Texas Showdown

3

Through the ten-power optics of the binoculars, Lyons followed the lines of Flor's thighs to the flawless coffee-colored swells of her buttocks, then to the arch of the small of her back. Fifty feet from where he hung by a safety strap in the yacht's rigging, Flor Trujillo sunbathed nude on the forward-most deck. She turned. Lyons inched the binoculars over her body, from her thigh to the curve of her waist, to the lines of her ribs. She leaned on one elbow while he studied her breasts. They were oiled, perfect. The pattern of her towel was reflected in the shiny half-dome of one breast's underside. The nipple, coffee-berry red, rose from her flesh even as he watched, and stood erect.

He focused on her face. Her eyes startled him. They fixed him, returning his stare. Her lips mouthed words, slowly, distinctly, so that he could lip-read: "Fuck off, asshole."

Lyons laughed, waved, returned to scanning the horizon. The azure calm of the Caribbean extended to all the horizons. An hour before, he'd seen the smudge of diesel smoke to the east. The touch of gray had faded without the ship itself appearing. Now he scanned an utterly empty Caribbean, the expanse of ocean enormous, the horizon visibly curved, the far distance lifting like a breast to a thirsty blue sky.

He returned the binoculars to Flor. She lay on her back, sunglasses shielding her eyes, casually flicking water from a dish over her body to cool herself. The water beaded like blue jewels on the coffee of her skin.

Sweat ran from the cotton gloves that Lyons wore. During his first hour on watch, his hands had turned red from the sun. Now he wore the gloves, a long-sleeve shirt, cotton pants, a kerchief over the back of his neck, and a wide-brimmed straw hat. Sweat dripped from his body, but not only from the tropical heat. His hand-radio buzzed:

"See anything?" Blancanales asked.

"Lots of ocean. Nothing on it except us."

"What do you think of Flor?"

"Torture. Can you see her?"

"She walked through in her robe. She doesn't need to be naked to make a heat wave."

"Speaking of heat waves, what the hell am I up here for? We got radar."

Gadgets' voice came on. "Stealth technology, man. These dope navies don't have to go to congress for the latest stuff. They got the cash, they get the equipment. That makes them potentially superior."

"So you come up here and get fried."

"Okay, take a break, Lyons," Blancanales said. "I'll take an hour with the glasses. Could be interesting..."

In thirty seconds, Lyons stepped into the air-conditioned semidarkness of the bridge. Gadgets sat at the radar console, glancing to the screen's phosphorescent green sweeps as he read an XM-174 instruction manual. The weapon itself lay in pieces on the console. A case of 40mm grenades sat on the floor. Someone had scrawled on the side of the crate: "Frag/W. P./Cone."

"You be careful with that stuff," Lyons cautioned. "You sink this boat, it's a long swim to shore. We don't even need the heavy weapons, right? Tonight's just a make-believe, I thought."

Blancanales took the binoculars. "Boy Scout motto..."

"...Be prepared, huh? See you in an hour, Pol. I'm going to hit that cold shower."

Stripping off his sweat-soaked clothes as he walked through the brass and teakwood passage, Lyons shoved open the door to his stateroom, where he threw down his clothes and stepped into the shower.

The cold water felt like ice. For minutes he stood under the shower stream, his eyes closed, letting the chill water wash over his face and body. Only when he began to shiver did he reach for the towel.

Flor put the towel in his hand. He started back, reflexively. "Don't be afraid," she taunted. "I'm only looking. And you don't look too bad, considering the bullet damage."

He ran the towel over the welt of scar on his ribs. It hurt when he touched it. Sometimes he dreamed of looking down the barrel of the M-60 that had come within an inch of killing him on Santa Catalina Island. He continued drying himself. "I got the impression you thought staring was impolite."

"Impolite and counterproductive. Why'd you take the cold shower? Is it hot up there?"

He nodded. She wore a white canvas beach robe. She came close to him, dabbed at the cold water on his face and throat. Under her robe she wore nothing. Her body smelled of coconut oil.

"You know the worst part of this work?" she asked him. Lyons shook his head, no. "It's the boredom. When there's action, I'm too busy to think. But when I'm bored, I can't stop thinking. Come on," she said, as he smiled at her slightly. "We've got fifty-two minutes before you go back on watch."

* * *

Light from the radar screen cast patterns of green on Gadgets' face. The high-speed scans revealed several ships in the distance. He lifted the hand-radio to his lips: "Political Man in the Sky, you see any lights to the south or west?"

Thirty feet above the deck, Blancanales swept the night horizon with the binoculars. The Caribbean shimmered under a sliver of moon and the vast swirls of stars. From time to time a meteor scratched the night sky.

"Nothing in those directions. But I've got some lights to the east."

