Sky Sentinels. Don Pendleton

terrorist screamed and jerked the injured limb back against his chest, cradling it like a baby with the other arm.

      “Do us both a favor,” Blancanales said, irritated. “Act like a man instead of a bitchy little girl. You’re a shame to our entire gender.”

      The prisoner quieted down, but small little moans still came from his mouth.

      “Do like he said and shut up,” Lyons growled. “Or I’ll do the same to your other arm.” In truth, the Able Team leader had no intention of torturing the man. Torture was too unpredictable. The subject tended to tell his tormenters whatever he thought would make them stop, and it might or might not be the truth.

      The fact of the matter was, Lyons had even found pinning the man’s wrist to the stage to get the detonator distasteful. But it had been the only practical way to disarm him. Guiding him into the Sunday-school room with the blade still stuck in his arm had been equally unpleasant. But it, too, had been the fastest and most pragmatic way of getting him out of the sanctuary and to a place where he could be questioned.

      Now, as the injured man fell silent and tears streamed down his cheeks, Lyons looked him in the eye. “We’ve got two different routes we can take here,” he said to the man. “You can tell us everything you know about who you are and what your plans were.” He paused for a second, then went on. “Or we can play games until you bleed to death.” He pointed to the man’s wrist where the blood continued to leak in a slow but steady stream. Miraculously, it appeared he hadn’t completely severed any of the major arteries in the process of cutting the tendons and ligaments.

      But he had to have at least nicked one.

      Snatching the red scarf from around the man’s neck, the Able Team leader used it to wipe the blood off his knife. Then, dropping the Randall back into its sheath, he said, “Let’s start with your name. What is it?”

      The man closed his eyes but the tears still flowed from under his eyelids. “Umar,” he finally mumbled.

      Lyons leaned down, stuck a thumb on top of both of Umar’s eyelids and opened them for him. What he saw inside was a man who was as terrified now as the poor, defenseless congregation in the sanctuary had been during the earlier siege. “Okay, Umar,” he said. “Tell me who you and who the rest of the men are.”

      Umar paused a moment, as if trying to think of an answer that would satisfy Lyons but still not betray his countrymen. But when he saw Lyons’s hand drop back down to the grip of the Randall knife, he said, “We are the Pasdaran. What you call the Iranian Revolutionary Guard.”

      Schwarz had reentered the room and now stood on the other side of the man with the punctured wrist. “Right,” he said, leaning down on the other side and sticking his nose an inch away from Umar’s. “And I’m George Washington, father of this country.”

      Umar shook his head back and forth violently. “No!” he declared, his eyes still on Lyons’s hand gripping the knife. “It is the truth. We have been sent here by President Azria himself.”

      Lyons straightened but still stared hard at the man across the table. Could that be true? Javid Azria, the president of Iran, was a megalomaniac every bit as crazy as North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il. And regardless of Azria’s claim to the contrary, everyone knew Iran had been working on a nuclear program ever since he had taken control of the country. And Azria had either refused or stonewalled all attempts by the UN to inspect that program.

      If Azria had already worked out the kinks in his nukes, it might just have resulted in the courage to send official troops onto American soil. That possibility cast a whole new shadow over an already dire scenario.

      “What were you supposed to do here?” Lyons demanded.

      Umar took a deep breath, then looked down at his wrist, which was still spouting blood.

      “I wouldn’t waste too much time if I were you,” said Rosario Blancanales, who stood directly behind the man. “You’ve probably lost a pint or two already. Feeling a little light-headed?”

      Umar slowly nodded to indicate that Blancanales was right.

      “Then I’d talk fast if I was you,” Lyons said. “While you still can. Believe me, you tell us the truth—the whole truth—and you’ll get immediate medical attention. You’ve got my promise on that. If you don’t, we’ll just watch you slowly pass out and then die right here.” He leaned closer and added, “It’s your decision.”

      “We are Revolutionary Guard,” he said. “And our orders, which came directly from the president’s mouth, were to find a large church in the area of the U.S. known as the Bible Belt, take it over during a Sunday-morning service and blow it up.”

      “And you were planning to blow yourselves up with it?” Lyons asked.

      Umar nodded his head, and it was apparent to all three Able Team warriors that the line separating terrorists from officially sanctioned government soldiers had finally been crossed. It was also obvious that Umar was getting close to the point where he’d pass out.

      “So it was a suicide mission?” Schwarz said.

      Umar nodded. “Yes,” he said, his voice weak.

      Lyons knew he’d have to hurry if he planned on getting more intelligence information out of this bleeding Pasdaran. As if to emphasize his thoughts, Umar’s chin suddenly fell to his chest and his eyes closed again.

      Lyons slapped him across the face. “You’re faking it, you little scumbag,” he said. “You think we just gave you a way out of all this. You’re wrong.”

      Either the slap or Lyons’s words or both brought the Pasdaran’s head and eyelids back up immediately.

      “So I can assume that you’re not the only squad of Pasdarans in the country?” Lyons said.

      Umar nodded. “There are dozens,” he said.

      “Where do we find them?” the Able Team leader demanded.

      Umar slowly shook his head, and it was obvious that he really was getting dizzy now. “I do not know.” His words slurred like a drunken man’s. “Each unit knows only their own orders.”

      Lyons straightened to his full height and turned away from the bleeding man, his thoughts returning to Iran and Azria and the nuclear program. American intelligence agencies all knew that most terrorist strikes against the U.S. were backed and supported by the various governments of the Middle East. But this was never admitted to by those governments. To openly send official troops—especially troops as identifiable as these men in the red scarves—was unheard of.

      Carl Lyons knew that Iran had developed nukes. His gut assured him of that. But did they have missiles, too? Ironically, that was where nuclear programs in rogue countries such as Iran usually got stalled. Building nuclear bombs was relatively easy compared to developing their delivery systems.

      Lyons continued to stare down at the bleeding man. Even if the Iranians didn’t have missiles to tote the nukes halfway around the world, there were many other ways to sneak them into the U.S. and then detonate them. And even if they didn’t attack America, Israel was barely a stone’s thrown away from Iran.

      One nuclear explosion in Israel and a chain reaction could easily escalate straight into World War III. Such devastation was unthinkable to the average, sane man no matter what his politics or the country he called home. But to a madman like Javid Azria it might seem to be a perfectly logical step.

      The Able Team leader turned back to Umar and saw that the man really had fallen asleep this time. “Pol,” Lyons said, “go get some cops to wrap this guy up and get him to an ambulance where he can be transfused.” He looked at the man in the chair who was still clutching his arm to his chest in his sleep. “And tell them he needs to be arrested and guarded. We may get more out of him later if he lives.”

      Blancanales hurried out of the room.

      Schwarz and Lyons walked out together. They had taken only