Target Acquisition. Don Pendleton

was gripped in two hands.

      Through the lens of his protective mask Enzcio saw two AKM-wielding men in headdresses and robes stumble past. The Cuban lifted his weapon and pulled the trigger, firing on full automatic from arm’s length. He hosed the men ruthlessly, sending them spinning into each other like comedic actors in a British farce. He turned, saw an Iraqi policeman leveling a folding-stock AKM at him and somersaulted forward, firing as he came up. His rounds cracked the man’s sternum, struck him under the chin and cored out his skull. The corrupt Iraqi dropped to the ground, limbs loose and weapon tumbling.

      Gary Manning dropped through the breach, caught himself on the lip of the skylight with his gloved hands and hung for a heartbeat before dropping down. He landed hard with his heavier body weight and went to both knees. He grunted at the impact on his kneepads and orientated himself to the other three Phoenix members, completing their defensive circle as he brought up the cut-down M-60E.

      Without orders the team fell into their established enclosed-space clearing pattern. Manning came up and charged toward the nearest wall, clearing left along the perimeter of the room while James followed closely behind him, then turned right. Encizo tucked in behind Manning as he turned left, and McCarter, also charged with coordination, followed James.

      Manning kicked a chair out of the way and raced down the left wall of the room. Weapons began firing in the space and he saw muzzle-flashes flare in the swirling CS gas. He passed a dead man hanging by chains from the wall. A close-range gunshot had cracked the bearded man’s skull and splashed his brains on the wall behind his head.

      Manning suddenly saw a police officer standing with a pistol, three men with Kalashnikovs in a semicircle in front of him. The Canadian special forces veteran triggered the M-60E in a tight burst, and the 7.62 mm rounds tore the first police bodyguard away as he rushed forward. From behind him Encizo used the MP-7 to cut down the left flank bodyguard before the Iraqi police officer could bring his weapon around.

      Manning took two steps forward and shoved the muzzle of his machine gun into the throat of the final bodyguard as Encizo swarmed around him. The Iraqi stumbled backward, at the blunt-tipped spearing movement, his hands dropping his weapon and flying to his throat. As he staggered back, Manning lifted a powerful leg and completed a hard front snap kick into the man’s chest, driving him farther backward and into the police officer.

      Both men fell as Encizo reached forward and thrust the muzzle of his smoking-hot machine gun into the coughing and half-blinded Saheed el-Jaga’s face, pinning him to the floor. With his other hand Encizo broke the man’s wrist, sending his pistol sliding away.

      Hot shell casings rained down on Encizo as Manning cracked open the bodyguard’s chest with a 5-round burst from the M-60. Blood splashed Saheed el-Jaga’s face as he grimaced in pain, and the stunned and terrified traitor squeezed his eyes tightly shut.

      Manning halted his advance and swung the machine gun up to cover them as Encizo flipped the Iraqi over onto his stomach and used a white plastic riot cuff to bind his hands. Saheed el-Jaga screamed in pain as the shattered bones of his wrists were ground against their broken ends by the Phoenix commando’s rough treatment.

      A block of light appeared in the gas-choked gloom. A knot of well-armed reinforcements surged through the open door from the outside. Manning shifted on a knee, swinging around the M-60. He saw one of the reinforcements fall, the side of his head vaporizing, then a second fell and Manning realized Hawkins had found his range even at this acute angle.

      Manning pulled back on the trigger of his machine gun and the weapon went rock and roll in his grip. He scythed down the confused Iraqi terrorists, cutting into their ranks with his big 7.62 mm slugs. The men screamed and triggered their weapons into the ground as they were knocked backward. He let the recoil against his hand on the pistol grip push the muzzle up, and his rounds cut into the terrorists’ bodies like buzz saws.

      “Phoenix, we have company,” Tokaido warned over the team’s earbuds. “Hellfire number two is away. Danger close.”

      Calvin James spun, bringing up the SPAS-15.

      The combat shotgun boomed like a cannon in his hands and steel shot scythed through the CS-tinged air to strike two AKM-wielding figures. The Iraqi terrorists were thrown backward and spun apart, arms flying in the air, weapons tossed aside by the force of the blasts.

      One of them tripped over a wastepaper basket and went down hard. The second bounced off a wall and tumbled into a chair. James moved between them, double checking as he went. The one on the floor was leaking red by the gallon from a chewed-up throat and torn-open chest. The second was missing enough of his face that the ex-SWAT officer could see his brains exposed.

      There was a burst of rifle fire and the SPAS-15 was knocked from James’s hands. Heavy slugs slammed into the ceramic chest plates of his Kevlar body armor. He staggered backward and grunted. His shoulder hit the wall and he went to one knee. Reflexively his hands flew to his Beretta. As he drew the handgun David McCarter lunged past, the M-4 carbine up and locked into his shoulder, the muzzle erupting in a star pattern blast.

      He saw the figure wearing an expensive black silk thobe at the last moment and pulled his shot. The 5.56 mm rounds struck the man in his legs and swept him to the floor of the building. Bright patches of blood splashed in scarlet blossom on the figure’s thighs.

      Behind them the front of the building exploded as Tokaido’s Hellfire struck.

       CHAPTER SIX

      McCarter was thrown to his knees. He grunted with the impact as something heavy and wet struck him between the shoulder blades, then he looked down and saw a severed arm lying on the floor. He felt the heat of the raging blaze behind him.

      He struggled to his feet.

      “Talk to me, people!” Akira Tokaido shouted over the line. “Talk to me!”

      McCarter didn’t answer but lunged forward. Abu Hafiza was screaming from his shattered thighs but was pulling a Jordanian JAWS pistol from out of his robes. McCarter slashed out with his M-4. His bayonet caught the man across the forearm, slicing a long ugly gash. The Iranian screamed again as he dropped the pistol.

      Still on all fours McCarter scrambled forward, wielding the M-4 in one fist. The blade of the wicked M9 bayonet jabbed into the soft flesh of Abu Hafiza’s throat and pushed the man backward.

      “Freeze!” McCarter snarled in Arabic. “Move one fucking millimeter and I’ll put your brains on the wall!” He lashed out with the bayonet again, lancing the tip into the meat of the Iranian’s shoulder and opening a small wound.

      “Speak to me, Phoenix!” Tokaido hollered again.

      “Manning up,” Gary Manning answered. “That was very danger close, my man,” the Canadian special forces veteran said.

      “Pescado, is good,” Encizo said. “I’m knee deep in tango guts, but that blast blew the front off the building.”

      “Copy that,” Tokaido said. “They had two platoon-size elements as reinforcements at the door. Forty, fifty guys all bunched up at the entrance.”

      “McCarter up,” McCarter said. “But Cal took a round and I have our boy.” He paused. “If we’re clear, I need help.”

      Instantly there was a reaction from behind him and the massive frame of Gary Manning appeared by his side as Encizo scrambled over to pull security near the prone Calvin James.

      Encizo leaned in close, his eyes hunting for enemy motion from behind the lenses of his protective mask. “Speak to me,” he demanded. “You okay, bro?”

      James turned his head and opened his eyes. He opened his mouth to speak but no sound came out. Encizo, ears still ringing from the Hellfire blast, shook his head to clear his hearing.

      “Speak, bro!” the Cuban demanded.

      James lifted his head and muscles along his neck stood out with the effort. His lips formed the words under his protective mask and his eyes bulged with his effort under the