LITMIR.BIZ

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quickly reversed the pistol-grip pump in his big hands and brought the weapon up to bat aside the whistling steel of a ball-peen hammer targeting his skull. Metal struck metal with a loud clang and a spark, and the Canadian knew that although his weapon would not be reliable anymore, it had saved him from a traumatic head injury. He knotted his left hand into a ham-size fist and brought it up hard under the chin of the hammer-wielding rioter. The uppercut literally lifted Manning’s target off his feet and hurled him against another soccer hooligan behind him.

      Manning didn’t have time to celebrate his victory. Instead he whirled and jammed his shoulder against the chest of a third rioter, getting inside of the arc of the young man’s scything knife. The shoulder block turned the blade-wielding hooligan into a plow, which allowed the powerful Canadian to run over four of the surging rioters. He reached up and snared the improvised battering ram by his football jersey and whipped him around as a living club, bowling over more of the rowdy maniacs.

      Manning glanced quickly to one side and saw that McCarter had trapped one of his foes in an armlock and was utilizing the hooligan as a fulcrum and a shield. The big Canadian returned his attention to the combat at hand in time to hear his captive howl from the stab of a sharpened strip of metal into his shoulder. Manning hurled his charge aside, away from where he’d encounter more rioter weapons, and snapped down a judo chop on the forearm that held the bloody shank. Bones cracked under the assault, and the ruffian stumbled backward.

      The dam of stunned figures wasn’t holding angry rioters back as well as it had before, but Manning was aware of the impermanence of a stun grenade’s effects on crowds. With a surge, the big Canadian whipped one muscular arm out and clotheslined it across the throat of a charging hooligan. The London gang member’s feet kicked out from under him and he toppled backward into his compatriots. Manning knew that his only hope was to exploit the number of bodies pitted against him. He was not facing a unified group, moving in perfect synchronicity, despite the singular mind the mob possessed. As such, he was able to trip up one attacker with one of his fellow rioters, limbs entangling each other as one hand was clueless about what the other was doing.

      Even so, Manning realized that he could only maintain this frenetic pace for so long. He kept his body in tip-top condition, maintaining a level of endurance that could carry him across deserts or up the highest mountainsides. Combat, however, sapped that kind of energy far faster than simple cross-country traveling. Manning was directing his muscles with precision and speed, as well as exploiting their phenomenal strength. Such fine manipulation required more intensive use of endurance, and he knew that he didn’t have the kind of power to hold out against the entirety of this roiling throng.

      If Manning’s seemingly bottomless reserves were beginning to run dry, he wondered how his partner was faring as the hooligan horde surged forward.

      FISTS AND FEET FLEW, trying to track the SAS-trained brawler, but they struck McCarter’s prisoner, not the man himself. In the meantime, McCarter lashed out with his long, powerful legs, kicking rioters in the knees or groin. The low blows weren’t pretty and were far from fair, but they were the swiftest and least harmful means of knocking down ruffians without causing undue death.

      The maneuvers reminded McCarter of his favorite American slapstick comedians, who often repeated a gag where they ensnarled themselves against an enemy and utilized the momentum of that foe to spin them around, whirling out of harm’s way while their opponents ended up battling each other. The weight of the man McCarter had hooked himself to was providing sufficient energy for McCarter to spear snap-kicks into abdomens and get enough height to break more than a few jaws. The SAS veteran was tempted to lose himself in the brawl, but his sense of responsibility kept him from full surrender. He pulled his punches and kicks, knowing that he didn’t require that much force to hold his enemies at bay.

      Somewhere in the course of the initial melee, the rest of the crowd that had been halted by the stun grenades had recovered their senses. They started to move in, surrounding both Manning and McCarter, a wall of bodies separating the Phoenix pros. McCarter released his fulcrum, putting plenty of muscle into a hip toss so that when he struck his compatriots, a dozen bodies tumbled together.

      Dozens of hands clawed at McCarter as he back-pedaled. There were too many of them, and he didn’t have the sheer muscle required to hurl rioters against each other. Fortunately, McCarter had a bag of heavy grenades, and he swung them hard. Their mass added to the strength of his swing, and the hard metal canisters for the smoke and tear gas dispensers proved to be unyielding as they struck hands, wrists, arms and shoulders.

      Several of the hooligans stopped short, clutching shattered limbs. The rioting thugs didn’t have much time to comfort their injured body parts as others behind them shoved them to the ground to be trampled underfoot by the surging tide of madness. McCarter whipped the bag of grenades around again and again, feeling the impact of his improvised mace against their bodies, scattering them in a wide arc. Each slashing stroke of the flailing nylon bag was testing the strength of the synthetic fabric, however. His weapon wasn’t going to last forever, and the football hooligans had spread out, encircling the Phoenix Force commander.

      McCarter grimaced, realizing that he was going to have to try something drastic. He hauled the bag back to his chest, reached into its zipper and came away with three or four pins. The roughhousing throng paused as they saw the cotter rings fall away from his fingers, and McCarter lobbed the satchel into the waiting arms of one of the rioters. Before the grenades could detonate, McCarter equalized the pressure in his ears with a loud roar that further worked at slowing the madness-inflicted mob.

      Sympathetic detonations accompanied the lone stun grenade’s explosion, extreme pressure knocking loose safety mechanisms to extend the shattering blast, even as powerful jets of smoke and tear gas erupted from the bag of doom. Hooligans wailed as chemical smoke and concentrated capsicum solution blasted dozens of faces. McCarter was used to working in the clouds created by the smoker canisters, and he had also built up an immunity to the sinus-inflaming effects of the pepper extract. Even so, McCarter’s eyes and nose were running freely. He had been almost at ground zero of the detonations, but the number of rioters had worked in his favor. The press of their bodies absorbed the concussion of the flash-bangs, as well as diluting the tear gas and smoke he would have taken full force otherwise. McCarter fired off quick rabbit punches, tagging sides and abdominal muscles, knocking air from the hooligans’ lungs, forcing them to breathe in deep gulps of atmosphere that was no longer good for them. The cottony cloud that enveloped McCarter and his crowd of opponents provided a shield that limited the advance of dozens who could no longer find him.

      McCarter pumped a knee into the gut of one ruffian who tried to fight on despite his blindness. That foe collapsed to the ground, gasping for breath. Another man took a karate chop to the shoulder, the pain of a broken clavicle taking the fight out of him. The Briton had bought himself time with the use of the grenades, but smoke and tear gas dissipated, and the stunning force released by the high-pressure flash-bangs would fade, allowing enemies to recover their senses.

      Suddenly, McCarter stumbled, pushed back by two of the rioters. He would have fallen on his ass had it not been for the presence of a pair of curved plasticine shields. McCarter glanced back, and hands reached in the gap between the two riot cops, tugging the ex-SAS man behind a wall of lawmen who pushed forward with rubberized clubs and their clear plastic but nigh invulnerable shields. The police were wearing gas masks to protect them from the choking clouds that had been unleashed by the Phoenix Force pros, so they went in with all of their senses working. The phalanx of officers also had the benefit of trained coordination. Each man covered himself and the man to his right, and they moved in step.

      While the mob had a wild might, it was unfocused and undisciplined. They crashed helplessly against the wall of authority that pushed forward. In the meantime, McCarter found himself helped up by two cops who followed behind the living barrier that descended upon the riot. McCarter was relieved to see the Flying Squad’s efficiency in herding the hooligans.

      “You all right?” one of the bobbies asked.

      “I’ve been better, but not by much,” McCarter replied with a wink.

      “Dispatch told us to keep an eye out for you and your partner,”

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