"See any Cubans with them?"
"No time to talk. Here they come. Lay low, pals. I'll try to get some information."
"Pol, you hear me?"
Blancanales clicked his hand-radio twice. Yes. "What do you think? Can you talk?"
Three clicks. No.
"One thing I can say. If those guys from the truck are Arabs, something's gone weird. Over."
Two clicks. Yes.
Boots stomped through weeds. Blancanales heard the gunmen approaching. Like Lyons, Blancanales felt a long way from home, although travel had recently become a regular condition for Able Team; and as usual, the absence of an American environment made him think of Mack, and of their past together. Blancanales froze. The gunmen passed within ten feet of him. He heard their legs swishing through the low weeds. One man clicked a lighter, inhaled a long drag, coughed. He heard the other man take a drag. The smell of Jamaican marijuana drifted in the air.
"That bitch," one of the gunmen swore in a Texas accent. "Pays me a thousand dollars and thinks she's queen for a day. There is a limit."
"Call she a Yankee," the second voice joked in Jamaican patois, "and you sound like de local totes. Dey say, 'Yankee bitch dat, Yankee bitch dis.' All de time."
The Texan mimicked the Jamaican. "I grow my hair into de dreads. You tink I pass—"
"You pass for hippie!"
Both gunmen laughed. Blancanales eased his head up, chanced a glance at the two men. They stood a few steps away, silhouetted against the night-sky stars. Autorifles hung by slings from their shoulders. They passed a cigar-sized joint back and forth.
"A hippie like de chick with de curls. Like de cool blondie—"
"Hey!" the Texan protested in mock anger. "Don't you say I look like her, blond hair or not—" "All you Yankees de same. Look de same, talk de same—"
The Texan flicked the huge cigarette at the Jamaican. Sparks exploded from his face, the cigarette falling somewhere in the weeds.
"You know, you even act like dat one! All you whites alike."
Laughing, the Texan searched through the grass and weeds for the marijuana. He stepped toward Blancanales, crouching, sweeping his hands through the weeds.
A foot in front of Blancanales's face, the marijuana stogie glowed. He scooped up a handful of mud and matted grass and covered it, the ember hissing out.
"What you lookin' for, mon?"
"Can't find the smoke. It's here somewhere. Christ, it's muddy."
Blancanales eased the Beretta 93-R from its holster. Slowly, silently, he brought the pistol up. He kept his thumb on the hammer, but did not cock it. He could not risk the gunman hearing the hammer click back. If Blancanales had to shoot the gunmen, Able Team lost any chance of taking the Cubans.
"Don't worry 'bout it. In Jamaica, dere's ganja for all. De constitution, it say so." A lighter flared as the gunman lit another huge cigarette.
"Put that out!" a voice shouted across the pasture. "You're working tonight. Keeping moving. We paid you to watch this place."
"Yah, boss," the Jamaican replied. He walked away smoking, called back to the Texan, "Come on, mon."
"And that son of a bitch, too," the Texan muttered, following the other gunman. "Thinks his money makes him a Mafia man."
"Hey, mon. His money, it makes ma girl happy."
Their voices and laughter faded. Blancanales returned the Beretta to its holster. He took deep breaths to calm his nerves.
That was close, he thought. Two wandering dopers could have ruined the mission.
Gadgets’ urgent voice blasted in his earphone. "Pol! They're coming. They're—" His voice cut off. To emphasize the proximity of the soldiers, Gadgets clicked his key code to Blancanales. Three clicks, then three clicks again.
"Oh, man," Blancanales muttered. Mack Bolan's Able Team was both the triumph of Pol' s Chicano existence, and the bane of it. He decided to risk a whisper. "Wizard. Can you see them?" '
Three clicks. No.
"Are they behind you?"
"They passed me," Gadgets whispered into his hand-radio. "They're down in between us. There! I see them. I count three of them. They're spreading out in the banana trees."
"But Ironman counted twenty."
"Bet they're spread out all around the strip."
"Bet someone's got the same idea we got," Blancanales countered. "Ambush."
"Ironman, answer," Gadgets called into the hand-radio to Lyons. "Dude of Iron. Thought you were going to get us some information?"
An answer came. Click, click. Yes.
