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"Take all this." Blancanales passed the Kalashnikov and a handful of ComBloc mags to Lyons. "I'm going to try to bluff them off."

Glass exploded. Wind and freezing rain filled the interior of the pilothouse, then the machine gun on the other craft flashed again. A tracer streaked through one shattered window and out another.

Lyons snapped back the cocking handle of the Kalashnikov. "Forget the talk, Pol. Put a grenade into that."

Rounds from Gadgets's CAR assault rifle pinged off the searchlight, shattering the lens. The light flashed and dimmed to black. The machine gun, either a U.S. .50-caliber or a Soviet 12.7mm weapon, answered with a burst. The cruiser shuddered with the impacts, the heavy slugs tearing through steel like paper. Lyons motioned for the Greek on the floor to stay there. Then he flipped up the night sights of the Kalashnikov, aimed and fired.

He could not see where the slugs hit. Fighting the lurching of the cruiser, he held the three tritium glowing dots on line with the flashing muzzle of the attacker's weapon. A ricochet sparked from the pedestal-mounted weapon. Lyons snapped off a series of 2 and 3-shot bursts. Then the heavy weapon of his attacker whipped upward, dying hands firing a long, wild burst into the sky.

Blancanales fired across the thirty meters of water to the faint lights of the other craft's wheelhouse. The searing chemical flame of white phosphorous sprayed the side of the shadowy craft, burning away the darkness, revealing a motor yacht. Wood and plastic flamed.

"Hit them again!" Lyons shouted. He sighted above the fire. His bursts of ComBloc-caliber hollowpoints raked the windows of the yacht.

Autorifle muzzles flashed as gunmen returned the fire. Slugs hammered the steel cruiser, ricochets zinging through the pilothouse. Blancanales fired again and white light illuminated the interior of the yacht. Lyons sighted on a silhouette and fired a burst.

Against the white fire, the twisted silhouette became a man with an arm bending at a new joint, then a casualty as he fell into the ocean. The yacht veered away, white light and flames visible through the back windows. A form climbed a ladder to the top, where the machine gun spun on its mount. Lyons and Gadgets fired simultaneously, the storm-sway throwing off their aim. The climber finally fell backward to the rear deck.

Blancanales fired again and scored with high explosive. Shrapnel ripped the interior of the wheel-house, killing or wounding everyone inside. The yacht pitched and heaved as it circled, the controls jammed in a right turn. Flames leaped from the shattered windows, the wind whipping away black smoke.

"We'll get the survivors..." Blancanales motioned for the Greek helmsman to slow the cruiser and turn back.

On the yacht, two men struggled with an inflated raft. Lyons sighted on them, lining up the three tritium dots, and fired. One man fell, the other staggered backward off the yacht. The wind threw the torn and deflated raft into the water.

"What survivors?" Lyons asked.

Able Team's cruiser continued eastward, leaving the flaming hulk behind.

6

As the eastern horizon grayed with the first minutes of day, the coastal cruiser eased up to a jetty and bumped to a stop against a pier of timbers and old tires. Workers left a fire and extended a long gangplank to the deck. The surviving Greek crewmen secured the gangplank as the first man wheeled aboard a pushcart.

Lyons saw trucks on the beach. Militiamen with rifles slung over their backs crowded around another fire. Beyond the beach, Lyons saw only gray, snow-splotched hills.

Blancanales spoke quietly to one of the Greeks. "There'll be no problems if you just let us walk away."

"No problems, no more problems. We have enough problems."

The Greek looked at the machine-gunned pilothouse. Along one side of the cruiser, innumerable slugs of various calibers had punched through the steel bulkheads and doors. Seeing a laborer with a pushcart, the Greek jerked up one of Able Team's heavy trunks.

"Here. Take to beach. Hurry."

The Greek pointed to the other trunks and suitcases, then the pushcart. The worker dressed in thick winter clothes with a heavy wool cap pulled down low on his face so that only his beard and eyes showed put the trunk on the pushcart, grunting with the labor. But when the Greek crewman walked away, the worker looked up at Lyons.

"What you got in here, specialist?" The worker asked. "Dirty tricks?"

Lyons recognized the voice. "Powell!"

"Hey, it's the Marine," Gadgets said, his voice low. "Looks like tough times since you quit the Agency."

"I'm back on the payroll. But I ain't here to lift weights. Get your stuff on the cart so we can move. Looks like something happened to this boat."

"We'll tell you when we're out of here."

They muscled the pushcart up the plank. As they wove through the stream of workers unloading the cargo, Powell kept his face down. Lyons waited until they neared the trucks before explaining.

"We got intercepted. They told the crew to hand us over. We took the boat and wasted the other one."

"Any idea who it was?"

"Maybe Soviets. Probably Agency. Only the Agency knew we'd be on the boat."

"Any prisoners left to question?"

Lyons laughed quickly and cynically. "Any more jokes? Let's talk business. We called you because we're ditching our Agency connections. We're on our way into the Bekaa..."

Now Powell laughed. "Hey, crazy guy. I'm your contact man."

"What! Why didn't they tell us that?"

"Washington called weeks ago and told me to start prepping for a shot into the Bekaa. But they wouldn't say with who or when. Knew it had to be something to do with the Iranies we wasted in Mexico and I asked about you all, but the Agency kept saying it was Need to Know Only. They finally called me yesterday and told me a team would be coming in. But until you called from Nicosia, I didn't know it would be you."

"Those clerks..." Lyons sneered.

"If I'd known it was the Three Cowboys of the Apocalypse, I could've mounted a real production. Let's get your gear into the truck." Powell threw open the doors to a panel van. "But the real problem is the Syrian situation. I don't know if we'll be able to get into the Bekaa now. We should've done this a week ago. Now, I don't know..."

"Syria?" Blancanales asked as he lifted cases. "What now?"

"Something's gone wrong with Hafez Assad, the president of Syria. He was scheduled to appear in Damascus and he didn't. Maybe he had another heart attack. Maybe he died. Army units loyal to him circled the city and took positions on the highways. This isn't for sure, but there are reports of his troops fighting with the Defense Forces, which are the troops of his brother, who figures he's next in line to be president."

"What is it? A royal family?" Lyons asked. He got into the van and sat on a trunk. "One prince fighting another for the throne?"

"Not royalty, just a gang of warlords."

"What's the difference?" Lyons snapped back.

"A few hundred years. Maybe Hafez is dead, maybe not," Powell said, helping Gadgets. "The fighting's going on but it might not be Hafez Assad against Rifaat Assad. That's the problem. If it's not the Assads fighting, who is it? Might be Ali Haidar, the brother-in-law of Rifaat. Maybe he's decided to be president."

"A brother-in-law?" Lyons shook his head at the politics. "What about the sister? Maybe she wants to be the queen?"

"Who knows what she wants? It could be the Muslim Brotherhood again. Or maybe the Shias or..."

Blancanales interrupted. "How does all this affect the mission?"

His hands on the truck's doors, Powell stopped. He looked to the east. "Listen..."

On the highway, over the sound of tires on the wet asphalt, they heard artillery. Powell leaned forward to Hussein and spoke in Arabic. The Lebanese driver passed him a battery-powered am radio. Powell spun through the dial, listening to snatches of Arabic and French and English. Some stations programmed rock and roll, others the music of traditional Islamic society. Powell listened to one announcer intone a solemn monologue in Arabic.