Sky Sentinels. Don Pendleton

man nodded his head. “Cylinder turns opposite from a Smith & Wesson,” he said.

      Those few words convinced Lyons that the preacher knew his guns. “Keep him here,” he said, looking down at the man still pinned to the floor. “Don’t shoot him unless you have to. He may have valuable information for us later.”

      The minister nodded as he took a two-handed grip on the Python and aimed it at the terrorist’s head.

      Lyons lifted the M-16 and turned toward the congregation. Catching a glimpse of khaki running toward a foyer door at the back of the sanctuary, Lyons directed a 3-round burst into the terrorist’s back. The man dropped to the carpet a foot from the door.

      Turning slightly, Lyons saw a member of the congregation wearing a plaid sport coat and dark tie aiming a Glock at one of the terrorists. But another terrorist, behind the man in plaid, was aiming an AK-47 at his back.

      Lyons swung the M-16 around and sent another 3-round burst over the heads of the people huddling beneath the pews. The bullets all hit the man in the red scarf in the chest, dropping him out of sight a second before the man in plaid triggered his Glock.

      The terrorist the churchgoer had aimed at fell to the man’s pistol fire. He turned his gun on yet another of the intruders, never knowing that the Able Team leader had just saved his life.

      Schwarz and Blancanales had moved down off the stage and were creeping along the sides of the sanctuary, using the pews as cover and targeting any terrorist who presented himself. Hooks and Langford were still battling away from the side of the pulpit.

      Raising his eyes to the balcony, the Able Team leader saw that only one of the attackers was still on his feet, firing downward over the safety rail. Raising his assault rifle, the Ironman caught him in the chest with yet another burst of fire. The man screamed. Then his scream was cut off and a gurgling sound replaced it as his chest filled with blood.

      Falling forward over the rail, he did a half flip before the back of his head struck the top of a pew. By now, the gunfire had begun to subside, and the cracking sound of the falling man’s neck breaking echoed throughout the large sanctuary.

      The various law-enforcement officers waiting outside began to enter the sanctuary through the foyer doors, and suddenly the battle was over.

      “Check for wounded!” Lyons called to Schwarz and Blancanales. Both men nodded back at him. In the meantime, Langford walked to the pulpit and began talking in a calm voice, doing his best to end the screams of horror and other noise from the people under their seats. In a few seconds, heads began to rise as it became apparent that the nightmare was over.

      Lyons returned to where the minister was still covering the man pinned to the floor. “Pastor,” he said, “I need a room where I can talk to this guy. Nice and private.”

      The minister nodded as he handed Lyons’s revolver back to him. “I’ll take you to one of the Sunday-school rooms,” he said. “By the way, thanks.” He paused a moment, then said, “You don’t look like regular policemen. Not even like special state agents like our own Gary Hooks.”

      “Nobody looks like Gary Hooks is my guess,” Lyons said.

      The minister laughed. “He marches to a different drummer, all right. I’m Rick Felton, by the way. Call me Rick.” He stuck out his hand. “And you?”

      “Just call me Lyons,” the Able Team leader said.

      “You must be federal agents of some kind,” said Felton. “Is that what it is?”

      “Sort of,” Lyons said as he knelt next to the man on the floor. “It’s hard to explain.”

      Lyons turned his attention to the man on the floor. Reaching down with both hands, he wriggled his fingers beneath the man’s wrist, then yanked upward. There was still screaming and loud moans all over the sanctuary, but this terrorist’s shriek was loud enough to turn all heads their way.

      Lyons left the knife in the man’s wrist, using the grip to guide him down off the stage and out through the closest exit. As they descended the steps, he saw both the Oklahoma City Police and Highway Patrol Bomb Squads enter the sanctuary. He pointed toward the bomb behind him, then moved on.

      As they neared the door, Schwarz and Blancanales suddenly appeared next to him. “Only two civilian injuries, Ironman,” Schwarz said. “Both superficial flesh wounds.”

      “Lucky,” Lyons said as Felton led them down a hallway past the church kitchen.

      The minister glanced over his shoulder and shrugged. “I think there might have been a little more than luck involved here, don’t you?” he said. When no one answered, he continued to speak as they walked on. “Tell me how I knew you were in the baptistry,” he said, smiling. “Better yet, tell me how you knew I’d know, and that I’d be willing to fight for the detonator until you got to me. And tell me why none of the congregation was killed, and why that bomb never went off. By all rights, we should all be dead right now. You think that all just happened by coincidence?”

      “I don’t know,” Lyons said.

      Felton glanced up toward the ceiling. “Well, I do,” he said, smiling.

      Lyons followed the minister to a door with a metal sign that read Adult II Sunday School. Felton pulled out a key ring and opened it, holding the door wide while Lyons led the captured man inside, still holding the knife. As soon as they were all inside the room, Lyons sat the man wearing the red scarf in a metal folding chair. The man was still making low, whimpering noises that the Able Team leader found irritating. Twisting the knife slightly, he made the prisoner scream.

      “Okay,” said Lyons. “You keep whining like a baby and I’ll keep twisting the knife. Or you can act like a man and I’ll treat you like one.”

      Their captive rattled off something in Farsi.

      “You speak English?” Lyons demanded.

      The man shook his head.

      Lyons pulled on the knife again and the man screamed, “Yes! I speak English! I speak very good English for you!”

      “Somehow I knew you were gonna say that,” Lyons told him. Still holding on to the knife handle, he turned to Felton. It was obvious that the minister was uncomfortable being there while Lyons inflicted even this slight pain on their captive. “Pastor,” he said, “you might want to take Hooks and Langford through the church and see if any of these guys escaped the sanctuary and are hiding someplace. On the other hand, there are probably SWAT teams already doing that, so I’d go back to the sanctuary and get behind the pulpit if I were you. I’m sure your presence would be of great comfort to the congregation during this stressful time.”

      Felton was no fool, and his facial expression told Lyons that he knew the Able Team leader simply wanted him out of there. But he nodded, then looked at the bleeding man in the chair. Even though the terrorist had attempted to murder him, his family and a thousand other people in his congregation, the preacher’s eyes held no malice—only a trace of sorrow.

      Felton looked up at Lyons, Schwarz and Blancanales. “Do what you have to do to save lives,” he said. “And I’ll keep working on their souls.” He paused for a minute, then started for the door. “Someday the lion will lay down with the lamb,” he quoted as he twisted the doorknob.

      “Yes,” Lyons agreed. “But I’m afraid it’s not going to be today.”

       CHAPTER TWO

      “Gadgets,” Lyons said to Schwarz, the Able Team’s electronics expert, “go double-check what the bomb squads are doing and then hurry back.”

      Without a word the Able Team warrior zipped out of the Sunday school room door and disappeared down the hall toward the sanctuary.

      Lyons pulled the red-scarfed man’s arm over the table in front of where he was sitting and braced it with his left hand. “This is going to hurt,” he told