Castillo’s eyes darted to Schwarz, then to Lyons and back to Schwarz, as though gauging whether the Americans were kidding.
“You won’t kill me,” he said.
“Thanks for the heads-up on that,” Lyons said. “I’m guessing your guards would offer another opinion—if they weren’t sprawled on the ground, drawing flies.”
“They drew on you first. You had to kill them. I’m not armed. Hell, I’m wearing handcuffs. If you kill me, it’s cold-blooded murder.”
“Or justice,” Schwarz said. “Depends on your perspective.”
“Besides,” Lyons said, “if we killed you, who the hell would know? It’s not like your buddies are going to tell anyone anything.”
Castillo licked his lips and shuddered. Lyons guessed the guy would go into shock pretty soon.
Schwarz, who was applying another dressing to the exit wound on Castillo’s back, chuckled. “You’re lucky,” he said to Lyons. “The bullet went clean through. Didn’t hit bone. Even has a small exit wound.”
Lyons scowled. “Next time, I’m breaking out the hollowpoint bullets. No sense shooting someone with a .357 if it’s not going to make a big hole.”
“True,” Schwarz said. “Maybe it’s the bullets. Maybe you’re just losing your touch. Ten years ago, you’d have knocked his entire shoulder out. The shock and the blood loss would’ve killed him. I would’ve been screaming at you for killing him before we could get any information. But now he’s alive.”
“For the moment,” Lyons growled.
Castillo swallowed hard. “You’re insane,” he said.
He leaned into the back of the couch, but immediately groaned in pain and sat forward to ease the pressure on his wounds.
“You’re wasting your time,” Castillo said. “Your friend is dead. He has to be.”
Lyons’s neck and cheeks turned bright scarlet with rage. He took a step forward and Castillo flinched before Lyons checked himself.
“Where the hell is he?”
“I told you—”
“You didn’t tell us dick,” Lyons replied. “Where is he?”
Castillo shifted on the couch and his face screwed up in pain. “I want something for this,” he said. “You have to give me something for the pain.”
Lyons nodded slowly. “You’ll get something,” he said. “First, though, you have to tell us where our friend is. Then we can help you.”
“You’re lying. You’re not going to help.”
“That your final answer?” Lyons asked. “If it is, you’re screwed. We could just leave you to bleed out.”
“Bullshit. I have information. You need it.”
Lyons shrugged. “Maybe,” he said. “Maybe we can get it somewhere else.”
Looking away from Castillo, he ran his eyes over the large room’s interior. “We take your computers, your cell phones, have our people go through them. In no time at all, we’ll figure out where he is.”
“In the meantime,” Schwarz added, “we leave your body out there for the vultures and the foxes to gnaw on. My friend and I like to travel light.”
“Son of a bitch!”
“Where is he?”
The Mexican squeezed his eyes shut and, after a few seconds, licked his lips.
“Escobar’s in Paraguay. That means your friend went to Paraguay, too.”
“What the hell’s there?”
“Training camp.”
“For?”
Castillo’s eyelids looked heavy and Lyons guessed the guy was going into shock.
“Coordinates,” Lyons barked. “Where’s the camp?”
Castillo muttered the numbers and Lyons committed them to memory. He guessed Schwarz had done likewise.
Lyons asked, “What’s the training camp for?”
“Hezbollah. Some other Shiite groups.”
“Wait,” Schwarz interjected, “Escobar’s running a summer camp for Hezbollah?”
“It’s a training camp.”
“Why does he have it?” Lyons asked. “And why does he give a crap about the Shiites?”
“He doesn’t give a crap about them,” Castillo countered.
“So it’s a money thing?” Schwarz asked.
“No,” Castillo said.
“Then why the camp?”
Castillo shook his head.
“Not sure,” he said. “Not completely, anyway. Not many people know this, but he’s only half Mexican. His father was Iranian.”
“So he’s trying to help the Iranians?” Lyons asked.
