"There's the objective," Colonel Furst shouted over the rotor noise. Furst was square-shouldered, with muscles straining his tailored fatigues. Years of combat and prison had not marred his movie-star good looks.
Furst pointed to a series of concrete buildings alongside an asphalt road. The buildings had only walls and roofs. Along the road, several old cars and trucks were parked.
"Here comes the lead ship now," Furst shouted. "Inside that helicopter, there's a hundred steel tubes, all loaded with 106mm recoilless rifle rounds and triggered electrically. It's very effective. Watch."
Dropping down, a Huey paralleled the road at a hundred miles an hour. An instant before it came to the buildings and the parked vehicles, the Huey climbed suddenly, then banked. Fire flashed from its side.
A chain of explosions ripped the road and clustered buildings. Blazing seconds later, gutted hulks burned on the road. Dust and billowing smoke obscured the buildings. Wheeling in the sky, the Huey swept down again. A second chain of explosions hit the buildings and vehicles from the opposite direction. Shattered concrete and twisted metal was all that remained.
"That was twenty rounds," Furst announced, "leaving eighty rounds in reserve. Now here's the clean-up squad. The other troops take blocking positions."
Three Hueys swept in low, the door gunners spraying the target with machine-gun fire. One touched down near the wrecked trucks. The second and third split, the second landing on the road three hundred yards to the north, the third three hundred yards to the south. The squad from the first helicopter sprinted into the smoke and fire. The other two squads fanned out along the road.
"The clean-up squad makes sure that everything is dead," Colonel Furst concluded.
"Excellent," Monroe nodded, leaning back against the seat. He rested his head against the bulkhead and mouthed the word again. "Excellent. Excellent."
* * *
Electronic funk filled the interior of the limousine. Half-smiling, her face a mask of Quaalude pleasure, Mrs. Monroe swayed slightly to the rhythm. Her features revealed her heritage, her defined, almost aquiline nose and high cheekbones showing her Indian blood, her full lips and round eyes the Spanish. Designer clothes and gold jewelry revealed her wealth.
Dr. Nathan, Tate Monroe's personal physician, glanced into the searing blue of the midday sky. A thin, pale young man from New York City, he sucked hard on the last inch of a cigarette, opened the limo door for an instant to flick the butt outside. Then he lit another with the limo's gold lighter.
"Mrs. Monroe, this is absurd. Your husband contracted me as his doctor. I have no responsibilities other than his health. I cannot — by contract — ever be more than one minute away. I am on call twenty-four hours a day. Which is all very reasonable, considering the condition of his heart.
"But what does he do? He goes up in a helicopter. What does he say to me? 'Wait here, I'll be back in an hour.' Do you have any idea what kind of stress that will put on his heart? I don't mean just the excitement of flying around in the sky with his security personnel, I mean the altitude!
"The higher someone goes, Mrs. Monroe, the more demand on that muscle, and your husband has one sick muscle in his chest. I cannot believe what he..."
"Only another month, doctor," Mrs. Monroe interrupted. She turned to him, her eyes heavy-lidded with drugs. "Perhaps sooner. Can you not have patience with... your patient..." She laughed at her pun, throwing her head back against the seat, and the laugh died. She closed her eyes, rubbed her cheek against the leather of the seat. "Only another month," she murmured.
"Mrs. Monroe," Dr. Nathan began.
"Please call me Availa. I tell you so often..."
"Mrs. Monroe. Your husband may not survive the year if he continues disregarding my instructions. I don't want to have..."
Availa Monroe came upright, her eyes suddenly hard, her lips curling in disdain. "You don't want! What does it matter what you want? If my husband..." she spat the word "...has another month of life, he will have his revenge. And that is all he wants. What you want, what I want, it is nothing. Want..."
Her anger gone, she lay back against the seat again, her eyes closing. She spoke without opening her eyes. "Tell me, doctor. What is my age?"
Dr. Nathan studied her face with concern. "Those pills are dangerous. They are habit-forming and have long-term toxic effects..."
"My age, doctor."
"Twenty-five and months."
