Texas Showdown

11

Leaving the singing and shouting of the raiders' victory party behind him, Gadgets left the barrack and hurried down the asphalt road. He took the last gulp from the champagne bottle he was clutching, then threw it into the mess hall's dumpster. He didn't have time for good times. With the success of three simple radar-knockout devices in Mexico, Furst had given him the task of manufacturing a full spectrum of far more sophisticated devices.

With the assignment came his own workshop, tools, materials. Passing the repair shop where he fabricated his "tricks" the night before, Gadgets went to the storeroom now appropriated as his workshop. Inside, he returned to the preliminary chores of arranging the table, the component racks and the extension cords. After setting up, he started work.

Effortlessly he assembled sub-components. He used no schematics. He worked from memory, sometimes improvising, like a musician improvising on a tune he has played a thousand times before. He tested the sub-components, then set them aside. From time to time he paused to scribble numbers on a lengthening list of parts needed. He noted ideas to discuss with Furst.

Gadgets waited until components completely cluttered the table before beginning the assembly of the first miniature microphone/transmitter and receiver...

Bottles and unconscious soldiers littered the barrack. The victory party had ended hours before. Some of the mercenaries slept in their bunks, some were sprawled on the floor. They had been paid very well for the raid into Mexico, but the intoxication was the immediate reward. After the all-night march, the battle, the dirt-level flight, they needed the release of alcohol.

Lyons and Blancanales had not allowed themselves such a luxury. Pardee had asked Commander Furst to pay the three newcomers a bonus. If Furst came with the money, and discovered Lyons — the ex-LAPD cop who had sent Furst to prison — Lyons would die. Like the other federal agents, he would be interrogated with drugs and torture, then staked out in the desert or burned alive. And Blancanales and Gadgets would more than likely die with him.

After Gadgets left early in the day, Blancanales and Lyons alternated watching the road in front of the barracks. Despite the raid, the training for the other mercenary units continued. This left the base empty during the day.

If Lyons went elsewhere in the camp, he risked Furst's spotting him. If he went into the hills again, he risked the suspicion of the other soldiers. Why did the newcomer avoid the others? Why did the newcomer hide in the desert?

He had to stay with his comrades, celebrating the perfect strike against the Mexican heroin gang. Lyons and Blancanales even pretended to drink and stagger and sing like the others.

Long after dark, Blancanales heard the car stop outside. He glanced through the door, saw Furst leave a Mercedes four-door sedan. Blancanales kicked a stack of beer bottles to alert Lyons. But Lyons was not at his bunk.

Blancanales hurried to the common washroom at the far end of the long barrack. He glanced inside, saw a soldier passed out in a shower stall, but no Lyons. Could he have gone outside? Blancanales rushed to the back door, checked the back steps. No one, only scattered bottles.

"Marchardo!" Furst called out. The athletic, immaculately groomed ex-con wove through the party's debris. He motioned for Blancanales to join him.

Blancanales faked drunkenness as he staggered to his commander. Watching him, Furst smiled, then put his arm over the middle-aged man's strong shoulders and walked him back to his bunk.

Furst sat on an empty bunk. "Looks like there was a celebration here."

"Sure was." As Blancanales fell back on his own bunk, he hit his head on the steel frame. He straightened up, blinking, rubbing the back of his head. "Had a lot to drink, had a lot to sing..." Blancanales sang a line from South Pacific: "...'but what ain't we got? We ain't got no dames.'"

"Maybe next week," Furst laughed. "You men deserved whatever rewards you wanted. But security, you understand. We can't risk..."

"We could make an airborne assault on Juarez. Raid the red-light district. Get us some female conscripts."

"Wait another week," Furst told him. He slipped something from his pocket, handed it to Blancanales. "Then buy yourself a very special dame."

It was a thousand-dollar bill. Blancanales grinned, sniffed it. "This is my bonus?"

"Pardee briefed me on your role." Furst glanced around, lowered his voice. "I want to assure you, in the coming mission, that you will be rewarded in direct proportion to your participation. And I don't mean medals or combat ribbons. I mean money. Pardee told me he wished he'd recruited a hundred of you. And if he could have found good men, first-quality warriors like you and your friends, we would have paid. In this army, we do not concern ourselves with economy. Only with quality. So where's the shooter — what's his name? Morgan?"