Castillo snorted. “He doesn’t help anyone.” Castillo fell silent. The creases in his forehead deepened. He opened his mouth to speak once, twice. “What the hell? You guys are going to toss me in a hole somewhere, right?”
Neither of the Able Team warriors said anything.
“I guess Escobar knew nothing about his father growing up. Maybe he knew the guy was from Iran or something, I don’t know. But that was it. A few years ago this guy, Ahmed al-Jaballah, an Iranian, grabbed him in Argentina. Told him all these wild stories about his padre. How he’d been a spy. How he’d been part of an ultra-secret paramilitary unit for the Muslim government. I don’t remember all the crazy stuff. Escobar told me bits and pieces. I dismissed most of it as crap until...”
“Until?” Schwarz asked.
“He bought some property in Paraguay, a coffee plantation. Dumped lots of cash into it. Not his own money. The Iranians and Hezbollah coughed up most of it. If they hadn’t, he wouldn’t have built the place. He doesn’t care about their politics. I just think he’s scared of the Iranians and wanted to give them what they wanted.”
“What about al-Jaballah?” Schwarz asked. “What do you know about him?”
“Nothing. I met him a couple of times. Coordinated some weapons shipments for him. Otherwise, I stayed out of it. This whole thing was just a distraction, far as I’m concerned.”
Lyons and Schwarz asked a few more questions about the facility, but Castillo knew little else about it. “He kept most of it from me, and I didn’t want to know. I have enough to worry about. We move weapons all over the globe. Escobar has a fleet of airplanes that need to be maintained. That stuff doesn’t just take care of itself. You know what I mean?”
“Not easy being a high roller,” Schwarz said.
He turned to look at Lyons when something caught his eye. A glass cabinet stood against a wall, several feet behind Castillo’s couch, and the door leading into the room was reflected in the glass. The silhouette of a man filled the doorway.
Schwarz reacted quickly. He tackled Lyons, hitting the bigger man in the torso and knocking him off his feet. They fell to the ground; Lyons landing on his back, Schwarz landing on top of him. Gunshots rang out. Schwarz rolled off Lyons and came up in a crouch, the muzzle of his compact M-4 searching for a target.
The man in the doorway swung the smoking barrel of his Beretta toward the Americans. Schwarz’s M-4 churned out a fast burst and a ragged line opened up along his opponent’s chest, killing him.
At the same time, the roar of another gunshot filled the room. Schwarz whipped his head in the direction of Castillo in time to see a geyser of blood sprouting up from the guy’s chest, his body tumbling backward, rolling to the floor in a dead heap.
Schwarz looked at Lyons, who was sitting on the floor, the Python extended forward in a two-handed grip. Smoke curled from the Colt’s muzzle. Lyons hauled himself to his feet and holstered the Colt.
“I guess it’s Paraguay or bust,” Schwarz said.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Blancanales wasn’t sure how long he had been unconscious when he finally came to.
A faint musty smell registered with him and even through the fabric of his trousers, the floor felt hard and cold ag
ainst his legs and buttocks. He also caught traces of cologne and cigarette smoke in the air. The smells were too weak to be current. Had someone watched him while he’d been unconscious? Probably.
His skull throbbed from the hit he’d taken. His mouth was dry and he could still taste blood. He must have been restrained at some point; he could see the marks where handcuffs had bit into his wrists, and his hands felt heavy, numb.
Where the hell was he? He strained his ears. He could hear voices. The words were muffled, as though coming through a wall or a door, which seemed likely. But they also were gaining in volume and he guessed the speakers were heading for his cell.
He heard the door lock release and the door swing open. His breath caught in his throat and the muscles of his shoulders tensed as he steeled himself for whatever was next. One guard, a grim-faced SOB, filled the doorway and glared at Blancanales. He raised his left hand and Blancanales saw a pair of handcuffs dangling from the guy’s curled index finger.
A second guard stood behind the first, positioned in the hallway, an AK-74 held in his hands.
