"You've got it. Just don't dick around."
"We'll be there, man."
And they were gone, two shadows merging with the darkness. Barring any unforeseen disaster, they would be there when he needed them, Politician knew. For all their grousing, all their banter, neither one of them had ever let him down. Nor ever would, intentionally.
Blancanales gave them five, then made it six for safety's sake. Alone, he circled back in the direction of a rutted track that they had crossed in their reconnaissance, apparently the single access road connecting with the target compound. Jeeps could probably negotiate the path, but Blancanales wondered whether any larger vehicles had managed to survive the journey since the camp's original construction, finally deciding that it didn't really matter, either way. As long as no one drove up on his blind side tonight, he would be fine. Tomorrow they could run the frigging Grand Prix through this dump for all he cared.
The guards were careless. Neither of them noticed him before he closed the gap to thirty yards, and Blancanales could have taken both at that range. If everyone inside the compound was as laid-back as the men on guard, the Able warriors stood a decent chance of walking out of this one intact.
Once noticed, he was ordered first to halt, then cautiously approach the gate. The sentries covered him with their Kalashnikovs, eyes wary, scuttling around the dark perimeter in search of shadows. When the two of them were satisfied that Blancanales was alone, they started barking questions at him in rapid-fire Spanish.
When they asked his name, Politician told them he was called Antonio Alvarez. He was miles from home — a tiny village on the Rio Coco — walking to Managua on an errand of the utmost urgency. His brother had been a merchant in Managua but had lately disappeared, a fate he shared in common with a growing list of Nicaraguan citizens. Antonio's poor mother was despondent; she insisted that he leave their crop to rot and seek his brother in the distant city.
If the sentries were suspicious, nothing showed. In fact, they might have heard the story countless times before, for all the interest they displayed. Their faces were impassive until Blancanales asked for pity, then for food. At once the bland expression turned to scowls, and one of them began to curse "Alvarez" bitterly, denouncing him as an ungrateful peasant bastard who thought only of himself, ignoring the requirements of his country. Blancanales took it, eyes downcast, already tuning out the diatribe and counting down the doomsday numbers in his mind.
Soon.
A burst of automatic fire erupted somewhere on the far side of the compound, followed instantly by other weapons and startled voices raising the alarm. The sentries wheeled in the direction of the gunfire, torn between their duty station and the obvious disturbance, one of them remembering "Alvarez" after it was far too late.
Politician had his Beretta up and tracking by the time his opposition noticed anything amiss. He took the older one first, a three-round burst chewing off the gunner's jaw and blowing him away before he had a chance to raise his AK-47. Number two was quicker in response, but it was still no contest. Blancanales shot him in the chest at point-blank range, the impact punching him around and out of action in a shattered heartbeat.
They had locked the gate, a simple hasp and padlock that couldn't withstand the close-range blast of Pol's Beretta. He was in and holstering the pistol, swinging up the G-11 from beneath his arm, before the troops in residence had time to realize that they were facing war on two fronts.
Downrange and to his left, a solitary uniform was scrambling up the ladder to his lookout tower. Now, with one of the attackers plainly visible, he hesitated on the ladder, hauling out an autoloading pistol, plinking desperately at Blancanales from the limits of effective range.
He pinned the gunner in the G-11's optic sight and stroked the trigger. His target was airborne in a boneless cartwheel, shrieking out his life before he hit the ground. There was a single, spastic tremor, and the twisted corpse lay still.
The fat was in the fire, and Blancanales had another reason to despise Plan B. He was alone inside the hostile compound, separated from his two companions by the body of a Sandinista strike force which, for all its ineptitude, still had the men and guns required to blow a solitary soldier's ass away. Whatever small security remained, Politician knew it lay in linking up with his companions, somewhere near the center of the camp.
He leveled two more soldiers with a blazing figure eight and double-timed for the interrogation building. Gadgets and the Ironman would be waiting for him there. If they were still alive.