She laughed. "Thank you for lying, doctor. But I know I am so very old. I have so much to forget. I must be old."
"Mrs. Monroe... Availa, please. I don't know your troubles, not all of them, but if you want help — counseling, medication, or just someone to talk to you — you're a very rich woman. You don't need to suffer in silence, you don't need to drug yourself so..."
Dr. Nathan reached out to her.
She jerked her hand away, hissing. "Don't touch me!"
They heard the throb of approaching helicopters. Dr. Nathan lit another cigarette from the butt of the one he smoked, and stepped into the hot desert wind.
* * *
In the red glow of sunset, Able Team jogged back to the base. Salt crusted in sweat patterns on their orange jumpsuits. Sergeant Cooke roared past them on his dirt bike, his wheels throwing dust and gravel into the air. Running blind through the dust, Gadgets tripped on a rock and fell.
Lyons helped him up. "That Cooke irritates me."
"Yeah." Gadgets wiped blood from his torn hands. "I think he's doing it deliberately."
"Lots of deliberate things can happen to him, too." Lyons ran alongside Gadgets. "But that has to wait."
"But how much longer?" Gadgets gasped. "This waiting is about to kill me. We must've done a hundred miles today."
Lyons laughed. "It's good for you."
"Ughhhhhhh," Gadgets groaned.
Ahead of them, where the trail met the asphalt road, they saw a jeep. The two previous evenings, after their forced marches through the desert and hills, it had been the closed van that had taken them into the base. Now they saw Blancanales swing into the jeep.
Lyons sprinted to the road. "All right! Did we finally get our clearance?"
"Sure did, pal," the driver told him. A crew-cut, muscled man with a black mustache, the driver extended a strong hand to Lyons. "I'm Perkins. Welcome to the Texas Irregulars."
* * *
Cold wind from the Andes banged signs, carried newspapers down the avenue. The wind penetrated the old weather-stripping of his Volkswagen's doors, chilled Bob Paxton's stump despite the heater. He massaged the ache where his right leg ended, not bothering to downshift until he came to El Negro's villa. Then he threw the shift into first, and chugged up to the iron gate.
Paxton kept his hands on the wheel as the guards approached. There was one man on each side, both with folding stock Galil assault rifles. Then a third man shone a flashlight in Paxton's face. He waved the light over the interior of the small car. He signaled the guard window. An electric motor opened the heavy gates.
Ex-Lieutenant Navarro approached as Paxton parked in front of the villa: "Senor Paxton, do you have everything?"
"Most everything." Carrying a folder of photos and papers, Paxton limped after the young man into the villa. Hardfaced men with Uzi's and sawed-off shotguns watched them from the shadows.
The warmth of the foyer washed over Paxton, relaxing him, easing the ache where his leg had been. They paused while a guard went over Paxton with a hand-held metal detector, then they continued to the library. Navarro opened the door for him.
"It is my pleasure to introduce Master Sergeant Robert Paxton, Retired." Navarro announced.
El Negro stood to greet the American. Unusually tall for a Bolivian, almost six feet, the man had coarse features and blue black hair, swept straight back from his forehead. He shook Paxton's hand. "My aide tells me you have important information for me."
"Information, yes. But I hope it is of no importance to you." Paxton spread photos across El Negro's waln
ut desk. "Lieutenant Navarro brought these photos to me. He believed them to be either a new American gang in Bolivia or new Drug Enforcement Agency officers. Three men I can't identify, yet. But this man is well known in the United States.
"He is Hal Brognola, formerly of the United States Department of Justice. Specializing in organized crime until last year. What he's doing now is unknown..."
"Organized crime?" El Negro asked.
"The big gangs in North America and Europe. The Mafia, the Syndicate. Anyone who has the smarts to get organized. But most of that is over now. In the last year of Mr. Brognola's service, the gangs took heavy, heavy casualties. Most of the gangs were wiped out."
"And the other three men?"
"Nothing on them. Zero."
"Lieutenant Navarro, you will work with Mr. Paxton. Whatever it costs, wherever you must go. I want to know why they are in my country. It is, Mr. Paxton, very important to me."
