Death Dealers (Stonyman)

STONY MAN 

They're the world's best military warriors and cyber specialists, and they belong to a top secret black ops group that answers to the President of the United States. The Stony Man team is dedicated to striking down terrorism wherever it may be, even if it means paying the ultimate price. 

DEATH MARKET 

Terrorists from around the world have gathered in Hawaii to bid on stolen missiles. Whoever wins will have a weapon powerful enough to destroy an aircraft carrier with a single shot. With the clock ticking, Able Team goes undercover to stop the auction and take down the arms dealer who set up the buy. Meanwhile, Phoenix Force is on the hunt to retrieve the missiles and do whatever is necessary to eliminate the shadowy group behind the theft.

Blackness engulfed Dr. Robert Baxter's vision as what felt like the weight of a mountain range lay upon his back. He tried to shift himself, squirming his way through the cracks that surrounded him. It was midnight-black in there, and as he tried to take a breath, he could feel the pressure of the rubble around him. Fear gripped him, but he flexed his fingers, dug his toes in and inched along.

He could feel the scrape of pebbles and dust against his bare chest. Somewhere in the explosions that had rocked him and the rest of the Naval Weapons Testing Ground, he'd lost his shirt and laboratory coat. His glasses were gone, so even if there were light, he couldn't have seen much farther than the crook of his elbow.

He was forced to stop when he encountered a hunk of reinforced concrete that was far too big to move. Baxter wished that he had the strength to shove such things aside or to flatten himself like putty and slip between the gaps. Hell, at this point, he would have been happy just to be able to see anything Come on, Baxter, you're a rocket scientist. Use your goddamn brain.

The trapped man ran his fingers along the flat surface, testing and touching it. He reached up, following the face of what seemed to be a wall. Fingertips jammed into the corner and Baxter winced as he pulled his hand back across the slope, feeling his knuckles scoured and abraded by whatever was there. However he could tell that there was at least a few inches more room in that gap. There was a section of rebar exposed on the ground, so he clamped both fists around it, pulling himself out of the crevice holding him tightly.

Tugging himself out was arduous and he could feel his slacks tugged, snagged. His back and shoulders, his stomach and chest, all felt the snarled hooks, the poking and gripping talons of what must have been a million little nails gouging at his naked skin. Finally he was loose. He slumped into the rut next to the flat slab.

It must have been a column. If it were wall, he'd have felt the seams between the cinder blocks.

If something could knock down a column that thick, then whatever had struck the building must have been incredibly powerful. He started pulling himself farther along. His legs were still in the crack behind him. Baxter had turned enough that his shoulders could get to their full breadth, his back pressed against the flat, smooth concrete behind him. He had to get his feet loose, and the snarls and splinters that bedeviled his chest and back were now ripping his slacks. One shoe was already gone and the other now popped off, snagged on some outcropping.

Baxter folded his knees to his chest, feet finally freed from the sandwiching weight he'd slithered away from. He let his legs extend beneath him, enjoying the relative roominess of his new prison. Here, he was able to breathe; he could reach down and up.

The space ahead seemed to tilt slightly higher, broadening, giving him more than sufficient room to begin crawling anew, but Baxter wanted to wait, to catch his breath.

However he knew that waiting here until he gathered up more of his strength was just him not wanting to make the effort. This place was safe, it was cozy, but it was merely the illusion of comfort. He needed to get out into the open air.

Baxter rested his forehead against his wrist, swallowing. The rocket scientist was not a people person, living inside his skull most of the time, applying his formidable intellect to the calculations necessary to produce the kind of high-efficiency engines that would make the U.S. Navy's missiles into the fastest things in the air. His latest effort had broken Mach 10 with a simulated 235-kilogram military-grade Pentolite warhead. At 7000 miles per hour, there were few things that could intercept such a projectile, especially given his comrade's work on computer guidance and threat-avoidance algorithms.

Since Exocets had proved capable of devastating warships with warheads lighter by 70 pounds, the new design would be more than adequate to take on an enemy navy, everything up to an aircraft carrier.

That kind of math was a deeply internal thing; it was his haven, his safety. It was akin to this little slot underneath tons of rubble, a concrete shell that cradled and sheltered him in blissful darkness and silence. When dealing with other humans, he was much more at the mercy of prejudices, biases, illogic. The variables introduced in such interactions were not neat, tidy, like physics and mathematics. The laws of Newton were something he turned back to when the concept of networking was simply controlled madness and appeasing those without vision that penetrated down into the truth of reality.

Baxter couldn't help but think of how he looked right now. Reduced to slacks that were shredded and torn, totally distressed, he looked like one of his childhood heroes. Disheveled, mousy-brown hair, long, scrawny limbs, barefoot and shirtless, Baxter was likely a dead ringer for a certain purple-trousered nuclear scientist, freshly awoken from his alter ego's gamma-powered rampages. The rocket scientist regretted having gotten so far into science, though.

"Get moving," Baxter barked to himself. He began squirming along. He set rocks to mark the distance he moved through the crawl space, measuring his height against the distance he moved, counting the seconds necessary to make such a journey. It took twenty seconds to crawl five feet, the distance from his shoulder to his foot, so he estimated his approximate position in the base.

Math was his refuge. He wished that he could rely on something more, something better, actual sight with which to measure, but at least the counting of seconds, the counting of lengths of his body, kept his mind occupied. With focus, he would not give in to fear and despair. Baxter knew that the best means of coping was to concentrate on what could be changed.

Slowly, surely, the space he crawled through grew larger, roomier. He laid himself flat on his belly, pausing and cradling his head between his forearms. Baxter let his thoughts drift to the sight of a man walking on coals of flame, with the caption "doable." A contrasting image, another man walking on strewed children's building blocks, was captioned "impossible."

"Great," he murmured. He rolled onto his side, finding all new misshapen rocks that poked and prodded his ribs. He grit his teeth, wishing for release.

Just one moment. I don't care that the science sucks. Just one instance of gamma strength.

He pushed against the roof above him. Suddenly it began to shift and his heart rate shot into high gear. This wasn't a delusion that he was somehow hefting the weight of the rubble atop him; it was panic in the horror that somehow he'd upset a delicate balance and was now going to crush himself into a fine paste.

"No!" Baxter screamed.

Light streamed down, burning his unaccustomed eyes. He folded up, waiting for the irresistible, implacable weight crushing his bones, squeezing the juices from him. Nothing came through, though. No pressure increased upon him; even through clenched eyelids, he could see the gleaming light of midday.

"We found him!" a voice shouted.

Baxter tried to open his eyes, but the sun was too bright. He could only squint, but gloved hands hooked under one of his arms, dragging him to his feet.

"Dr. Baxter?" He heard the voice in his left ear.

"Yes," he answered, coughing. The ground felt wobbly beneath him. "Yes, I'm Robert Baxter."

"We found him!" someone shouted again.

"You'll be all right," the man told him, draping something over his shoulders. The ravages upon his back and shoulders were not too rough that he...