LYONS DROPPED THE DEAD MAN. Pointing his silenced Colt into the darkness, he paused to click an answer to the voices calling through his earphone. Then he felt through the pockets of the soldier, searching for papers, cards, medallions—anything that would identify the soldier or the movement he represented.
Other than a folding knife and magazines for the soldier's AK rifle, Lyons found nothing. He rolled the dead man off the trail, continued uphill. Each kill was, Lyons knew, another shadow in the soul of Mack Bolan, a place where shadows defined a psyche and gave it its tragic but necessary shape.
Branches and vines overhanging the trail created a tunnel of darkness, sometimes total, sometimes dappled with pale blue starlight. Following the sounds of the soldiers' footsteps and clanking weapons, Lyons moved fast through moments of faint light, but stepped slowly through the black voids of shadows, lifting his boots high to avoid tripping on trailside growth that he could not see.
The muzzle of the silenced Colt preceded him into every night shadow, his finger on the trigger and the fire-selector set on three-shot burst.
Voices stopped him at the crest of the hill. Lyons crouched and listened. He heard footsteps crushing the trail's matting of fronds, leaves and mud. Two soldiers appeared, their torsos and their Kalashnikov assault rifles silhouetted against the sky.
"Sayed!" one of the silhouettes called out. Then louder, "Sayed!"
The soldiers talked in Arabic. One of them continued down the trail, calling out, "Sayed! Sayed!"
The other soldier paced the trail, his AK at port arms. He peered into the impenetrable black of the mountainside's jungle, turning to stare in the direction of every small sound.
Groping through the mud and rotting debris, Lyons found a pebble. With a flick of his left thumb, he shot the stone into the foliage directly across the trail from him.
The soldier pointed his rifle at the sound and hissed, "Sayed?" When no one answered, he searched for the source of the noise, pointing his AK, stopping every few feet to stare into the dark.
Lyons stood up behind him, clamping his left arm around the man's throat. He jammed the Colt's suppressor into the side of the soldier's head. The man thrashed and kicked.
"You speak English? Drop the rifle. ¿Habla español?"
The soldier continued struggling, slamming the AK's butt plate back, trying for Lyons's groin but only hitting the Colt's empty holster. Lyons shot him, the point-blank slug smashing his skull.
He let the corpse fall. Wiping blood from his face, he grabbed the man's AK and kicked the corpse off the trail. Lyons returned to the shadows to wait.
Running feet thudded up the path. Making no effort at silence, the other soldier was double-timing through the darkness. As he approached the spot where he had left the other man, he spoke quickly in Arabic. The silence halted him.
"Assad?" He stood in the center of the trail, turning in circles.
Taking one step from the shadows, Lyons threw his arm around the soldier's throat and dragged him backward. He forced him to sit down. Again, with the Colt's muzzle against his captive's head, Lyons demanded: "You speak English? ¿Habla español?"
"I speak, I speak. What you want?" "You want to live? Drop the rifle."
"Yes. I want live."
"Who are you?"
"Saroush Rajavi."
"No, I mean, what's your organization? Group. Name of your force."
"We are fighters for the Anti-Satanic Army."
"Believers. Muslims who fight the imperial forces of the Great Satan, in—"
"Where are the others? Are they waiting for you?"
"They go on to fight. We guards. We look to find Sayed."
"You want to live?"
"Yes. No death."
"Okay, Saroush, you're a prisoner. Do as I say, keep quiet, and you live. You understand? You live."
"Yes, I your prisoner. I no make—"
Lyons pressed the pistol against the young man's back as he released his grip on the throat of the "believer." He picked up the AK from the trail and tossed it into the darkness.
"Now stand up," he said. "Strip off that gear. The knife, the ammunition. Throw it. Now open your shirt. All the buttons. Turn around."
Grabbing the back of his collar, Lyons jerked the shirt down the soldier's back, then lashed his arms together.
"How old are you, Saroush?"
"Eighteen years."
"You have a wife? Brothers and sisters? A family?"
"No wife. Mother and brothers in Iran."
"You cooperate, and you live. You see your family again. I promise. No death, no--"
The drone of a twin-engined plane interrupted Lyons.