7
Dust whirled in the wind. Twisting into a red column, the swirl obscured the sun, throwing the firing range in shadow. The paper targets at fifty feet, one hundred feet, and three hundred feet flapped as the dust devil swept past. Then the wind shifted, and the whirling column lost its vortex, became a cloud of churning, billowing grit.
Pardee pulled a bandanna up over his mouth and nose. Like his uniform, the bandanna was khaki splotched with gray and rust — the colors of desert camouflage. Now Blancanales, Gadgets, and Lyons wore the uniforms of the mercenary army also.
"I saw what you could do the other night," Pardee told Lyons. "But that was your pistol. And maybe you're lucky with your own weapon. Give me the same show with this M-16."
Taking the loaded rifle, Lyons pulled out the magazine, snapped back the action to check the chamber, then hinged open the receiver. He glanced at the interior, then closed the rifle. He sat down at a shooting bench, resting the rifle on a table.
"Hey, no bench-resting it," Pardee told him. "Stand up and rapid fire."
"I'll zero it first."
"It's good, I zeroed it myself."
"No one prepares my weapon but me," Lyons told him. "It's a habit that's kept me alive."
"Go ahead, Morgan. Be difficult."
Sighting on the fifty-foot target, Lyons punched a 5.56mm hole through the printer's seal in the lower left hand corner. He stood, snapping the stock to his shoulder, fired three rounds, shifted his aim, fired three more rounds, then aimed at the 300-foot target, fired three times again.
Focusing his binoculars, Pardee counted the hits. "Three tens on the fifty, two...three in the black of the hundred-foot target. And on the hundred yard... two in the black."
Blancanales laughed, gave Lyons a shove. "Slipping up, hotshot."
"Morgan" shrugged. "It's windy." He pulled out the magazine, jerked back the action to clear the chamber. He caught the flying cartridge, and handed the rifle to Blancanales.
"Wait a second, Marchardo." Pardee pointed to Lyons' personal weapon, the Colt Python that he wore in a shoulder holster. "Now your wheel-gun, two bullets each target."
In one fluid motion, Lyons swept the Python from his holster as he dropped into a wide-legged stance. He fired six times in six seconds.
"The ten's gone on the fifty, you got three in the black of the hundred, and two blacks on the hundred-yard target." Pardee lowered the binoculars. "You are a shooter."
Lyons ejected the Magnum's brass into his hand. He pocketed the casings. "I work at it."
"Wish we had time." Pardee glanced downrange at the targets. "I'd put you to work as an instructor. Some of our quote soldiers unquote need a full mag to put a scare on a target. Now you, Marchardo. Semi-auto rapid fire."
Blancanales fired twice at the fifty-foot target, and raised the rifle to sight on the hundred-foot target. Pardee stopped him: "Back to the fifty-foot target, blindman. Fire until you hit it."
"I got two tens. Morgan ripped up the bull's-eye with his cannon. My rounds went through the holes."
"Quit the talk. Put some holes on that paper."
"Two tens so far." Blancanales snapped the rifle to his shoulder, called his shots. "Number nine to the right, eight to the right, seven."
Downrange, 5.56 holes stitched across the paper target, punching out the numbers 9 and 8 and 7 in the score rings.
"All right, Marchardo." Pardee grinned. "Big shot. Now give me a good pattern on the hundred-yard target."
Brass arced through the air as Blancanales fired, the shots one roar of sound. The bolt locked back after the last cartridge. Blancanales pulled out the magazine and blew smoke from the receiver like a space-age gunfighter.
"You pass. Now Luther." Pardee tossed a magazine to Gadgets.
"I have to shoot those torn-up targets? How will you know what I score?"
"Then put up some new ones. There's the targets, there's the staple gun, go to it."
"Forget the walking," Gadgets muttered. "Numero cinco, to the left." He fired three times. "Same thing on the hundred." He fired again, then sighted on the hundred-yard target, punched holes in the black. "Good enough?"
"All of you are very good." Pardee took up the M-16. He cleared the chamber.
