Blancanales spoke in quiet Spanish. The gunman answered questions without hesitation.
"They thought we were the Mexican Army, coming in to lean on the gang for another few hundred thousand. He says they've got two or three other ambushes on the mountain, plus booby traps. A total of ten or twelve men out here. Another twenty up at the airfield. He'll lead us up if we'll let him live."
"Sure," Pardee replied. "Promise him anything."
* * *
At the end of a twenty-foot rope, the bound and gagged gunman led the column the last few miles to gang base. On a rise overlooking the landing strip, Pardee halted the column.
He cut the gunman's throat, then called his squad leaders together.
"Mr. Morgan is our sniper," Pardee said, pointing at Lyons. "He will shoot from this hill. Stockman..." Pardee gave his binoculars to a squad leader "...one of your men will stay to spot for our shooter. Marchardo and I and squad number one are going to improvise a little surprise. We're going in the front door. You others take your places. Everything as planned. Go."
As squads two and three crept down the hillside to their positions, Pardee briefed squad one. "Marchardo here's got real talent. He's going to take us through the front door. If things go right, we'll get most of the dopers before we need to use the grenades. But keep those things ready. Move fast and kill everything. Ready, Marchardo?"
Blancanales nodded. Pardee took up the MAC-10 that he had loaned Lyons. With a mock salute to Lyons and his spotter, Pardee led Blancanales and the squad toward the gang's buildings.
"I'm Carl Morgan," Lyons said, extending his hand to his spotter.
"Jimmy Lee Payne." A tall, square-shouldered black man no older than twenty-one or twenty-two, Payne pumped Lyons' hand like a long-lost friend. "You're tight with Captain Pardee, right? Never heard him call anyone Mister, not even old man Monroe."
"We get along." Lyons nodded downhill. "Put the glasses on those buildings down there. We got maybe ten minutes to get very familiar with our targets."
While Payne studied the doper installation through the binoculars, Lyons slipped the M-14 from its case, extended the bipod legs, and scanned the buildings through the Starlite scope.
The gravel airstrip ran north to south. Approximately midpoint on the east side of the strip, there was an old adobe and rock ranch house. A patio opened to the airstrip. At the north end, several prefab steel hangars, much like those at the Monroe mercenary base, obviously housed planes and trucks. Behind the hangars, there were fuel tanks. Lyons spotted a sentry pacing near one of the hangars, used the man's height to estimate the distance. Three hundred and fifty yards. Judging by the height of the patio doors, the ranch house was only two hundred and fifty yards away.
After the firing started, Lyons waited. Muzzle flashes lit the interior of the ranch house.
Men from the hangars started a dash across the landing strip. Bursts from squad two on the south end of the strip dropped the men.
Automatic weapons fired wild from the hangars, spraying the darkness. Through the Starlite, Lyons saw the soldiers of squad three creep up to the rear of the hangars. Several bursts inside the buildings ended all resistance there.
The sharp crack of grenades came from the ranch house. Windows exploded outward in a white light. Several gunmen ran from the house.
Two men threw open a car's doors, died on the front seat as Lyons squeezed off two rounds to kill them, two more to disable the car. Another man sprinted across the strip, automatic fire throwing up dust all around him. Lyons put a round through the man's chest. Even as he fell, other riflemen targeted on him, several bursts tossing the man into a death-spin.
"You got a man up against the patio wall," Payne told him. "Think he's trying to..."
Lyons fired. "He wastrying to get to that car."
Brass showered Lyons as Payne sprayed a magazine from his M-16 into the night behind them. When the action locked back, Payne dropped the rifle, threw a grenade. Before the grenade exploded, he had a second grenade in his hand, the pin already pulled free. He let the lever fly. "One, two, three, four..."
An instant before the grenade exploded, Payne threw it. Bits of steel wire showered them. But the airburst had shredded the brush thirty yards behind them. They heard a low moaning. Payne grinned to Lyons: "Think I got 'em."
Below, the firing died away. Lyons' hand-radio buzzed. "All over down here. What was that shooting up there?"
"I don't know. Payne handled it. Blew them away. The man is qualified."
"Don't waste any time up there. I'm calling the helicopters right now," crackled Pardee.
"Time to go," Lyons told Payne. They gathered up their equipment and hurried down the hill.
"Thanks for saying the good things to Captain Pardee," Payne said. "A commendation to Captain Pardee really makes my night." Payne skipped a step, slapped the stock of his M-16. "Oh, yeah, makes me feel good. They pay thousand-dollar bonuses in this army."
Lyons was up, too. Combat alongside this open-hearted youth had made him think back on Flor.
Now there was qualified.
He was happy to give young Payne a boost, but right now Lyons was concentrating his nicer feelings on that fine woman from their Caribbean cover caper.
He recalled her cold commands, her warm curves. Unlike these mercenaries, Flor was a freelancer on the right side.
He and his spotter, Payne, descended through the brush in the darkness. He brooded for the last time about Flor. As Senora Meza, she worked her undercover skills promiscuously, drug deals here, mercenary recruitment there...It was through her work alone that Able had connected with Pardee's intelligence people in the hellseas of the Caribbean.
Qualified for sure. And so nice to the touch. Trouble is, damn near every one of Flor's assignments featured fireballs of hijack and retribution, as Able Team had learned only too well.
Maybe, just maybe, thought Lyons, I'm better off on dry land. And he thought no more about her, put her aside for some future mission.
Now it was back to Texas. To a war with men.
10
"These men were excellent." Pardee told Furst as he pointed to Schwarz and Blancanales. "Without Morgan and Marchardo, we would've hit three different ambushes on our way up the hill. And without Schwarz's — what were they?"
"Tricks," Gadgets told him. "Electronic Counter Measures."
"...we wouldn't have come back."
"I monitored the Mexicans," Furst nodded in the gloom of the barrack. "They're totally mystified. Now, excuse us, soldiers. Captain Pardee and myself must brief Mr. Monroe."
"Wait. I want bonuses for them. They earned it."
"Then let's go talk with the man with the money." Furst saluted as he walked away.
"You'll get your money," Pardee called back to them as he followed Furst. "Count on a thousand each."
* * *
Blancanales motioned to Lyons that all was clear for him to emerge from his hiding place beneath a bundle of blankets and tarpaulin. "How're your nerves, Mr. Morgan?"
"Burned." Lyons exhaled, shuddered. "Five years ago, Furst screamed straight in my face that I was dead pork. Said he'd come back and assassinate me. And here I am. Oh, man, do I have a problem. I am giving serious consideration to going AWOL."
Lyons watched Pardee and Furst get in the limousine.
"Then again," Lyons said to his friends, "the solution to my problem is obvious. Mr. Movie Star Mercenary has got to go."
* * *
Wearing the lurid colors of a tourist — powder blue polyester slacks, a blue and green and red Hawaiian shirt, and a red L.A. Dodgers baseball cap — Bob Paxton left the air terminal and limped to the nearest taxi. The porter followed with his luggage.