Blancanales laughed. "Last time I saw him, he had a fifth in each hand, and was heading for the mountains. Raving like a lunatic."

"Tell him to report to my office in the morning. I'll have his money for him. And the other man, Luther Schwarz?"

"Haven't seen him in a long while. Said he had work to do. Said you gave him a promotion."

"And I also have a promotion for his bank account." Furst saluted as he left. "Buenas noches, Marchardo."

After Furst's boots went down the steps, Lyons came out from under the bunk.

"You were under the?..."

"Nah, man. I'm up in the hills, screaming at the moon." Lyons slipped a sheathed bayonet from under his bunk's mattress. "This hide-and-seek with Mr. Movie Star has got to quit. See you soon."

Silently leaving the barrack, Lyons saw the Mercedes parked in the road. Furst wasn't in it. A hundred yards away, in the direction of the camp's mess hall and offices, was Furst, barely visible. Lyons followed the man, staying in the shadows, yet not attempting to conceal himself. If someone saw him out of a window, Lyons would be just another soldier walking. He hoped Furst did not turn around.

Furst went to the one office where the lights were on.

* * *

As an afterthought, Gadgets added a self-switching interlock for a cassette recorder to the receiver. Once he planted the miniature microphone/transmitter, he could not expect to continuously monitor the conversations. He did not have the recorder yet, so he added cassette players to his list of needed components. He would have to dream up some device that used a tape-delay transmission in order to justify the recorder.

Looking around at the stacked components in the makeshift workshop, he thought of his own workshop back at Stony Man Farm. There, he had everything. No project was beyond his means. And if he lacked a component or tool or instrument, he only had to make a call. One time he'd been tinkering with a Soviet radar unit recovered from a Hindu gunship downed in Afghanistan. He needed a miniature socket wrench for a crazy Russian bolt. He called one of the numbers. Minutes later, an air force sergeant stepped out of a helicopter with the wrench. At four in the morning. That was good service.

Here, he had only needle-nosed pliers, micro-screwdrivers, a soldering gun. For components he had to scavenge parts from broken-down video systems, aircraft transceivers, all sorts of discarded electronic gizmos. Everyone had always told Gadgets he was inventive, resourceful, a genius, a wizard. This job in the Texas desert proved it. He wondered what kind of life he would have had if he'd stuck to trade school after the army. Most likely a job in a factory. Maybe a promotion to design or quality control. Maybe even a college degree on the company plan. All that driving to work in the morning. Driving home at night. Staring at a television. Wow, it made his Able Team work look like a spell in Paradise! Even if he did get shot at sometimes.

Boots scraped on the steel steps. Gadgets shoved the crude mini-mike and receiver into the table's clutter as Commander Furst opened the door.

"Don't you sleep?" Furst asked him.

"What? Yeah, I... what time is it?"

Furst glanced at his platinum Rolex. "After ten."

"At night?" Gadgets looked past Furst. Moonlight bathed the distant desert hills. "Oh, yeah.

Guess I lost track of time. I thought I'd get straight to work on the ECM's."

Unsnapping the hip pocket flap of his tailored uniform, Furst took out a fist-sized roll of bills and pulled one off. He laid it on the table in front of Gadgets. "Payday."

"Gee, I don't see a lot of these. They're out of circulation, but still legal tender." Gadgets held it up to the light, snapped the crisp paper. "Grover Cleveland, my favorite president!"

While Gadgets laughed, Furst stripped off another bill and laid it on the table. Another thousand dollars.

"That for Marchardo? Morgan?"

"You. I need a favor."

His laughter gone, Gadgets waited. There was only one chair in the small room. Furst pushed aside assembled components and sat on the edge of the table.

"You seem to be able to do anything with electronics. Can you make miniature transmitters? Bugs? And a receiver?"

"Ah... sure. If I can get the parts. I don't have the parts here."

"So you go to El Paso tomorrow."

* * *

Lyons waited, invisible in a shadow, for some minutes before realizing his mistake.