"What's with using M-16s, Pardee?" Blancanales asked. "And these desert uniforms. From what I see in newspapers and magazines, we'll look like Rapid Deployment troopers. Someone could get the idea we're official."
"That's not my worry," Pardee replied. "What I need is shooters. But what I got is full-auto noise-makers."
"Put them out here on the range," Lyons suggested. "Can't you afford the ammo?"
Pardee shook his head. "Can't afford the time. Chances are, in two weeks all of this will be history."
* * *
On the wide-screen television screen, a helicopter closed on a cluster of concrete buildings and parked cars and trucks. Fire streaked from the side of the helicopter, blast-flashes and clouds of flame obscured the targets.
Another video clip showed desert-camouflaged soldiers crowded into a helicopter. The image jumped and wavered with the bucking of the helicopter as the ground rushed up to meet the camera. The camera lurched, soldiers jumped from the side door, sprinted into flames and drifting black smoke.
The sound track carried rotor-throb, shouted commands, staccato auto-rifle bursts.
In a final clip, the cameraman leaned from the side door of his helicopter to pan over the blocking forces in positions around the road. As he passed the squad, his camera recorded the blasted buildings and wrecks, soldiers moving through the smoke and debris, then showed the second blocking force.
"Attack, deployment, and withdrawal in five minutes," Colonel Furst told the others as he switched off the video deck and switched on the lights. He turned to them, his boots shoulder-width apart, his fists on his hips. He scanned their faces — the smiling Tate Monroe in his wheelchair, Craig Pardee in his dusty fatigues at Monroe's side, and Jorge Lopez in his five-hundred-dollar silk suit.
They sat in Monroe's trophy room. Photos of Monroe in his youth, mementos from his distant and now lost operations, and portraits of his past wives covered the walls. There was a wooden propeller. There were rifles, submachine guns, a Browning .50 caliber machine gun with the stenciled words, Monroe International, along its water-cooled barrel.
The back wall had ports for the projection room. In the past, Tate Monroe had entertained old friends with black-and-white movies of his adventures in the thirties, forties, and fifties. But he had outlived his friends. For the past several weeks, he had watched videotapes of preparations for another adventure, one which he had financed, but which would be the glory of other, younger men.
"What is your reaction, Senor Lopez?" Furst demanded of the elegant Mexican.
Lopez glanced at a notepad before answering. "His rancho is beyond the range of your helicopters."
"We will secure a staging area in your country before we make our strike."
"And where will that be?" Lopez asked.
Furst did not answer.
>
Lopez nodded, glanced at his notes again. "He is not without protection there. What if the helicopter with the rockets is shot down? What if one of your troop helicopters is shot down? Will you be able to complete your mission?"
"Affirmative. We have backup units. But we do not believe his security personnel will have the time to react. We will come in at one hundred feet, the lead helicopter will rocket all opposition, all buildings, all vehicles. I believe our greatest difficulty will be in finding the body. If we were willing to risk a one-percent chance of failure, we would have modified all the helicopters to fire rockets. Then we would have blasted the entire ranch flat and hoped we got him. But instead, we will take the time to find the body. There may be skirmishing and casualties, but we will be one hundred percent sure he is dead."
"Very good, Colonel Furst," Monroe said, his voice a rattle of mucous. He turned to Senor Lopez. "I have reviewed all of the colonel's plans. He has anticipated every contingency. He has recruited the finest independent soldiers and technicians and officers available. Every man has had months of training. Every man knows that success means wealth — not just generous pay, but lifelong wealth. Some of them may die, but those who live will be paid immediately what common men earn in a lifetime." The old man cleared his throat. "Tell all of this to your leader. We have already joined our families, soon we will join our destinies. We wait only for your signal."
"Yes, destiny..." muttered Lopez, studying his notes. "How is the senora? Happy? Even when she was a child, in her father's mansion, on his estates, she did not have the wealth that she knows now."
Monroe smiled. "Availa is a joy to me every moment of my day. Her joy is my joy."
"Her brother misses her," Lopez informed him. "They were always together, you realize. But so it must be... They had a blessed childhood, but she could not be a child forever. She needed a husband to make her complete, to make her a woman."
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