Extinction Crisis. Don Pendleton

easily,” Schwarz commented.

      “I’d hit it with my .357 Smith,” Lyons said distractedly, watching the man and the toddler walk closer to the delivery van.

      That brought a grin to Schwarz’s face. “Able Team. Travel the world. Meet technological wonders. Shoot them to pieces.”

      “’Kin A,” Lyons agreed softly.

      The robotic inchworm crawled toward the center of the truck’s undercarriage. A panel opened above it, and two hands reached down to grasp it.

      “We’ve got the bas—” Lyons began.

      “It’s a segment too long,” Schwarz cut him off.

      Lyons’s attention flitted from the monitor to the father and child on the street. He exploded out of his seat, jumping to the sidewalk and charging toward the delivery truck. He didn’t need an explanation about the nature of Schwarz’s grim, sudden warning. He took off from the Able Team van as if launched from the barrel of a gun as fast as his powerful leg muscles could propel him.

      “Carl! Wait!” he heard Blancanales call out.

      It was too late to stop Lyons as he drew upon his high school and college football conditioning to rocket him down the sidewalk with explosive speed. Each thrust of his powerful leg muscles carried him closer to the delivery van and the two bystanders who were now even with the stopped vehicle. The young father looked up from his child in the stroller, seeing the human freight train barrelling toward them both. Lyons unfurled his massive arms and scooped up father and infant. The Able Team commander twisted himself so that his broad back would absorb the shock wave that he expected to erupt. It came an instant later, the brown metal skin billowing out. Thankfully the hull of the truck was not pre-scored metal so that when it split due to the rupturing overpressure of the exploding robot, no shrapnel flew from the delivery van, though Lyons had his Kevlar on under his shirt and jacket. Lyons’s forward momentum had carried all three of them past the torn vent in the side of the truck, sparing the trio exposure to a gout of flame that vomited through the wound in the vehicle.

      Outside, in open air, the pressure wave had space to roll and disperse, sparing the Able Team leader and the two bystanders. The men inside of the truck would have had no such dispersal as the atmosphere inside of the vehicle could only compress so much before it crushed the bodies it was trapped with. Any living leads had been pulverized by the self-destruct mechanism in the robot.

      “Y-you saved us,” the man stammered.

      Lyons set down the stroller, unhooking the crying toddler within. He handed the girl off to dad after a quick examination for shrapnel injuries or possible burns. The father had suffered a scraped elbow, but the baby had been shielded from sidewalk rash by Lyons’s body and her crumpled stroller. “Just calm your little girl down and go home.”

      “What…is this, a terrorist attack?” the man inquired.

      “No. It’s just a couple of crooks being silenced by their boss,” Lyons explained. “You didn’t see anything, but don’t stick around, all right? Just make sure the kid’s fine.”

      The girl’s wails subsided as her father cradled her. “Thank you.”

      Lyons nodded and waved him off.

      Schwarz and Blancanales had run up to the gutted van, but the heat of the fire inside kept them at bay. Lyons jogged back around toward his partners, phone already in hand.

      “Barb, we have an explosion four blocks north of the Department of Energy offices. Get on the press and the Justice Department and start spinning that it’s organized crime related, and totally independent of the murder of Mare. Keep this from being released as a terrorist attack,” Lyons said to Stony Man.

      “You found the robot?” Price asked.

      “Yes, and it had a self-destruct mechanism inside,” Lyons told her. “We won’t get anything from the punks who delivered it.”

      “I’ll put word forward to Calvin and Rafael,” Price replied. “They’re following another van with a mystery load in the vicinity of Inshas.”

      “Relay to them that the robot I encuntered had built-in Tasers and a wire whip that cuts through aluminum and flesh like butter,” Lyons added.

      “Given the Israeli situation at Negev, the robot they might encounter could have a firearm built in, as well,” Price said. “You lucked out.”

      “Didn’t seem so lucky for Hirtenberg,” Lyons growled. “Send Alicia to pick up our crispy critters here. And give her my apologies for two call-outs in one day.”

      “You sound like you’re not coming back to the Farm,” Price mused.

      “No. I know the van builders who might have crafted the fake delivery truck,” Lyons said.

      “We haven’t even run the plates off of Gadgets’s video footage,” Price replied.

      “I know the D.C. area chop shops and kinky garages like the back of my hand, Barb,” Lyons countered. “We beat cops don’t like waiting for slow shit like Web searches.”

      Price laughed. “All right. Khan’s team is on the way to the blast site. D.C. Metropolitan Police has been advised to control the area and allow you egress from the crime scene.”

      Lyons looked up at the police helicopter that was already watching the area. “Good. Just to be safe, tell Alicia we may have a third corpse pickup for her.”

      “I’ll convey your apologies,” Price said. “Flowers and candy, too?”

      “And reservations for dinner,” Lyons added. He turned to Schwarz and Blancanales. “Mount up, soldiers. It’s time to kill people and break things.”

      “Enough investigation?” Blancanales asked.

      Lyons nodded. “Now it’s time for prosecution.”

      Schwarz grinned. “Prosecution to the max, baby.”

      Able Team drove off, ready for war in the streets.

      C ALVIN J AMES, RIDING IN the backseat of the Peugeot station wagon with “Atalanta” Kristopoulos, answered his satellite phone’s chirp on the first ring.

      “Farrow here,” James said, using his cover name.

      “We have news from across the pond.” Barbara Price opened the conversation. “Ironman and his boys encountered some delivery men just like yours. Their special present was a two-fold surprise.”

      “Whatever it is, it had a self-destruct mechanism,” James deduced. That brought sharp stares from the others in the station wagon.

      “All right. Only one surprise,” Price corrected herself.

      “It was a robot?” James inquired.

      “Here’s the surprise. It’s been rigged with antipersonnel defenses, and was utilized for the assassination of an investigator that Ironman was liaising with,” Price explained. “It gave Ironman a pounding with Tasers, a wire saw and its tail boom.”

      “Tail?” James asked.

      “It’s a worm- or snake-shaped robot, which probably allows for greater flexibility through vents and drainage pipes,” Price said.

      “Okay. That makes sense. I was imagining one of those modified radio-controlled cars or a rebuilt lawn mower device like the battle bots that show up on British television,” James said. “So the delivery men don’t control the robots themselves?”

      “No, but they do sit on a remote signal relay,” Price told him. “Gadgets and Bear agree that the command frequency is beamed through a tight focus point, which allows the signal to penetrate concrete and steel over short distances.”

      “The usual structures of a nuclear power plant would interfere with the robot’s reception,” James agreed, following Price’s logic.