"Forever Outlaws." Glen spat on the flaming skull.
Lyons looked down at the dead psychopath. "Forever came tonight."
Epilogue
Days later at Stony Man, Brognola called together the men of Able Team. "I have transcripts of the interrogation of John Severine. As suspected, he was a Soviet agent. Transcripts for all of you..."
Brognola passed inch-thick folders to Blancanales, Gadgets and Lyons. "The first page summarizes the findings. Though it was at first incredible that Severine, an atomic theoretician and respected member of his community, would conspire with Delaney, an addict and gang leader..."
"Nothing's impossible in California," Lyons commented.
"What the interrogators learned, in three days of marathon questioning, was that Severine was obsolete. Simply that. He had struggled thirty years to rise to the highest level of the American defense program. He'd appeared to be a total career man, sacrificing his personal happiness to serve his country. To his superiors and fellow theoreticians, he seemed to be the dedicated genius. And he was.
"But the advance of weapons science left him behind. He helped create the atomic weapons of the sixties and seventies. But the weapons of the future are high-energy lasers and particle beam projectors. There was no role in the development programs for him. And without that role, despite his brilliance, despite his achievements, despite the respect of his scientist peers, regulations dictated that he lose his top secret clearance.
"He apparently met with his Soviet contact in Washington DC and requested that he be withdrawn from the United States. The KGB denied his request, telling him to stay in place until his retirement.
"That gave him two choices. Stay on as an aging specialist in obsolete weapon-science. He had already put in thirty years, counting college and graduate school. Or he could defy his superiors and return to the Soviet Union. Which meant the Gulag, forced labor in Siberia until he died.
"Instead, he decided to take an American atomic submarine home. Without it, he was a defiant middle-aged spy refusing to do his duty to the State. With the submarine, he would have been a People's Hero.
"And that, gentlemen, is it. He had no interest in the gold. We thought the submarine was a way to avoid using a jetliner to escape — avoiding having to wander the airports of the world, searching for a nation that would offer sanctuary to a gang of psychopathic Americans."
"The sub would have been his ticket home," Gadgets said, "because it's a first-line weapon system. Everything new. Everything the Russians want. Wow, all that insanity that happened on Catalina was because of a graying Communist intellectual. Jeez."
"Of course," Brognola concluded, "the Soviets claim complete innocence."
"Yeah," Lyons added. "Like they don't know about Libya, or the PLO, or the Cubans. Don't know a thing about it."
Blancanales flipped through his transcript. He saw page after page of blacked-out text. Most of the pages had only a quotation or two remaining. The genial man laughed, showing the pages to the others.
"What is this? You've given us a transcript that doesn't make any sense."
"I'm sorry," Brognola told them. "But most of the matters discussed in the interrogation were top secret."
"Basically, therefore," commented Lyons, "we go cruising around in kayaks snuffing crazy dopers for the Feds and we don't get to know why."
"It's a matter of 'Need to Know,' " Brognola explained.
"Okay, Hal," Lyons grinned. "Here's something we all Need to Know. Where's Mack?"
"Colonel John Phoenix is right here, as a matter of fact," announced Brognola. "Stony Man is something of a castle for him nowadays. God knows the man deserves a home." He pressed the buzzer on his polished walnut desk. "April, the colonel is in his quarters. He'd be delighted to know that his colleagues in Able Team have arrived and been debriefed. Would you like to inform him of this, please?"
The four men chatted amiably as they waited for the big guy. It was true: everybody did Need to Know about Mack, his whereabouts and activities, however covert. He was the lifeblood of this place.
Sure, there were others close to The Executioner who had learned to blaze truth across the chicken shit canvas of these times — The Bear, Leo, Jack Grimaldi, Able Team of course... And they did it with as much fierce courage as Mack, with the same dedication to uphold justice despite the law.
But Mack — Col. John Phoenix — was the origin of their strength. When Bolan entered, all eyes looked his way.
"Welcome, Able Team," he said, his steel eyes alive with good humor. He was wearing casual attire. "I hear you've excelled yourselves once more." He shook hands with each of the team, motioning them to stay seated as he did so. His handshake was firm, conveying very well his thanks to these men, and his respect for their fighting skills.
"It was a bed of roses," smiled Lyons.
"You are wounded, Carl," Bolan said to him. "We have good facilities for medical treatment here, in fact the best you're going to find anywhere. I should force you to stay and enjoy them."
"I'll think about it," parried Lyons. "But let me tell you, I think we'd all be dead men if Stony Man hadn't come up with that armorer guy who supplied us with the hardware."
"Konzaki," prompted Blancanales. "We owe him all a favor."
"Where'd you come up with him?" asked Gadgets.
Bolan looked at Brognola. "He's CIA, as you know," Mack said, "but I feel we'll need to continue to recruit his services, the way things are going in the world."
"He's more or less our weapon-smith now," Hal added. "You guys will be seeing a lot more of him."
"How'd he lose his legs," persisted Schwarz, always curious.
Bolan answered. "At the assault on Hue, during the Tet Offensive — he was leading his platoon to the rescue of an ambushed unit. A sniper got him four or five times in both legs.
"His men tried to pull him to cover, but Konzaki ordered them back for their own safety.
"That sniper killed two men before Konzaki threatened to shoot any other member of the platoon who disobeyed his command to abandon him."
Bolan was relaxed. The late afternoon sun warmed Hal's Stony Man study with its reddening rays. This evening would be a more than welcome respite for Mack between missions, and it would be a pause for his exhausted Able Team, these tried and true men: a large evening, full of talk, and memory. They must take advantage of it.
Blancanales set the mood. "Goddammit there are some brave people out there..."
"Think of how many men we could recruit for Stony Man," added Lyons. "Glen Shepard for one. Max Stevens." Pol and Gadgets nodded. "Those kids out on Catalina, Chris and Roger. In their own way they have more courage than any of us."
"I heard about the help you guys got, Hal was telling me," agreed Bolan. "Yeah, they are courageous. They have the courage not to see themselves as victims. I like that. They have jobs, they have complicated daily lives. But they're not up against the wall anymore."
Mack stared out the window. "You make a good point, Carl. They are more courageous than the warrior, because they are so closely attached to others, they are so vulnerable to the misfortunes of their loved ones." The big man's voice was sad, but far from resigned. "They are different from the warrior. They are not us yet.
"But they are becoming so. They are becoming so."