Moving fast, Lyons returned to the barrack. He glanced at the Mercedes en route. Other than some dust on the tires, the luxury sedan was immaculate. Furst could not have come from the outside.

He was oh his way out. Lyons went into the barrack.

"Hey, you still awake?" Lyons whispered to Blancanales.

"You do it?"

"Not yet. I think he's leaving the camp. Therefore I am going to be an uninvited hitchhiker."

"I'll stand by. Adios."

Snatching a dark blanket from one of the bunks, Lyons hurried outside. He tried the driver's door. Locked. Then he tried one of the back doors. It opened. With a last glance down the base road, Lyons climbed into the car and dropped down into the back seat's footwell.

The Mercedes had dark leather upholstery and black carpeting. With the dark blanket over him, Lyons hoped he would become only a shadow. He waited, watching the second hand of his luminous-dialed watch as it slowly completed circles.

Ten minutes later, he heard voices outside. The front passenger door opened, keys jingled at the driver's door. Then he identified the voices: Furst and Pardee.

"...we'll have to relieve the two squads down there in a few days," Pardee told Furst. His voice sounded slurred. "So he'd better come up with some new radar-baffling stuff. We can't keep pulling the same tricks on the Mexicans."

"I've got him working on more sophisticated devices," Furst responded as the car started up. "I'm sending him into El Paso tomorrow to get the electronics he needs. And he'll have another week..."

"You sending him in alone?"

Cramped under the blanket, Lyons felt the Mercedes slow for the speed bumps at the guard station. Pardee was drunk. The smell of alcohol-breath filled the car's interior. Through the soles of his boots, Lyons felt the faint vibration of a power window. Cool night air rushed into the Mercedes. He heard a sentry: "Good evening, Commander. Captain Pardee."

"And to you, soldier," Furst replied. The car accelerated. They lurched over the second set of bumps, then the Mercedes gained speed on the main road. "No, he won't be going alone. I'll have one of the platoon leaders drive him into town."

"Is tonight an urgent meeting?" Pardee asked abruptly. Before Furst could answer, Pardee laughed.

"Depends on what you mean by..." Furst laughed also. "I don't know why Lopez thought it necessary to fly in tonight. Maybe he wants to give us a speech."

Both men laughed again. For minutes, they alternated between laughter and silence. Furst seemed slightly drunk also. Lyons felt the Mercedes float through the curves and dips of the road through the hills.

"When we go up there," Furst spoke carefully, without humor, "we need to control what the old man says around Lopez. All his talk about war with Mexico must stop. God help us if Monroe talks about nuking the country."

"Why? You think that pompous wetback will call it off?"

"I don't worry about that. It only means less of Monroe's money in my account. What bothers me is, if we panic Lopez, he could turn us in to the Feds — American and Mexican federals."

"We'll kill him."

"Won't keep us out of prison. What we really need is Monroe's doctor at the meetings. To give the old man an injection when he starts raving."

The conversation turned to jokes and laughter again. Soon the Mercedes stopped for another guard post. Sentries greeted the mercenary officers. Inside the estate, they parked the car and left.

Lyons waited a full two minutes before chancing a look. He saw the Spanish-style hacienda, its white stucco and red tiles lit by floodlights. Sprinklers swept over the landscaping of lawn and lush flowers, the water sprays like silver feathers against the desert night. Behind the car, the driveway led to the guard post. Iron gates and fence, bristling with spikes, enclosed the mountaintop estate.

To one side of the driveway was the lawn. To the other side, a high hedge. The driveway forked, the other branch going behind the hedge, perhaps to a garage.

Draping the dark blanket over his khaki and rust-splotched camouflage uniform, Lyons opened the car door and crept out. He closed the door silently, and as nonchalantly as he could he walked for the shadows of the hedge.

He smelled the marijuana too late. A sentry was crouched behind the hedge, sneaking a smoke. Seeing Lyons, the sentry startled, grabbed for the M-16 laying at his feet. Lyons kicked the dopey soldier in the throat, crushing his windpipe. He wadded up the blanket, pressed it to the thrashing soldier's face as the man choked to death.

"Oh, man," Lyons muttered. "This is very bad." Maybe tonight, maybe tomorrow, the leaders of the mercenary army would know another spy had infiltrated their operation.