“Get up,” the SOB in the doorway ordered.
Blancanales hesitated for a couple of heartbeats. His warrior’s mind automatically began to run the numbers. The guy with the handcuffs had a pistol holstered on his waist and his hand rested heavily on its grip. Maybe ten feet lay between Blancanales and the guard. Blancanales’s head still hurt like hell, and his muscles were stiff from spending an untold amount of time unconscious and inactive. Then there was the second guard who was glowering at him, looking more than happy to put a bullet in Blancanales’s head.
Yeah, Blancanales could try to make a stand. But he’d end up dead. Not that he was afraid to die; he’d had too many close scrapes in his career to sweat death. But his gut told him now wasn’t his time. Maybe he still could pull this out.
He hauled himself to his feet, took a step forward, but let his hands dangle at his sides.
The hardman tossed the handcuffs at Blancanales, who snagged them in midair.
“Put them on,” the SOB said. “Escobar wants to see you.”
Blancanales slapped a ring around his left wrist and then cinched the remaining ring around his other wrist. He let his hands hang in front, fingers curled into fists.
The guard led him from the cell. The one who’d been standing in the hallway walked behind Blancanales, occasionally nudging him in the back with the muzzle of his AK-74. The other hardman walked next to the Stony Man warrior. They probably figured he wasn’t about to run. And, for the moment at least, they were right.
As he walked Blancanales felt the stiffness in his legs begin to ease.
“How long have I been here?” he asked.
Neither guard answered him.
They led him into an elevator. The guy with the assault rifle went in first, followed by Blancanales and the other thug. The guard who’d handed over the cuffs jabbed the first-floor button on the elevator’s control panel. Blancanales glanced up at the number bar over the door and saw that he was being kept on the third floor of the building.
When the elevator doors parted, Blancanales stepped for the door to see how the others would react. Neither man made a move to stop him, which told him they were confident he wasn’t going to escape. He exited the elevator and found himself in a cavernous room with smooth concrete floors, the overhead steel beams exposed.
Along one wall stood several bunk beds; lockers lined another wall. The room almost reminded him of a military barracks. Unlike his cell and the corridors on the upper floors, the air in this room was hot, still and thick, reminding him of a jungle climate. A door along the wall with the lockers was open and the sunlight coming through it and the windows provided the only illumination.
From somewhere outside the building, he could hear the rhythmic slapping of feet against the ground, accompanied by an occasional shout by someone in command.
What he saw on a third wall caused a cold sensation to race down his back, and he had to suppress a shudder. A yellow flag was draped over it. In the center was the green silhouette of a hand clutching an AK-47 rifle.
It was the Hezbollah flag.
* * *
THE GUARD with the rifle jabbed Blancanales in the spine with the barrel. Blancanales turned his head and glared at the guy, who gave him a nasty smile.
“You recognize that?” the guard asked.
“What? You don’t?” Blancanales replied.
The thug’s smile evaporated. He raised his rifle, the barrel sliding over his shoulder and the rifle butt slowly arcing in Blancanales’s direction.
The Stony Man fighter thought he might try to hit him in the back of the head with the rifle. The warrior tensed, ready to dart to one side and let the guy hit air if he tried to strike him. Instead the other guard pushed Mr. Kalashnikov to one side and gestured with his chin at the door.
Saying nothing, Blancanales turned and headed for the door. As he neared it, he could hear someone yelling in a tone that reminded him of a drill sergeant, even if the words were in Arabic. Why would Escobar, a Mexican national, be mixed up with Hezbollah? The latter was a Lebanon-based terrorist group; one with ties to Iran. Was Escobar providing weapons to them? And, if so, was that his only link to al-Jaballah?
He stepped through the door and found himself squinting against the sun for a few seconds as his eyes adjusted to the sudden onslaught of natural light. As his eyes got used to the sunlight, he swept his gaze over his surroundings. He was standing on a pad of concrete that extended out from the building maybe twenty feet before it gave way to a wide expanse of bare earth that stretched the distance of two football fields. A high fence topped with razor wire surrounded the property.