"Watch for anything unusual. The radar shows four ships between us and the mainland."

"Running without lights? Dopers."

"There's three navies operating dope patrols out here. Could be anyone. Keep watching."

Lyons leaned over Gadgets' shoulder, studied the blips. "Which one is the freighter?"

"Maybe this one," Gadgets pointed. "Or maybe this one."

"And the Colombian cutter?"

Gadgets grinned, pointed to the same two blips. "Or maybe the other one."

"Could be anyone out there, right? Good guys, bad guys..."

"Tourists, UFO's, ghost ships. And mucho dopos."

"What happens if they've got that stealth technology you talked about?"

"Then they don't show up on the screen. Lyons, my friend, why don't you go load magazines? Shoot at the moon, anything. You're making me nervous."

"You're nervous? This whole scene's got me twitching..."

Footsteps and Spanish conversation interrupted Lyons. The make-believe Senor and Senora Meza entered the control room. They both wore denim jump suits. Flor wore a black nylon windbreaker also. In their dark clothes, the undercover agents would make very difficult targets.

Even dressed for battle, Flor was lovely. Lyons just couldn't take his eyes off her.

"Are you three ready?" she asked.

"Hope so," Gadgets told her. Lyons only nodded.

She glanced at her watch, then leaned over the radar screen. "Contact in thirty minutes," she announced. "Remember, our plane will come while we count out the cash on the freighter. When we ignore their commands and attempt to flee, they'll rocket the freighter. Please, do not become confused and go to the wrong side of the freighter. The plane will strafe and rocket one side repeatedly. If..."

"I got it," Gadgets interrupted. "I know the routine."

"When I came in, you two were talking of nervousness. There can be no mistakes."

Gadgets pointed at Lyons, laughing. "That's the man with the nerves."

Lyons massaged the long scar from the .308 slug.

Flor smiled. "Try not to think about it."

Without further words, Flor and Senor Meza left the control room. Gadgets continued studying the radar screen.

"There's a blip here that bothers me. It's the size of a freighter, but it's moving too fast. Strangest thing."

"Don't even tell me about it." Lyons slung the XM-174 grenade launcher over his shoulder, let it hang by its strap. He took an M-16, checked the tape that bound the two thirty-round magazines end to end. Then he buckled a web belt of magazine pouches around his waist.

Gadgets looked at all the armament. "All right, peace through superior firepower. Twenty eight minutes until whatever."

Lyons went out to the night to wait.

* * *

Rotor-throb descended from the stars. High above the yacht's deck, Blancanales leaned back against the safety strap and quickly swept the sky with the binoculars. He found a black silhouette. Even as he keyed his hand-radio, Gadgets' voice boomed over the yacht's loudspeakers: "Gentlemen, this is most definitely an unexpected event. Repeat, this is Number Ten. Number Ten."

Flashes on the horizon caught Blancanales' attention. He focused on the southern horizon, saw red tracers stream from the distant sky. Dashes of red and orange tracers arced upward, then one more flash revealed the deck and superstructure of a freighter. The scene became as bright as midday as a magnesium flare floated down on a parachute.

The white light glinted off of the wings of a prop-plane.

"Oh, shit," Blancanales muttered. "Somebody screwed up." His hand-radio buzzed. Lyons' voice came on:

"What's going on?"

"Mucho problemas."

Like a jackhammer on steel, the sound of tracers raking the deck of the freighter banged alongside the yacht. Ricochets buzzed in all directions, some invisible, others searing red. Blancanales watched lines of tracers shoot from the silhouette of the helicopter above them. Then the gunner targeted the yacht.

A long burst ripped the length of Able Team's sailing vessel. Blancanales watched the curtain of red phosphorescent tracers pass within an arm's reach of him. The roar of the passing slugs was an unforgettable sound. The wooden mast he was hanging from bucked and shuddered with the impacts of slugs. His hand radio buzzed again. Lyons yelled: "Get out of there! That stuff passed so close it lit you up."

Scrambling down the mast's ladder, Blancanales did not stop to answer his comrade-in-arms. Only when his boots hit the deck did he key his hand-radio.

"I'm down. Where are the Mezas? We gotta get out of here!"

Shouting came from the deck of the looming freighter. Fifteen feet above where Lyons stood, he saw a man brace a weapon on the freighter's railing and fire at the helicopter. It was a belt-felt machine gun. Brass showered down on Lyons. He saw a line of tracers cross the fuselage of the helicopter.

The rotor-noise deafened Lyons as he ran to the rear to identify the freighter's boarding ramp. He crouched as the helicopter's door gunner sought out the machine gun on the freighter's deck. Tracers sparked in the shadows.

