the air.

  He turned back toward the pair of lawmen on the tarmac. He was torn between crushing them to bits and making for his extraction rendezvous. Decision made, he knelt at the second bag and flipped open a folded-down LCD screen. The second bag was actually the carrying case for a man-portable Satellite Communications System.

  Fixx had put this piece together for just this occasion.

  He picked up the radio mouthpiece, slipped a Desert Eagle from a side pocket in case anyone got antsy around him.

  “This is Dulles International. We’re sorry for that glitch,” Adonis said. He made his voice an octave deeper to convey that air-traffic-control-professional flavor. “Everything should be all right now.”

  There were dozens of questions clambering over the lines as Adonis ran his big, blunt fingertips across the keyboard of the SCS box. He closed the lid and ripped the cord free.

  Right now, the unit was transmitting false radar telemetry to every aircraft in the area. Simultaneously it was blanketing radio communications with sheets of white noise and static, preventing the real Dulles air traffic from doing anything in its power to stop the madness that was about to ensue. “I wonder if we’ll get our own special date,” Adonis said, walking away from the SCS.

  One of the lawman was struggling up to his feet. Adonis remembered slugging the tall, lanky lawman. He hadn’t quite gotten enough power behind the punch, just enough to flatten the guy for about thirty seconds. Adonis lifted the barrel of his Desert Eagle and stroked the trigger, a .50 Action Express round blasting from the huge, dark eye.

  Thunder shook the air, but Adonis rode out the recoil and lowered the gun. Something hurtled explosively at him, accompanied by a deep-throated growl. It was David Kowalski, smashing against the giant. There was almost a foot of height difference between them, and perhaps fifty pounds of sheer muscle, but the man hit like a brick wall, knocking the big man off his feet.

  Adonis didn’t go down. He staggered back, got his feet under him and let Kowalski spill back off of him. With a swinging right hook, the butt of the Desert Eagle clipp
ed the smaller man’s jaw, spinning him like a top. The blond giant admired the squat little man.

  The blow would have twisted the head off anyone else, but Kowalski turned back and brought up a left cross that carried every bit of muscle behind it. Adonis felt the punch crash into his jaw, lights flickering somewhere above his brow, then clubbed down hard with both his free fist and the Desert Eagle.

  Kowalski collapsed, grunting from the double strike.

  A roar built up in the air and Adonis looked up to see a 737 coming in too quick to the runway. Its instruments were being told that it was three hundred feet higher than it really was. He smirked as the plane hit the ground. Landing gear sheared off as it struck at twice the speed it was built to take.

  Metal peeled away in sparks mixed with plumes of smoke; flames jetted outward.

  In an instant the 737 became a four hundred-mile-per-hour flaming coffin for the people inside. The impact of the skipping airplane off the end of the Midfield Concourse terminal was just a technicality, spinning like a ninja-star into the grasslands just off of the runway. The airplane came apart in a shower of boiling flames and silver flakes, like a winter storm in hell.

  Adonis sighed. “Beautiful.”

  Gunfire rattled from behind him, and the giant swerved, too late realizing that the gunfire wasn’t directed at him. Divots of asphalt were being kicked up as an M-16 rattled. Adonis brought up his Desert Eagle, swinging around the front fender of the fuel truck, seeing a stocky, mustached man firing at the SCS bag.

  The Desert Eagle thundered and Pullman screamed, his shoulder joint gouged out by a .50-caliber hollowpoint. Bone splintered and flesh spewed across the pavement.

  Unfortunately it wasn’t the arm with the trigger finger. Pullman kept firing, burning off the last of his clip. To his right, Adonis heard the impacts of M-16 slugs on the LCD metal casing, the crackle and sizzle of shorting electronics. Acrid smoke rose to meet his nostrils as Adonis fired off two more shots. Distracted by the destruction of the Satellite Communication System, his two rounds merely took Pullman in his right bicep, shattering the humerous bone completely. Pullman flopped onto his back, screaming in agony, arms reduced to useless spaghetti.