* * *
The fence had been no problem; it wasn't electrified, nor was it effectively patrolled. The Sandinista sentries used a kind of hit-or-miss technique, which mostly missed, and Lyons had no trouble clipping through the chain link with a pair of insulated cutters, opening a hole wide enough for Schwarz to wriggle through behind him. When they were inside, he bent a strand of the wire to secure the makeshift gate.
They moved out swiftly, circling behind the darkened, vacant barracks, playing tag with walking sentries who would never have survived a single night as stateside watchmen. Apathy had made them careless; carelessness would get them killed. All in due time.
Schwarz had been right about their pigeon. If eight days under torture hadn't made him spill his guts, the guy would never break, but they couldn't afford to take the chance. His captors might have everything already; they might also be reluctant to believe it. He might confess to anything; and they wouldn't know that most of it was crap until the analysts had time to pick it all apart. But the men of Able had a chance, provided that the commandant hadn't been sending out his information piecemeal. If the captain had his mind set on a solitary message, there was still a chance for Able Team to block transmission.
But it would require elimination of all witnesses.
Twenty paces from the interrogation shack, their luck went sour. A gunner coming back from the latrines apparently decided on a shortcut, rolling up behind them in the darkness. The trooper almost stumbled over Schwarz, recoiling, fumbling for his rifle even as he tried to find his voice.
He found them both together, and it was too damned late to shut him up. Gadgets had his rifle up before the gunner found his AK's safety, and one round through the face was all it took to blow the guy away.
"Let's shag it!" Lyons grated, painfully aware that they had lost the advantage of surprise. Somewhere on the perimeter, a nervous sentry opened up on shadows, riddling the night, and Lyons heard what might have been a fading echo from the general direction of the gates. The final rounds were parabellums, unmistakably, and that meant Blancanales had engaged the opposition. They were up against it now, with nowhere left to go but forward, down the dragon's throat.
The Ironman's G-11 chopped three gunners down before they reached the squat interrogation hut. He raked the front door high and low, went in behind a flying kick with Gadgets riding on his shirttails. There were five men in the room, but three of them were indisposed: two uniforms, preoccupied with dying at the moment, and a naked, mangled figure strapped atop a makeshift operating table. Lyons recognized the other two as the commander and his Anglo sidekick.
Recognition took perhaps a second. Time enough for the commander's bowels to empty, while his tall companion faded back a pace to stand beside the operating table. One hand was wrapped around a standard-issue .45, its muzzle pressed against the forehead of the battered hostage.
"Easy, boys," he cautioned. "Let's not lose our heads."
The bastard was American, and Lyons felt his anger trembling on the edge of overload. Still, the G-11 was rock steady in his hands.
The gunner didn't miss it as he spoke. "Don't try it, man. We're checking out of here together."
Lyons marked a weary resignation in the other's eyes, and he was almost ready for it when the gunner blew his captive's face off, whipping up his .45 to bring the Able warriors under fire. Almost. And even so, he might have lost it if the camp commander hadn't bolted, screaming, squarely into h
is companion's line of fire. Round two smacked into flesh beneath the captain's outflung arm, and he was sagging to his knees as Schwarz and Lyons brought their rifles into play as one, twin streams of fire converging on the tall man's chest. The impact lifted him completely off his feet and slammed him back against the corrugated wall.
"We bitched it," Gadgets muttered.
"Negative. We exercised the secondary option. Let's haul ass."
"Who was that guy?"
The Ironman played a hunch, their precious seconds slipping through his fingers as he crossed the room in four strides to stand above the fallen gunner. Reaching down, he ripped the tiger-stripe material aside and found what he was looking for around the dead man's neck. Disgusted, Lyons tore the dog tags loose and stuffed them in a pocket, turning back toward Schwarz.
"GI?"
"We'll know when we get home."
The Able warriors were preparing to evacuate when a familiar voice came from outside.
