Justice by Fire

14

Able Team cruised through the early-morning quiet of the San Francisco Civic Center. Though the light of dawn flashed from the plate-glass walls of the high-rise towers, darkness still held the streets and boulevards. Neon lights blinked. The blue white points of mercury arc streetlights seared the gray air.

Arriving by commercial transcontinental jet at the international airport, the team had rented two new Ford sedans. Gadgets drove alone in one, Lyons chauffeured Blancanales in the other. Because they would work without liaison or backup, they carried all their gear with them — weapons, radios, clean clothes, even two shopping bags full of canned drinks and food.

Only an hour after their landing, they followed the freeways to the end of the peninsula and the district offices of Congressman Chris Buckley.

They drove past the building without slowing. Lyons scanned his side of the boulevard, his eyes searching for anything extraordinary. Blancanales memorized every detail on the other side. In the seconds of their passing, they saw only an empty Volkswagen in a No Parking zone in front of the offices; a Dodge sedan parked in a Passenger Loading zone across the street, occupied by a Hispanic reading a newspaper; a truck driver wheeling a rack of bread into a restaurant. A street sweeper weaved along the boulevard, swinging wide around the illegally parked cars and delivery trucks, swerving to the curb to scour the gutters of filth and litter. Another Hispanic, his hands in the pockets of his suit, stood at the end of the block.

"No action on my side of the street," Lyons commented. "You see anything?"

"Talvez si, tal vez no," Blancanales answered. The Puerto Rican ex-Green Beret leaned low in the seat as he keyed his hand-radio: "Wizard, que pasa?"

"Nada."

"You see the one at the corner?"

"Latin American? About five-ten, strong?"

"That's him."

"Looked like the one in the car. Same build, same hair, same style coat."

"A flashy dresser," Blancanales added. "But the one in the car looked like he'd sat in those clothes all night."

"Oh yeah…"

Lyons heard the conversation through the earphone he wore. He needed no instructions from his partners. With the familiarity and routine learned in Able Team's dirty wars, he accelerated through the streets. After several smooth turns, he slowed and then parked on a street intersecting the boulevard. They now viewed the Dodge from the rear. The second Hispanic had gone to the parked Dodge. They saw the driver glance across the boulevard to the upper floors of the office building.

Gadgets drove past in his rented Ford. He crossed the boulevard and parked where he had an angle on the front of the congressman's office entry. He buzzed his partners on their radios.

"There's someone on the third floor," Gadgets told them, "looking down at the street."

"Seems the two in the car are surveillance," Blancanales answered.

Lyons joined the conversation. "Unless maybe they've waited all night for the office to open… or for someone to come out."

Able Team did not fear the interception of their radio transmissions. They used hand-radios designed and manufactured to National Security Agency specifications. Encoding circuits scrambled every transmission. Any technician scanning the bands would intercept only bursts of electronic noise.

Blancanales turned to Lyons. "We go in through the parking lot entrance?"

"They could have a car down there." Lyons looked to the daylight blazing from the glass of the towering buildings. "I say no meeting here. There'd be people coming to work while we talked. Much too public."

"Affirmative," Blancanales agreed as he opened the passenger door. He stepped out to the chill, damp morning. "Pay phone time."

As Bob Prescott talked on the phone, Jefferson observed the Salvadorans on the boulevard watching the office entry. Hearing what the congressman's aide proposed, Jefferson whipped around. "They what?"

Prescott put his hand over the phone's mouthpiece. "He says they won't come in. Says it would compromise them. He wants us to go somewhere else where we can talk. So why don't we go over to my place on the hill? It's quiet and private."

"Forget that!"

"We could slip out the parking entrance. That way they..." Prescott nodded toward the boulevard " — wouldn't see us leaving."

"And what about the spooks?" Jefferson demanded. "They come in here, we've got a chance to check them out. We go where they want, we don't know what we're walking into."

"Floyd…" The congressman spoke with his sonorous media voice, his tone paternal and wise. "Though I don't always see eye to eye with the man I called, I trust him completely. I have no doubt he dispatched… ah, specialists… who are also trustworthy."

"Uh-huh. You trust them with your life. Hear this. Point number one, when Senor Rivera saw Ricardo Marquez get chopped up, he called the American Embassy. The next day, the Blancoscame to kill him. They chopped up his son. Point number two, even after the embassy knew the Blancoshad murdered an American citizen, they let those goons into the U.S. of A. Point number three, Mr. Holt went to the Federal Bureau of Investigation and told them he had a case against that Colonel Quesada and his gang of macheteros. The FBI told him to forget it. He didn't. He went public. He disappeared. Now you're telling me to trust some new people? No chance. You trust them with yourlife, not with mine."

