Sky Sentinels. Don Pendleton

went down.” He paused a moment, then said, “But there is a third possibility. A surgical strike that frees the hostages but doesn’t do much, if any, collateral damage. It’s slim, but at least it has a chance.”

      Brognola knew what was coming and remained silent.

      “Where’s Bolan at the moment?” the Man asked.

      “Haven’t heard from him in several days,” Brognola said. “He’s tied up with some things in Bosnia right now.”

      “Able Team and Phoenix Force?” the President asked.

      “Able Team’s in Oklahoma,” Brognola said.

      “Ah, yes.” The President nodded. “The church situation. I understand it’s Iranian-backed terrorists there, too?”

      “Maybe yes, maybe no,” Brognola said seriously. “There’s a rumor going around the intel agencies that the men who took over the church are Iranian Revolutionary Guardsmen. Pasdarans, complete with their red neckerchiefs.”

      “And Phoenix Force?” the President asked.

      “McCarter and his boys are catching a few hours of well-deserved sleep after that affair in South Africa. But I can have them up and ready within the hour.”

      The phone on the desk suddenly rang.

      “Get that, will you, Hal?” the President said. “Put it on speakerphone.”

      “Certainly, sir.” Brognola rose to his feet, took two steps to the desk and pressed the intercom button on the phone.

      “Nan, I told you to hold all of my calls while Mr. Brognola was here,” the President said somewhat testily.

      His tone didn’t seem to have any effect on his receptionist. “I know,” the voice on the other end of the line said confidently. “But you’ll want this one.”

      “Who is it?” the Man asked.

      “Javid Azria,” Nan answered.

      The President looked at Brognola.

      Brognola looked back.

      “Put him on,” the Man directed.

      A click sounded over the speakerphone and a moment later an Iranian-accented voice said, “Mr. President?”

      “Yes, Mr. President?” the Man said back.

      Brognola stood where he was, waiting.

      “In addition to the church in that cowboy state of yours,” the voice said pompously over the speakerphone, “the third suicide bomber I sent to Israel has just eliminated close to four hundred infidels by detonating himself in one of the decadent Western-inspired night clubs in Tel Aviv.”

      The President remained cool. “I hadn’t even heard of the first two yet,” he said, glancing at Brognola. “They must not have been very big.”

      The voice that responded turned angry. “They were big enough,” it growled. “Exactly the size I wanted them to be.”

      Brognola sat silently. He was listening to one of the biggest egos he’d ever encountered in his long career.

      “And, Allah willing, there are far bigger things to come,” said the Iranian president.

      “Are you declaring war on the United States, Mr. Azria?” the Man asked, using the Iranian president’s name for the first time.

      But the leader of the free world got no response.

      All he and Hal Brognola heard was a click as the line went dead.

      T HE BAPTISTRY WINDOW was only wide enough to allow three men at a time to crawl through it. And as Hooks, Langford and Schwarz launched themselves upward out of the water, Lyons and Blancanales helped shove them onto the stage.

      Counting both terrorists and worshippers, over a thousand heads jerked their way.

      As the water-soaked warriors jumped to their feet, the remaining two members of Able Team followed.

      It had all taken just enough time for the men in the red neckerchiefs to overcome their surprise and react.

      Luckily, Able Team and the OSBI men assisting them reacted a fraction of a second quicker.

      Lyons was the first to fire, triggering a 3-round burst from his M-16 into the head of the man who had been shouting from the pulpit. Lyons turned toward where the minister and the dark-complected man holding the remote detonator sat and saw that the minister had already grabbed the other man’s hand. He held it in both of his own, his fingers tight around the device, preventing the terrorist from entering the code that would bring down the entire church.

      Hooks and Langford knelt on both sides of the pulpit. The OSBI director was firing his AR-15 steadily in semiauto mode, taking out one door guard per round. Return fire whizzed back toward him, some of it striking the pulpit while other rounds perforated the large cross hanging just above the choir loft. Occasionally a round flew past them into the baptistry and a plopping sound echoed forth as it spent itself in the water.

      The members of the choir had all hit the floor. Next to him, Hooks fired his Kel-Tec PLR-16, which had obviously been converted to full-auto. Each tap of his forefinger drove another khaki uniform and red scarf to the ground.

      Schwarz and Blancanales were firing their own M-16s into the red-scarfed terrorists in the aisles and balcony. In addition to these warriors, several men and one woman within the congregation itself had risen to their feet and joined the battle, killing the terrorists near to them with hidden pistols. These off-duty cops and citizens with concealed-carry permits had been smart enough to wait for the right time to fight.

      Lyons’s well-trained brain had taken in all of these facts in a heartbeat, and now he turned his attention back toward the biggest threat in the church—the amateurish improvised bomb that still stood on the floor next to the chairs where the minister and his guard had been moments earlier. The two men were wrestling on the floor, each doing his best to gain control of the remote electronic detonator.

      Skipping from the back of one choir chair to another, Lyons made his way down the rows through the choir loft toward the stage. Moan, cries and shrieks could be heard just beneath his boots.

      So far, the vibrations from all of the rounds being fired throughout the church had failed to detonate the IED. But that didn’t mean the next one wouldn’t. Or the one after that. And the minister and terrorist wrestling on the floor were still too close to the device for comfort.

      Lyons let his M-16 fall to the end of its sling as he jumped off the last row of choir seats and landed on the stage. A second later he had drawn the Randall Model 1 fighting knife and was diving on top of the grappling men. Lyons knocked the minister to the side, taking his place and grabbing the terrorist’s wrist with his free hand. Before the man had a chance to push any of the buttons, the Able Team leader had thrust the point of the Randall’s seven-inch blade through his wrist. He twisted the knife back and forth. Ligaments and tendons popped as the Able Team leader literally cut the detonator out of the man’s hand with the Randall’s razor-sharp edge.

      The man with the scarf screamed at the top of his lungs as blood began to shoot from his wrist. Grabbing the detonator from the man’s useless fingers, Lyons put all of his weight on the Randall, feeling it cut through to the other side of the wrist, penetrate the carpet below, then lodge itself in the wood beneath.

      As he rose off the terrorist’s chest, Lyons saw the man try to pull the knife out of his wrist with his other hand. Unsuccessful, he screamed as the pain proved more than he could endure.

      The man with the knife through his wrist fell back in agony.

      The minister had risen to his feet after being knocked clear by Lyons a moment earlier. The Able Team leader looked at him. His hair and clothing were disheveled and torn from the life-or-death wrestling match in which he’d just been engaged, but his eyes were clear.

      Lyons