THE PLANE CIRCLED THE FIELD ONCE, the engines roar overwhelming the earphone of the hand-radio. Blancanales cupped his hand over that ear to listen to Lyons brief Gadgets. At the corners of the pasture, the brilliant points of the lanterns seared away the night, creating patterns of tropical green that faded to gray and black.
"They're backups for the Cubans," Lyons was saying. "No business tonight. Straight rip-off and bang-bang."
Gadgets laughed. "Leave it to ironman to grab an Iranian terrorist in Jamaica who speaks English. What luck. Wish Mack was here to help figure out this shit."
"Wasn't luck at all. He's the third one I took," said Lyons. "And there will come a time, man, when Mack will most certainly be with us in our kind of night—that much I know, I can feel it. Hey, is the plane landing?"
Blancanales broke in on the conversation. "I'm looking up at it. It's finishing a go-round. Its lights are on. It's coming in,"
"There's no bad guys around you?" Lyons asked. "What can you see?"
Xenon spotlights at the wings' tips lit the pasture like a sudden sunrise. The plane dropped down, cutting treetops, then skipping across the weeds and wet grass. The xenons went black as the plane slowed. Lantern light gleamed from the twin-engined Cessna's midnight-blue enamel. Blancanales watched the plane pivot.
"I'm in the clear. What's the plan?"
"We have to let the Anti-Satan boys make their hit. If there's a fire fight, it'll cut the odds. If the dopers surrender, that's just more confusion when we make the grab. Hope those pre-sets can knock down that crowd."
"We'll find out," Blancanales muttered, touching the radio-trigger of the charges positioned in a pattern around the improvised airstrip. "Now the plane's coming this way."
Propeller wind rippled the grass and weeds as the Cessna taxied over the pasture, bumping and pitching, rapidly approaching Blancanales. Had the pilots spotted him as they landed?
Swerving in a wide arc, the plane cut behind Blancanales. A wing passed over him.
The Cessna completed its turn and stopped its engines only thirty feet from Blancanales. The plane's tail almost touched the brush and banana trees at the end of the field.
The drug-gang leaders—he in his cream-colored sport suit and the blonde in scorching white—hurried across the field toward the plane. The man carried a heavy suitcase. Two gunmen with Uzis followed steps behind, togged in Western-style hats and shirts. Long hair hung down over their shoulders.
An instant of light in the plane's cockpit revealed the faces of two swarthy men. Blancanales keyed his hand-radio and whispered, "The dopers have Uzis. The Cubans are climbing out. Looks like the exchange."
The four dopers waited for the Cubans. The gun-men stood two steps behind the man and woman. They held their Uzi machine pistols in their right fists. Except for the modern weapons, the two young men looked like players from an old Western movie.
The Cubans looked dapper in slacks and gold-braided pilot jackets. They approached the gang leaders with smiles and handshakes. As the Cubans shook hands with the bosses, one put his arm around the man's shoulders. The embrace became a choke-hold.
Pulling an auto pistol, a Cuban fired into the chest of one cowboy, then the other, knocking down both men before they could raise their Uzis. The second Cuban held the blonde in white, and struggled to fire a pistol as the woman screamed and struggled and clawed at his eyes.
A cowboy took several chest hits. On his back, he fired a one-handed Uzi burst through the legs and back of his boss, the 9mm high-velocity slugs punching through the American gangster to send the Cuban who held him staggering backward.
As he watched the wild slaughter, Blancanales re-called the jive he had overheard between the ganja smokers: nobody liked anybody in this gang... .
Muzzle-fire flashed from the trees. High-velocity auto rifle slugs found the gang's sentries. A gunman's sawed-off shotgun blasted once. Slugs from five rifles ripped him.
Despite the pistol shots to his chest, the cowboy continued firing his Uzi. A burst caught the wounded Cuban, the wild spray of bullets hitting him in the legs, body and face. The cowboy aimed at the second Cuban.
The Cuban shoved the woman into the cowboy's auto burst. She jerked twice, fell. The Cuban fired as the cowboy jerked the trigger of an empty weapon. The slug snapped the wounded man's head back. Then the surviving Cuban stepped forward to fire into the heads of the dying cowboys.
Screaming and bleeding, her white clothing now red-splashed, the woman scrambled to her feet and ran, her hair streaming behind her. The Cuban aimed at the back of her head, but did not fire.