The veteran politician considered Jefferson's words. He took the phone from his aide.

"Hello? This is Christopher Buckley. Who am I speaking to? Rosario? Rosario, I'm sorry to question your identity, but this is a very tense situation. Please give me the name of your commander... Good. What did he tell you about our problem? Yes, yes, I'm aware the phones are insecure. But you do have some idea of the threat that confronts us. I'm attempting to negotiate a meeting, but… quite frankly, my young friend is afraid. And he has reason to be. We need to satisfy not only your need for security, but his also."

Buckley listened. "Yes, very good. I'm giving the phone to Floyd. Explain to him what you propose…"

Floyd Jefferson took the telephone. "Yeah?"

He heard a deep voice. "I'm Rosario. We can't come in with those..."

"Yeah, yeah. Listen, we can work out a place to meet, okay. But hear me, you don't know where it is until we get there. I'm not walking into any surprises…"

"No problem. I understand."

"You'll follow us..." Jefferson put his hand over the phone. "Mr. Buckley, you still have that black Lincoln, right?"

Buckley nodded. Jefferson spoke into the phone again. "A black Lincoln Continental. Easy to follow. You can't lose us. You let us go in, wait a minute or so, then you show up. But no surprises, see? I am one very jumpy dude lately, and if you try anything tricky, I just don't know what I'll do. Hear me?"

"I hear you. No surprises."

"All right. Give us ten minutes and we'll be coming out of the garage exit."

"See you soon."

"Yeah, later."

Hanging up the phone, Jefferson turned to the others. "We'll go to your place, Bob. They'll follow us. But man, this could be a setup."

Jefferson gripped the sawed-off Smith & Wesson riot gun. He had hacksawed the barrel off at fourteen inches, then cut off the stock to leave only a curled pistol grip. Black electrician's tape wrapped the grip. He held his finger straight against the safety and trigger assembly as he slapped the weapon's pump grip into the palm of his left hand.

"They make a move on us, they are gonna suffer…"

Watching in the rear view mirror, Lyons saw the black Continental leave the office building's underground garage. The luxury car accelerated past. Putting his car into gear, Lyons entered the traffic of early-morning commuters and trucks. Blancanales, his passenger, cued Gadgets.

"That's the congressman's car."

Lyons spoke into his radio. "Let us lead. You stay out of sight. No reason to show them all our cards…"

"Check," Gadgets acknowledged.

Blancanales glanced at their partner as they passed.

Lyons stayed half a block behind the Lincoln as the black car sped from the Civic Center. In its back window, Lyons saw the silhouette of a head as someone looked back.

"Give them distance," Blancanales cautioned. "The kid sounded like a panic case."

"He's got reason." Lyons followed the Lincoln through a sweeping left-hand turn onto a one-way boulevard. "Most people couldn't cope with life on a death list."

"Remember Morales and Merida in our Guatemala hit?" Blancanales asked.

"They went to the wall. Guatemalans don't like traitors."

"Sharp dressers, remember? Italian silk suits, gold rings and watches."

"Merida looked more like a gigolo than a colonel."

"Remember the general's bodyguards the other night? At the reception?"

"So? You work for a rich general, you can afford flashy clothes."

"The ones in that parked Dodge..."

"I didn't see them."

"Men on a surveillance detail usually can't afford five-hundred-dollar suits..."

"I never could…"

"And if one can afford a five-hundred-dollar suit, he wouldn't wear it to sit in a parked car all night. Unless perhaps he worked for a billionaire."

Lyons laughed. "Hey, Rosario. I'm the paranoid. Not you. And what you're talking about is totally paranoid." Both knew Blancanales referred to a dangerously crazed billionaire known only too well to Able Team. "Why would Unomundo put a U.S. Congressman under surveillance?"

"Who hit his Azatlan base?"

"He doesn't know that we..."

"He saw you and Nate. Saw you face to face."

The Lincoln turned from the boulevard onto a winding avenue leading in to the homes on the Twin Peaks. Lyons slowed as a van roared past on the narrow avenue. He glanced at the van's passenger window and saw a middle-aged, gray-haired man in a conservative sport coat.

"Crazy San Francisco," Lyons commented. "Businessmen drive like hot-rodders. Pol, I want Unomundo, you know that. I got that Nazi's name on my list. But I'll have to go south to find him. He wouldn't send his people north."

"He sent his people to Texas…"

Lyons looked at Blancanales. "Yeah… but why this congressman? Buckley's a liberal, a dove. Peace to the world. He wrote that antigun amendment. Want to repeal the second amendment to the constitution. He thinks everyone should talk Russian..."

A buzz from their hand-radios interrupted Lyons. Blancanales keyed his radio.

"What goes?"

