Atomic Fracture. Don Pendleton

by with less than a second’s consideration by the brain.

      More shots rang out. Now that his ears were covered, Lyons dropped his hands to his sides and moved quickly to where Kissinger stood, leaning against one of the pickups in which they had arrived. The Stony Man armorer held a laptop computer in front of him, and on the screen the Able Team leader could see the interior of the house. Blancanales was making his way cautiously up the steps to the second floor. In his hands was a Yankee Hill Machine Company’s Model 15.

      A head and shoulders—then two arms holding an AK-47—suddenly appeared at the top of the steps and Blancanales fired one shot directly through the forehead. A ragged hole appeared in the paper face of a terrorist wearing a turban. Then the target disappeared as quickly as it had appeared.

      Lyons continued to watch as Blancanales made his way through the rooms on the second and then third floor, carefully picking out the good guys from the bad and putting holes through the paper images of the enemy targets. The Able Team leader noted, however, that each time his fellow warrior pulled the trigger, he winced slightly.

      The Yankee Hill Model 15’s short ten-inch barrel combined with powerful 6.8-caliber rounds, was loud even outside the facility. It had to be deafening for the man inside.

      Almost as if he’d read Lyons’s thoughts, Blancanales suddenly stopped and turned around. On the screen, Lyons saw him flip the short-barreled carbine’s selector to the safe position. Then, the YHM held barrel down, the Able Team member retraced his steps and exited the building without completing the course.

      As soon as Blancanales emerged, he shook his head in what looked like an attempt to clear the ringing in his ears, then walked swiftly toward the pickup where Lyons and Kissinger stood. Handing the YHM-15 to Kissinger, he said, “It shoots great. But if I’d finished the course I’d have been as deaf as my ninety-year-old grandfather.” He shook his head again. “Give me the standard M-16 A2 anytime.”

      Kissinger smiled, and Lyons sensed that the armorer had anticipated just such a reaction. Turning, he set the YMH in the bed of the pickup. When his hands came back in sight, he held a similar-looking rifle. But this weapon bore a long tubular device on the end of the barrel and there was a small scope mounted in the top of the receiver.

      “Try this one, Pol,” Kissinger said, extending the rifle in front of him. “I think you’ll find it a little gentler on the eardrums.”

      Blancanales took the weapon and looked down at it. “Sound suppression,” he noted.

      “Right,” Kissinger agreed. “And while you won’t be able to appreciate it fully here in the daylight, it cuts down considerably on the muzzle flash from the short barrel.”

      Blancanales nodded. “I’ll go back and give it one shot,” he said. “But if it isn’t quiet enough...” His voice trailed off for a moment. “I’m not sacrificing my hearing for it.”

      “I think you’ll be happy with it,” said Kissinger. “Yankee Hill’s making some with permanent suppressors. But I’ve altered several so you can take them off if you want to create noise and confusion.”

      Blancanales lifted the rifle slightly in his hands. “Not much heavier than the unsuppressed model,” he said. “The suppressor titanium?”

      Kissinger nodded. He cradled the laptop in his left arm long enough to hold his other fist to his mouth and cough. “Adds about eight inches to the barrel length. You put that on the end of the standard M-16 and you’ve got 22 to 24 inches beyond the receiver. That’s bumped the weapon up to sniper length—without sniper rifle accuracy.”

      Hermann “Gadgets” Schwarz, Able Team’s electronics expert, joined the group and studied the look on Blancanales’s face.

      Blancanales wasn’t convinced. “It doesn’t look like a problem on this 10-inch barrel,” he said. “It’ll still be relatively easy to maneuver inside tight spaces. But a 10-inch tube means a sacrifice in sight radius.”

      “That’s what the optics are for,” Kissinger said, pointing to the scope.

      Schwartz smiled and said, “You suppose the boys over at the BATFE would approve?”

      “Alcohol, tobacco, firearms and explosives? Of course not,” Lyons growled. “But luckily we don’t answer to those Bureau yo-yos.”

      Blancanales stared down at the new rifle as he retraced his steps toward the entrance to the kill house.Lyons watched Kissinger tap several keys on the laptop’s keyboard and knew the armorer was changing the pop-up targets to give his fellow teammate a new challenge. A moment later he saw Blancanales appear on the screen at the starting point.

      Kissinger pressed a button on the chronometer on his wrist and shouted, “Go!”

      Blancanales carefully navigated his way through a mock laundry room without incident. But as soon as he stepped through the door to a hallway, a full-size target popped into view as if from out of nowhere. Blancanales swung the sound-suppressed weapon that way but didn’t fire.

      A little girl stood holding a lollipop to her lips less than ten feet to Blancanales’s left. A second later, the paper target disappeared.

      Blancanales moved on, his back against the wall as he navigated the corner past where the girl had stood. The screen in Kissinger’s hand changed again and Lyons could see a large bedroom just ahead of his fellow Able Team warrior. Blancanales had just stepped into the room when another target—this time a criminal-looking guy wearing a striped T-shirt, appeared. He held a large revolver in his right hand. His other arm was wrapped around the neck of a woman whose face looked terrified.

      This time Blancanales tapped the trigger and three rounds of 6.8-caliber hollowpoint ammo spit from the weapon. The sound of each round was barely audible over the microphone Blancanales wore in front of his mouth. But three holes appeared in the hoodlum’s face, two inches above the frightened hostage’s head.

      When Blancanales said, “Much, much better, Cowboy,” his voice seemed loud by comparison.

      The words had barely left his mouth when two new targets raised their heads above the other side of the bed. The first showed only the face and neck. Blancanales passed it by. But the second target rose higher, exhibiting shoulders wearing a desert-tan camouflage BDU blouse. Blancanales turned the YHM that way but hesitated again.

      A split second later the target rose slightly higher and the butt of a folding rifle stock could barely be seen. It was still impossible to ID the target as friend or foe, and the Able Team operative held his fire as another second passed.

      Then the target behind the bed rose higher and began bringing the weapon up toward the Able Team warrior. Finally, he was clearly the enemy, and Blancanales put a 3-round burst into his head. The camouflaged target dropped down behind the bed.

      Suddenly the first target began to rise. It wore the same style BDU desert-tan blouse. But when it rose, Lyons could see that its hands were empty.

      Blancanales let it live.

      The Able Team warrior moved on through the kill house, shooting the bad guys and rescuing the good. Each new room, each hall and stairway, presented new and increasingly confusing targets. But by the time Blancanales had finished clearing the third floor of the house he had a perfect score.

      And while he had not set a new personal record with the unfamiliar weapon in his hands, he had come close.

      Lyons was about to speak when the Farm-secured cell phone in the belt holster behind his Colt Python .357 Magnum began to vibrate. Drawing the phone much like he would the revolver, he looked at the screen. He pressed the answer button and held the device to his ear. “Yeah, Hal?” he said.

      “If you’re finished playing Cowboys and Indians, I need you back at the Farm,” the Stony Man director said. “I’ve sent Jack to pick you up.”

      “What have we got?” Lyons asked.

      “Two backpack nukes have disappeared from a nuclear storage facility in