"What's happened? What's going on?"
"Things have changed. Things aren't like what we were told. Remember the shoot-out in the desert with the vatos, the Twenty-third Street gang? We had that Texan who swore by .45 Colts?"
"A trip down memory lane..." Gadgets considered the information. "Oh, yeah! He was cool, but wasn't his name..."
"Yeah, it was and still is."
"That wasn't in the briefing."
"No, it wasn't. Another thing that wasn't in the briefing. That Texan's been specializing in street warfare lately, and there is no chance — repeat, zero chance — that we would have taken him alive. So be cool..." Lyons used the Wizard's jive "...and let me slide until I can brief you."
"Okay, okay. Cool it is. You don't know how cool, like I'm freezing."
"We'll get it done and get back to you. Later."
Lyons trotted down eight flights of stairs to a devastated street, where Blancanales and Powell and a platoon of Shias waited. He started for Powell's Mercedes. "Ready to go," he said.
"We're walking from here," Powell said as he moved from the side of the Mercedes, crossed the sidewalk and threw open the door to a shuttered shop. The Shias went first, moving quickly through the midday darkness along a familiar path. Powell waved a flashlight for Blancanales and Lyons as he spoke.
"The Iranians can't expect me to trade myself for the girl. But they know I'll show, seeing how they gave me their address. So they'll have ambushes set. Problem is, they're operating in Shia territory. And we know the sector better than they do. So they're going to die."
"You got another way in?" Lyons asked.
"That's it, specialist. No way I'm going through any front doors again today. That scene with the Revolutionary Guards was me at my most stupid. I thought that phony Frenchy knew what was going on and she took me straight into the trap. Ain't going to happen again."
The line of men moved through fire-gutted storerooms. Doorways had been blasted through the concrete walls to create a corridor leading through the buildings. Sometimes they walked through total darkness, sometimes through gray light filtering through artillery-shattered ceilings and walls. Rats skittered in darkness around them.
"Why do you call that reporter a phony Frenchwoman?" Blancanales asked. "Do you think she's traveling with a false passport?"
"Call her phony because she's got a Canadian passport and she calls herself French. That's about as phony as they come."
"A Quebecois?"
"That's it. Loser imitation French. Same as the Maronites here. The Maronites think they're French. They don't speak Arabic. Always waiting for foreigners to come to their rescue, always willing to let foreigners die for their traditions, their privileges, their bigotry. The Crusaders, the Turks, the French, the Israelis, finally us Americans — we've all fought for those losers. And this is one American who ain't going to do it again."
"But the Christians fought the PLO," Lyons countered. "They can't be all bad if they kill those creeps."
Powell laughed. "The Shias fought them. The Druze fought them. The Americans, the Greek Orthodox, the atheists, the Syrians — they all fought the Palestinians. Even the PLO fought the PLO! But what do the Maronites do? They fight Palestinian women and children and old men. Against men with rifles, they call for the Syrians or the Israelis or the U.S. Marines."
One of the Shia militiamen waited for the Americans at the head of a flight of stairs leading down to a basement.
"Okay, my friends," Powell said, "time to take the shortcut!"
Powell introduced the militiamen. "This is Akbar. He used to go to school in California. We work together all the time."
"Even if the Agency's uptight," Akbar added. "The money's all right."
"But that's all over if we can't get my job back," Powell said as he pointed down to the flashlights waving in the darkness below.
The stairs led down into a series of connecting basements. Water from broken pipes created black lakes stinking of sewage. The pointman led the line of militiamen and Americans through corridors, along fallen girders, across rows of crates. Sudden splashes startled the men, and rifle safeties clicked off. In the light of their flashlights, they saw a swarm of rats swimming through a flooded section. The flashlight beams sparked red from the hundreds of eyes of rats waiting on the far side.
Finally the Shias and Americans came to a steel hatch.
"Ready for a bad scene?" Akbar asked Lyons and Blancanales.
"The Iranians are on the other side?"
"Not that kind of scene, this kind..." As he swung open the door, the Shia militiamen covered their mouths and noses with handkerchiefs.
The smell hit like the shock wave of an explosion. The two men of Able Team choked and coughed as a warm wind, stinking of a miasma so fetid it seemed poisonous, rushed at them. But the Shias went through the hatchway.
Choking, nauseated, the Americans followed. In the dim light, they saw an underground garage filled with black sewage. Daylight came through a few street-level grills. The line of men hurried along a catwalk to the opposite side. They reached another door, threw it open and rushed into the semidarkness of a tunnel filled with pipes and electrical cables. The cold air of the tunnel felt like spring water on their faces.
Powell pointed to the closed door behind them and explained: "The plumbing got blasted in a car bombing years ago. There's about a thousand refugees living in the abandoned offices. They fixed the water lines, but no one can get down there to fix the sewer lines. So they just let it go. Must be the world's biggest cesspool. Been fermenting for maybe five years. And gangs use it as a body dump. Adds to the stink."
"That... that was bad," Lyons said, laughing.
Blancanales finally got his breath back. "Is that our route of retreat if..."
"No way," Powell told them. "This tunnel will take us there. The Iranians probably have got an ambush right above us. We hit them, then walk out on street level."
"What about an ambush in this tunnel?" Blancanales asked.
The line of men slowed. The Americans heard whispers and quiet footsteps ahead. The flashlights went out except for one held by the first man.
"Probably not."
"Probably isn't good enough," Lyons said.
"You want point? Take it. Come on, specialist. We'll take point. First in line for the firefight."
Powell led Lyons forward. They moved by touch along the line of Shia militiamen. Ahead they saw the silhouette of a crouching man. As they approached he motioned them back and hissed a warning in Arabic. Powell translated for Lyons, "Akbar found a booby trap..."
By the glow of his flashlight, Akbar secured a safety, then cut a trip line. He examined the device and hissed back to Powell. "One of ours. An old one."
They continued through the silence and darkness, Powell and Lyons in line behind Akbar as he followed an old map. From time to time, sounds came from the street above them, the faint thuddings of tires on asphalt carrying through the meters of stone and concrete.
Coming to an intersecting tunnel, Akbar switched off his flashlight. The men in line stopped as he listened. Lyons heard a coin jangle across steel and concrete. The flashlight beam returned and Akbar peered into the other tunnel. He compared the code stenciled onto the tunnel wall to the codes of the map, then continued.
The line followed. Now no traffic moved above them. They walked through an absence of sound, hearing only the sounds they made. Equipment clicking and knocking against rifles, every footstep, every breath echoed in the tunnel.
Akbar waved his light over the tunnel walls, noting stenciled codes. They passed another intersecting tunnel. Akbar ignored it. Then they came to a maintenance shaft. A point of light came through the manhole cover. In the darkness, the spot of light seared their eyes like a magnesium flare.