"You see those two straights in the van?" Gadgets asked.

Blancanales looked ahead. He saw the white van tailgating the Lincoln. "Yeah, they're ahead of us. Behind the Lincoln."

"That's because they're following the Lincoln..."

Lyons keyed his radio. "When did you spot them?"

"About a mile back. The one on the passenger side has a walkie-talkie..."

"But I saw him. He's an Anglo. Holy shit! They're hitting Buckley..."

A hundred yards ahead, beneath the overspreading branches that shaded the street, the Lincoln had stopped at an intersection. A gray-haired, overweight Anglo in slacks and a sport coat ran from the van. Acceleration slammed the passenger-side door closed as the van swerved past the Lincoln and into the intersection. Then it came to a screeching stop in front of the Lincoln.

The gray-haired Anglo pulled an auto-pistol from a shoulder holster. Pointing the weapon with both hands, he advanced on the trapped Lincoln. The other man left the van and pointed a CAR-15 at the Lincoln's windshield.

Jerking back the Ford's transmission lever into first, Lyons stood on the accelerator. He saw the scene float past as if in slow motion.

The Anglo on the sidewalk looked toward the sound of the accelerating Ford. A blast came from the right rear window of the Lincoln, the Anglo gunman's face and head disintegrating in a spray of blood and flesh, the corpse flying backward. Even as Lyons's Ford whipped around the Lincoln, the Lincoln accelerated in reverse, tires smoking. The cars passed in opposite directions, only inches apart as the second gunman's Colt rifle sprayed a burst of 5.56mm slugs.

Lyons did not slow as slugs ricocheted off the Lincoln to hit the Ford, breaking the side window. Blancanales braced his Beretta 93-R in both hands. The silenced selective-fire pistol sent a three-round burst into the chest of the gunman, then the van blocked his line of fire.

As the Ford smoked through the intersection, Blancanales leaned from the window to sight on the gunman behind them. The wounded man staggered back, the Colt assault rifle still gripped in his right hand, his left hand clutching at his chest.

Pivoting in the seat to point the Beretta, Blancanales aimed another burst, but the slugs went into the sky as Lyons slammed on the brakes. A car backing from a driveway blocked the street. A housewife with three children in the back seat of her station wagon stared at the firefight.

In the rearview mirror, Lyons saw the wounded gunman lean against the van. One hand clutching his bloody chest, the gunman struggled to raise his assault rifle. Lyons slammed the Ford into reverse.

Tires smoking, the Ford roared backward through the intersection. Lyons screamed to his partner, "Down!"

The rear window exploded in fragments of sparkling glass. Slugs punched into the seats, slugs spiderwebbed the tempered glass of the windshield. Then the rapidly reversing Ford's rear bumper hit the gunman and the van.

Crushing both his legs, melding his body into the sheet metal and frame of the van, the crash killed the gunman instantly. The impact threw the van aside. Whipping wildly from side to side on the street, side-swiping a parked car, the Ford careered on. Lyons pumped the brakes, struggling to bring the car to a stop as it hurtled toward the Lincoln.

Skidding broadside in the street, the mangled Ford stopped. Lyons looked out the window to see the muzzle of a shotgun aimed at his face. The shotgun withdrew and the window of the Lincoln rolled down. A young man of indeterminate race — his face the color of mahogany — shouted out the window.

"Straight up the hill! We'll pass you..."

Lyons threw the shift into drive to accelerate past the smashed van. The Lincoln, then Gadgets's Ford followed a second later. After two blocks, Lyons pulled over to the side and let the Lincoln take the lead.

Looking over to his partner, Lyons saw Blancanales holding the Beretta beneath the window with one hand while he brushed broken glass out of his hair with the other. When the Lincoln and the second Ford sped past, Lyons followed.

Blancanales surveyed the interior of the rented car, the shattered windshield, the smashed rear windows, the twisted trunk. He looked down at the upholstery. A slug had punched through the seat, a protruding tangle of foam and vinyl indicating what the slug would have done to his gut. The Puerto Rican veteran of twenty years of war closed his eyes and shook his head. "I'm getting too old for this."

Speeding another five blocks through the narrow, winding streets, Lyons saw the Lincoln ease through the gate of a house screened from view by a wall overgrown with ivy. Gadgets's Ford followed. A few seconds later, Lyons parked his Ford on a brick driveway.

As Able Team got out of their cars, the dark young man — his sawed-off shotgun in one hand — ran to the gate and pushed it closed. Wood slats and interwoven ivy provided privacy from neighbors. The young man ran back to Able Team. With the wide eyes and manic grin of adrenaline, he shook hands with Lyons, Blancanales and Gadgets.

"I don't know who you guys are, but you are my friends forever."