"You guys all done in there, or what?" Politician growled.
Another burst of automatic fire eclipsed his voice, and Lyons braced himself to take the threshold in a crouch. There would be time enough to think about the blond American when they were free and clear, provided that escape was still a possibility. The dog tags in his pocket might be souvenirs from Vietnam or peacetime service — countless veterans retained their tags on separation from the military — but a small alarm was chiming in the back of Lyons's mind. He didn't read the gunner as a wild-eyed veteran whose chain had finally snapped, and Lyons didn't want to think about the grim alternative.
There were more pressing matters on his mind right now, like twenty Sandinista troopers bent on blowing him away. He would have to deal with them before he could confront the problem of the blond American, and there was still a decent chance that he would never get that far.
Outside, the darkness was alive with deadly, winking fireflies. Rifle bullets drilled the corrugated metal walls around him, making them a jagged honeycomb. And there was no time left for speculation.
The Ironman cleared the threshold in a running leap, and he was firing as he hit the ground.
3
The point man called a rest stop shortly after noon, and Yakov Katzenelenbogen was relieved. They had been climbing steadily since breakfast, with a single fifteen-minute break at nine o'clock, and Katz was hearing protests from the muscles in his back and legs. He wasn't weakening, but all of them could use a rest.
McCarter waited for them twenty yards up slope, beneath an overhang that would protect their momentary bivouac from prying eyes. The countryside was wooded, lush with undergrowth, but Katz couldn't assume they were alone. In fact, he operated on the contrary assumption: that their enemies were close at hand, alert to any hint of hostile movement in the area. If he was wrong, if they were safe, another day was wasted.
He waited with McCarter while the others made their way up the slope. Encizo. Manning. James. Four men he trusted with his life, implicitly. They were professionals, the rough equivalent of modern samurai, and Katz had seen the men of Phoenix Force work martial magic. Sitting in the shade, his aching legs stretched out in front of him, the Israeli wondered if they would be able to produce the rabbit this time on command, with so much riding on the outcome of their mission.
Situated ten degrees above the equator, Costa Rica should have been a sweatbox, but the altitude together with the proximity of the Pacific and Caribbean, combined to offer sweet relief from scorching temperatures. The forest that surrounded them wasn't precisely jungle, but it fit the bill as far as Katzenelenbogen was concerned. A warrior weaned on sweeping desert combat, Katz felt slightly claustrophobic among the trees. It was a quirk that training had relieved, but which he probably would never fully overcome.
"How far to contact?" Calvin James inquired of no one in particular.
"If our informant was correct, we've got another four kilometers," McCarter said.
"I hope to hell he got it right this time. These little nature walks aren't exactly my idea of a rewarding afternoon."
"We'll find them, Cal. Don't worry."
"I'm not worried, man. I'm psyched. I wanna rock and roll with these jamokes."
"Be sure you save a dance for me," said Gary Manning. The Canadian was seated opposite James, his nimble fingers disassembling the Browning automatic pistol that he carried, reassembling the weapon perfectly without a downward glance.
"No sweat, my man."
Their target was a mobile column of insurgents, which had crossed the Nicaraguan border into Costa Rica late in February. Since that time, the hit-and-run guerrillas were believed responsible for several dozen violent incidents, including a grenade attack that had left a rural school in ruins, eighteen children lifeless in the wreckage. They had terrorized outlying villages, invading larger towns in groups of three or four to plant explosive charges, snipe at local politicians, ambush law-enforcement officers.
The Costa Rican government was ill-prepared to cope with terrorists who seemed to be well-disciplined, well-armed and well-supplied. The nation's army had been demolished in 1949, and since that time defense had fallen to the civil guards: three thousand part-time "soldiers" with a minimum of training and equipment that was generally obsolete. A backup force of twenty-five hundred rural guards were even less prepared to deal with cold professionals, their "training" limited to apprehension of assorted highwaymen and petty outlaws in the countryside.