Camouflage-uniformed soldiers ran from the darkness. Soldiers laughed as they captured the wounded woman. They called out for the others to join them as she struggled and screamed.
Two soldiers held the woman down. A third soldier extended his AK's spike bayonet, then raised the rifle like a spear. A scream tore through the night. The men laughed.
Blancanales looked away, whispered into his hand-radio. "It's over. All the dopers are dead. One of the Cubans got hit. The second one's trying to help him, but I think he'll be dead of wounds. Anytime you want, I'm ready to go."
"What's going on with the Anti-Satanist Army?" Gadgets asked. "Is that woman dead or what?"
"They executed her," Blancanales answered. He looked over to where they had thrown the woman. He'd assumed the bayonet killed her. But now he heard crying and pleading under the laughter of the gathering soldiers.
"Looks like a gang bang to me," Lyons broke in. "Ironman! Where are you?" Gadgets demanded. "Time to make our move."
"Second the motion. Heads up. I'm coming in with a prisoner."
Blancanales watched the group of men rape the wounded woman. "Even if she's the doper queen, we can't let this crap happen."
"What do you want to do?" Gadgets asked him.
Lyons's voice cut in. "Let's exploit the opportunity. How many can you count around the woman? You see any others?"
"One man's pulling up his pants, walking toward the Cuban," said Blancanales. "I don't see any others wandering around. They all came to the party."
"I'm moving to the edge of the pasture," said Lyons's voice in Blancanales's earphone. "Soon as I get there, we'll drop them with the pistols. Won't know what's hitting them—"
"And when they do, I'll trigger the charges!"
Gadgets’ voice spoke from their earphones. "I tied the prisoner to a tree. I'm moving into position to cover you."
"Here's the plan," Lyons told his partners. "Politician, you and me hit the gang. Wizard, wait until it gets noisy, then hit whoever we miss. Ready? Now!"
Sighting his silenced Beretta on the center of the approaching man's body, Blancanales squeezed off a three-shot burst. The grinnin
g rapist fell on his face. Blancanales flicked the pistol's fire-selector up to single shot and aimed at the back of an Arab's head.
Silent slugs punched into the soldiers. The 9mm slugs that Blancanales fired lacked the velocity for the through-and-through wounds, the bullets only slapping heads forward. The soldiers lurched against the backs of their comrades, then slid to the ground.
Lyons fired .45 ACP hollow points, the impact of the slugs throwing soldiers to the grass. The others, still oblivious, leaned over the woman, cheering and whistling as their comrades violated her.
One soldier turned, saw a friend jolt and stagger as .45 slug tore into his chest. Alarmed, the soldier rushed to his friend. He saw the blood gushing from a chest wound. Instinctively, the soldier glanced at the trees, searching the darkness for the unseen sniper. A 9mm steel-cored slug punched into his eye. He fell backward, jerked and thrashed as he died.
Blancanales paused to key his hand-radio. "Full auto, then I pop the charges—"
Arab soldiers raised their AKs, looking for targets In the tree line. At their feet, the woman—her tight jeans and tube top slashed open—sprawled on the trampled grass, her arms out wide. She struggled. She could not lift her arms from the grass.
Lyons snatched a magazine from his belt, gripped the fold-down handle of his modified Colt and aimed single shots into the soldiers as fast as he could sight.
Over the iron sights of his M-161/M-203 rifle/ grenade launcher, Gadgets watched the scene. The Arabs crouched in a tight circle around the spread-eagled woman. The pale light from the lanterns at the corners of the field threw multiple shadows, leaving the faces of the men gray, their eye sockets black.
Deadly slugs from two directions slammed down the soldiers. Gadgets sighted on three still-standing soldiers, sprayed twenty rounds from his rifle in one sustained burst.
He guessed at a target for his grenade launcher and fired. The 40mm concussion/ flash grenade missed a man shouldering an AK, but tore into the body of a dead Arab. The explosion sprayed flesh as it ripped into the fallen man.
Blancanales flipped switches #1 and #2 on the radio-trigger. He pulled himself into a ball, eyes closed, hands over his ears.
Super Bolan - 001 - Stony Man Doctrine Page 4