Xenon light revealed the machine gunner on deck. He lifted the heavy weapon and fired from the hip. Tracers crisscrossed. The xenon beam died as slugs slammed into the helicopter. Then the machine gunner died, a stream of tracers from the helicopter finding him and slamming him back against the railing. Lyons watched the slugs rip through the man's body, tracers blazing through him to punch into the yacht's deck. Burst after burst hit the dead man.

"We must board now," Flor called urgently to Lyons. She hurried up the ramp, a CAR-15 in one-hand, a satchel in the other. She had the collar of her jacket turned up. The copter was gone.

The boarding was hasty, uneventful. The business was accomplished wordlessly, in a silence blessedly rotor-free.

The uninvited helicopter was surely the work of the two hoods stung by the real, but late, Marchardo. To ensure the end of the deal. All it had succeeded in doing was scare away the attack plane.

The buglike menace roared in again from the freighter as the two mere agents emerged at the top of the ramp. It sped over the ship.

Flor led the descent to the yacht, followed by Senor Meza and three other men. Two were in suits, one in a leather Eisenhower jacket and carrying a Thompson.

Senor Meza checked over his shoulder as the helicopter veered away, circling the ships.

"These men are your link with a Mr. Pardee," Flor told Lyons as she passed, nodding toward the others. "Wait until we cast off from the freighter before dealing with the helicopter."

Lyons laughed cynically. He saluted Flor. "Yes, ma'am! Anything you say!"

"Don't sweat it, Ironman," Blancanales said beside Lyons. "It's only air holding that thing up..."

Able Team followed the others to the bridge as the yacht cast off. Flor and Senor Meza leaned over the radar screen while Gadgets took the ship's wheel. The other three gangsters peered through the windows, looking for the helicopter. Lyons shouted:

"I suggest you all get below..."

Blancanales cut him off, repeated the words in Spanish. Tracers ended all discussion. Streaks of red shattered the windows. Glass showered the gangsters and Senor Meza as they scrambled down the stairs. Flor raised her CAR.

Lyons jerked her down. She fell in the broken glass, tried to shove him away. Slugs slammed into the bridge again. Flor lurched.

"You're hit!" grunted Lyons.

Silence. Then they heard the helicopter circling. Its gun fired on the freighter again. Flor groaned, sucked down a breath. Lyons slipped his hands under her jacket and searched for the wound.

"Get the helicopter!" Gadgets shouted. "I'll take care of her."

"Let's go!" Blancanales dragged Lyons away from the woman, pushed him through the door. "Wait until they come back, then pop them." Blancanales pointed to the XM-174 grenade launcher that Lyons carried with the M-16.

"I'm not waiting!" Lyons fumbled through the magazine pouches around his waist, seeking the magazine tagged with textured tape. He dropped the magazine from his M-16 and jammed in the tagged mag. "Come and get me, fly-boys!"

Popping single shots, Lyons sent tiny tracers at the helicopter. When he got the range, he fired bursts, the tracers arcing into the distance. The helicopter broke away from the freighter and crossed in an instant the three hundred yards that separated the ships.

"That got their attention." Lyons slung the M-16 over his back, then took the XM-174 in his hands and released the safety as he climbed to the top of the bridge housing. The helicopter swooped in at water level, raking the deck of the yacht with more machine-gun fire. Lyons waited.

The helicopter then paused, hovering only a few feet from the deck railing. Lyons saw the face of the door gunner over the grenade launcher's sight as he squeezed off the first 40mm round. The upper half of the gunner's body disappeared in a flash of light. Lyons fired round after round into the interior of the helicopter — fragmentation, concussion, white phosphorous, fragmentation again.

Veering straight up, the helicopter pilot tried to gain altitude. Lyons continued firing, blowing away a pontoon, spraying the ocean with streamers of white phosphorous. Then a blast, a series of blasts, a boiling explosion as the copter was blown apart into a crackling cascade of hot fragments and phosphorous rain. Shards of wreckage showered the sea.

"Great shooting!" Gadgets Schwarz nodded to Lyons as he returned to the bridge. Squatting amidst broken glass and weapons, Gadgets was fumbling with Flor's nylon jacket as the woman sat in the captain's chair, holding a frosty beer can against her shoulder.

"I thought you were hit..." Lyons started.

"I was..."

"With this." Gadgets pulled a flattened slug from the jacket's fabric. "She's wearing a Kevlar wind-breaker. Neat, huh?"

Glancing outside, Lyons saw several bullet holes through the brass railing that encircled the bridge deck. The bullets had drilled through the brass, then the teakwood exterior, and finally through the interior's teakwood paneling.

Flor popped the top of the beer, gulped.

"You are one lucky woman," Lyons told her.

Foam spilling down her face and onto her chest, she offered the beer to Carl Lyons, saying:

"Very lucky. There's nineteen hours and thirty minutes until we dock in Jamaica."