Orbital Velocity. Don Pendleton

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СКАЧАТЬ little place, but it could hide at least three more men inside. Lyons was going to have to ask about Plan B before he got to the others.

      Lyons exploded from his hiding space with the speed that had made him a star football player in high school and college. Powerful legs propelled him along like a human rocket, and he caught up to the anxious neo-Nazi biker before he could make out the thump of feet or the trainlike pants of breath escaping the ex-cop’s nose and mouth. The denim-clad gang member turned just in time for Lyons’s brawny arm to catch him right across the throat. Momentum and velocity slammed the Reich rider to the ground hard, his head bouncing on the tarmac.

      Breath released in a subdued “oof,” thanks to the force that Lyons had applied to his throat, and his face was clenched up in a painful wince. The undercover biker must have hit the back of his head hard on the ground, which was fine with the Able Team commander. A little pain was a handle with which he could convince his prisoner to talk. He didn’t have much time before whoever the motorcycle thug had come here with came looking for him.

      “Plan B?” Lyons growled, drawing his Protech automatic knife. A simple press of the button and the five-inch serrated blade flickered into being right before his prisoner’s eyes. Shock registered on the man’s face as he tried to squirm away from the razor-sharp cutting edge that ended in a wicked needle tip.

      The biker had trouble getting enough breath to speak louder than a harsh whisper thanks to Lyons’s weight and the placement of his forearm. There was also an enraged madness flickering behind Lyons’s eyes, informing the downed criminal that if he cried out for help, the burly warrior would slice his face off and leave him to die slowly.

      “I’m not asking again,” Lyons said, resting the edge of the knife against the biker’s left eyebrow. One flick of the wrist, and the biker knew he would be blinded and mutilated. It was a basic, inborn fear. The blind rarely lasted well in the days before the modern world. The biker himself not only had the gruesome mental images of his eyes punctured running through his mind, but also the realization that he would be ostracized by his circle of acquaintances. Riding with the gang would be out of the question, as well, as he would have failed his brothers. There was also no guarantee that Lyons wouldn’t take out the other orb, too, leaving him blind. He would lose the life he’d known for the past decade or so.

      “We’re supposed to meet up with another group. They tell us the location when we call them,” the man said.

      “You guys are too tight not to have a password on hand,” Lyons mentioned. “A code word to let them know everything is all right.”

      “I don’t have that,” the thug confessed. “Bones does.”

      “Which one is Bones?” Lyons asked.

      “He has a baby skull on a necklace,” the biker told him.

      “How many others?” Lyons asked.

      “Two,” the prisoner confessed. “Don’t mess my eyes up, man.”

      Lyons nodded, but that didn’t preclude reversing the blade, then punching the pommel of the knife against his temple. The steel-reinforced fiberglass handle was less fragile than the small bones of the human hand, which broke easily when punching a man in the skull. Out cold, the biker wouldn’t be much of a threat now.

      Lyons rose from the ground and scanned the VOR station. One thing in his favor was that few such transmitter buildings had windows installed. Unfortunately, such structures had very limited numbers of entrances. In this case, there were two, parallel to each other. Lyons could try to go through the front door, but that would leave him a target for armed men inside. Three-to-one odds wasn’t new for the Able Team commander, and indeed, he’d handled far worse.

      Lyons preferred to fight smart, as well as hard. He scooped up the unconscious biker and put him in the luggage cart’s driver’s seat. The cart itself was hardly a step up from a riding mower, except with an engine that let it pull thousands of pounds of luggage a day. Lyons strapped the biker in, started the engine, then steered toward the VOR station’s door. His final act was to push his former prisoner’s foot against the accelerator.

      He was setting bait, getting the bikers inside the building as bunched up as possible. A slow-moving cart bumping against the side of the station would draw curiosity, while anything faster striking the structure would send everyone packing.

      With the cart set up, Lyons jogged along in its shadow, easily keeping up as he moved in a crouch behind the low-speed hauler. It struck one of the doors and crunched to a halt, its wheels grinding against the ground and causing the door to rattle. Lyons slipped out of sight behind the hauler and the unconscious biker.

      Sure enough, the door opened a crack. Then a little farther. Lyons stayed hidden in the shadows, his do-rag tugged down to hide the glint of his blond hair in the ambient light.

      “Toady? Toady, what the fuck? You drunk again?” a voice challenged.

      “What’s up?” another asked.

      “Damn fool passed out riding a goddamned luggage trolley around,” the man at the door said. Lyons saw a bone-white globe around the man’s neck. He stepped out into the open, and the other two men joined him.

      Lyons had set his bait well, as Bones stuffed his big shiny stainless revolver into his waistband. The three of them walked closer to Toady in his perch, and one of the bikers leaned over the dashboard, looking for the ignition to stop the cart’s unrelenting “assault” on the locked door.

      “Of all the—” Bones began.

      Lyons didn’t let him complete his curse toward his fallen comrade. With a lunge, the big ex-cop burst into view, his forearm crashing against Bones’s jaw with the force of a sledgehammer. Lyons wanted the skull-wearing freak out cold and out of the fight to prevent the possibility that the other two could keep Bones from speaking. The biker toppled backward like a felled tree, but Lyons didn’t hear him fall, as he was too busy concentrating on other problems. One of the bikers was stooped over to catch Bones, but the last of them reached for a black 1911 he had tucked into his belt.

      The handgun made him a target for Lyons, who lashed out with mae geri, the Shotokan front kick. Lyons had been a karateka for several years, since just before he’d joined Able Team, and his familiarity with the blunt, direct Shotokan style had proved to be more than an edge in countless fights at home and abroad. The blow struck the biker in the stomach, just below his navel, driving the wind from his lungs and folding him over reflexively. Thus positioned, Lyons automatically transitioned to a ushiro empi chop, bringing his elbow down savagely on the enemy’s back.

      The gunner struck the ground face-first, mouth and nose gushing blood as they rocketed against the concrete. Lyons flipped the man onto his back and plucked the 1911 from his waistband. He dumped the magazine and worked the slide to eject the one in the pipe. He followed with a press of the thumb and a flick of the slide stop out of the frame. Now the weapon was useless, in two pieces and tossed away in two directions.

      “Think you’re hot shit?” said the biker who’d lunged to Bones’s aid.

      Lyons regarded the opponent who was reaching for his own iron. With a suiki uki block, Lyons scooped the man’s hand away from the handle of his sidearm, and he followed it up with his one-knuckle fist, his favorite punch in the art. With his knuckle projecting like a spearhead, he struck the biker in the breastbone with enough force to halt his breathing. Lyons stiffened his hand for a shuto strike and plunged the hardened blade of flesh and bone into his foe’s sternum. Fetid breath escaped from the СКАЧАТЬ