Costa Rica's military weakness was the mirror image of its greatest strength. Established as a sovereign republic during 1848, the nation was apparently immune to the political disease of military rule, which plagued so many of its neighbors. Aside from twelve years of totalitarian control endured in the nineteenth century, Costa Rica had enjoyed one of the most democratic governments in all of Latin America. The army had been broken up in 1949 to keep that record safe, and there had been no major problems following disbandment of the military.
Until now.
It wasn't Katzenelenbogen's job to theorize about the motives of the terrorists he sought. He was content to let the deeds of savages define their words, fill in the gaps of logic that were ever-present in their stilted, semiliterate communiqués. It made no sense to think of armed guerrillas battling for "freedom" in a democratic nation, waging war against its children and elected spokesmen in the name of "liberation." Katz had seen enough of "freedom fighters" in his homeland: brutal men with lifeless eyes. They may have started out as soldiers of a cause, but somehow they had wound up killing for the pleasure of it, randomly selecting sacrificial victims to appease their own abiding rage.
The gruff Israeli knew that there was no negotiating with such men. They only understood one language, and the men of Phoenix Force were trained to speak that language fluently, conducting lethal conversations with their military hardware, pledged to have the final word with terrorists wherever they were found.
Costa Rica was a friend of the United States, a charter member of the OAS, but there was more behind the Phoenix mission than a simple offer of assistance to a neighbor in need of help. The fact that Costa Rica's enemies had come from Nicaragua, at a time when the U.S. administration was fighting for a green light to unseat the revolutionary Sandinista government, made all the difference in the world.
If solid evidence could be secured implicating Nicaragua in the violence aimed at Costa Rica, if the Sandinistas were themselves involved, it might persuade some undecided congressmen to vote appropriations for the Contra forces that were languishing for lack of arms and cash. A Sandinista border crossing into Costa Rica was as good as money in the bank to Washington, and Phoenix Force had been assigned to prove it… or, in the alternative, to find out what the hell was going on.
Katz had no vital interest in politics. He knew from past experience that there were decent men in every party, every movement, just as there were also rogues, embezzlers and scoundrels. The Israeli put his faith in people, rather than the cliques to which they p
eriodically attached themselves. A man might change his politics from week to week, but he could never really change his soul.
Katz had no fear that two- or three-score terrorists would topple Costa Rica's government. He was concerned, instead, with the hell that they could raise before somebody finally brought them down. What worried the Phoenix leader was the shattered lives and broken dreams of common men and women caught up in a larger game that they could never hope to understand. How many times, on tours of the kibbutzim at home, had he seen men, women and children slaughtered by the homicidal pawns of men who lusted after power from a distance, men who wouldn't personally soil their manicured hands with Cosmoline and blood, but who were quick to order assaults, reprisals and wholesale murder of the innocents. His war was with those other terrorists, the twisted souls who kept the murder teams supplied with cash and weapons, but he knew that he could reach them only after dealing with their pawns.
The threat was here and now, in Costa Rica, and the men of Phoenix Force had been assigned to treat the lethal symptoms with a dose of cleansing fire. If they uncovered evidence that opened up another level of the lethal hierarchy, it would be a bonus. But for now, the shock troops took priority.
The warriors had been trolling for their targets, working sectors in the highlands for eleven days without a hostile contact. Twice they had discovered evidence of recent camps, apparently accommodating twenty men or more, and three days back they had discovered the survivors of a recent attack. The village, small to start with, had been whittled to a single shack when they had arrived, the others torched or shattered by explosive charges, thirty-seven corpses huddled in an overgrown ravine that had become their common grave. Survivors — four in all, with one of those severely wounded — told a tale of men in uniform who came by night, demanding food and shelter, sex, exploding into brutal violence when the villagers were slow to acquiesce. The massacre had taken forty minutes, start to finish, and its perpetrators had been three days gone when Phoenix Force had arrived.
Rogue Force Page 3