He saw a group of maybe two dozen men, all dressed in desert camouflage uniforms, running in formation around the big property. A cluster of people stood at the edge of the concrete, watching the fighters as they ran. Blancanales immediately recognized Vargas, who cast a sidelong glance at him before turning her eyes away. He also recognized Escobar and realized after a couple of seconds that Castillo was nowhere to be seen, which struck him as significant. Where the hell was Escobar’s second in command, especially if they were in the middle of a crisis?
One of the guards gave Blancanales a hard shove in the back. He stumbled forward a couple of steps before he could regain his footing.
“Go,” the hardman ordered.
Blancanales whipped around and saw the guard with the pistol sneering at him.
“Hope you enjoyed that,” the warrior said. “It’s going to cost you.”
The guy jerked his chin at the cluster of people. “Escobar’s over there,” he said.
Blancanales turned back around and walked toward the group.
Escobar broke away from the others and rolled up to Blancanales, who stopped a few yards away from the gunrunner.
“You’re awake? Good.” Escobar nodded over his shoulder at the group. “Nikki over there...she was worried maybe we’d dosed you too heavily. I wasn’t, though. You’re a big man. I’m sure you can take it.”
Blancanales held the other man’s stare, but said nothing.
“Quiet, huh? Understandable after all you’ve been through. I’m sure you’re heartsick about what happened in Mexico City, losing your friend, Ortega.”
“No friend of mine,” Blancanales said. He nodded in the direction of Vargas, who was walking toward them. “Your girlfriend on the other hand was fairly close to him.”
One corner of Escobar’s lips curled up into a slight smile. He shook his head.
“There was nothing there,” he said. “I knew they were talking.”
Blancanales decided to twist the knife. Get into Escobar’s head. He guessed the weapons broker didn’t “love” the woman at his side. But he sure as hell wouldn’t want to share her, ei
ther, especially with someone like Ortega, who he probably considered somehow below him.
The Stony Man warrior smirked.
“Talking? Is that Spanish for ‘screwing’?”
Escobar, his eyes narrowing into slits, took a step forward, cocked back his fist and rocketed it forward at Blancanales’s head. He’d telegraphed it enough that Blancanales was able to thrust his head back and roll with the punch. Even so, the force of the blow threw his head to one side.
The taste of blood filled his mouth. He gathered up a glob of saliva and blood and spit it on Escobar’s shoes.
“Hijo de puta,” the crime lord said.
Blancanales raised his handcuffed wrists, gave them a slight shake so the chain rattled.
“Slip these off, hero, and we can have a real discussion.”
Escobar hesitated and seemed to consider the challenge. Blancanales wasn’t surprised. By now, the Hezbollah thugs had clustered together several yards away. A couple of men, both neatly dressed, with olive complexions and black hair, had moved in closer to stand next to Vargas. A few of Escobar’s hardmen had formed a half circle behind him, eyes alternating between the two men facing one another.
It was the oldest trick in the book. Blancanales had put the bastard on the spot. A guy—a prisoner in handcuffs, no less—was challenging him. Escobar needed to act. His hand slipped inside his linen jacket and, judging by the murderous look in his eyes, the Able Team warrior guessed he wasn’t looking for the keys to the handcuffs.
Blancanales at this point really didn’t care how the guy responded. He was just trying to buy time, enough that maybe Lyons and Schwarz would ride in to the rescue. Or enough that he could get some information about Escobar’s plans.
The Mexican crime lord was bringing his hand from beneath his jacket.
Vargas stepped between them and rested a hand on Escobar’s forearm.
“You’re forgetting your guests,” she said, her voice soft.
Escobar whipped his head in her direction, eyes beaming pure rage. He jerked his arm away from her, but when his hand came into view from beneath his jacket, it was empty.
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