Lyons had not pulled the pin of the grenade.
Crossing the distance in three running strides, Lyons kicked away the Uzi, then dropped down and smashed the Soviet in the face with the butt of his Konzak. He hammered the struggling gunman to death.
Rifles fired. Lyons looked up, saw a Soviet flipping back.
"American!" Soto shouted.
Blood and flesh covered the Konzak. He sprayed a 7-blast burst of full-auto 12-gauge, then jerked out the empty mag and reloaded on the run back to the waiting cars.
Lyons stopped with one foot in the car, the blood-slick Konzak pistol grip in his hand as his eyes scanned the street.
Nothing moved. He heard only his blood hammering in his ears. He flipped up the safety of his assault shotgun and fell into a seat as the driver accelerated away.
Sirens screamed.
16
"You cannot torture a Soviet diplomat."
"Why not?" Lyons asked.
Captain Soto watched as Blancanales poured rubbing alcohol over the blond North American's wounds. The alcohol splashed over the gouge in his shoulder and the long gash across his back. Then the medic wiped away the clotted gore. Soto watched for any change in the man's expression.
He saw the North American's eyes squint, his nostrils flare. Did he feel the searing pain?
"Why not? Tell you what. After we get the information we need, the dead meat gets disappeared."
"He is a diplomat, my friend."
"Politics?"
"International law. The customs of my country."
They sat in the office of an auto-repair garage. After the rescue and firefight, the North Americans of Able Team and the captain's disguised soldiers dispersed to avoid the police responding to the alarm. The carloads of fighters then assembled at this garage, a complex of offices, workshops and parking lots.
No one feared the curiosity of mechanics or customers. The facility served only the Condor Division, the elite battalion of the Mexican army dedicated to the extermination of foreign terrorism and the drug trade.
In Mexico, drugs and terrorism represented two faces of the same threat. Terrorists financed activities in Central and South America by the sales of drugs to the United States. Drug gangsters — dope warlords and Castillian bankers — ran the drugs north through Mexico, then smuggled weapons and dollars south through Mexico.
When an assignment required unmarked or special-purpose vehicles, mechanics provided the cars or trucks to the battalion units. The mechanics also performed the most detailed searches of seized vehicles. Though the employees worked in what appeared to be a commercial auto garage, the workers received checks from the Republic of Mexico.
This morning, after meeting Able Team at the international airport, Captain Soto gave the mechanics an afternoon's holiday. He knew the methods of Able Team. He knew his unit would see action.
Lyons considered his words, then spoke as Blancanales bandaged his wounds. "Captain, you're talking about a senior officer in the KGB. He is a cold killer. He thought nothing of joking with my friends as he took them to their execution. He's made a career of execution and torture. You heard the transmissions from that mansion. They tortured that Iranian until he broke. Then they probably put him in a hole and covered it up. We're not talking about a human being. We're talking about a torturing, murdering Soviet monster. There will be no political problems created. He will simply cease to exist when we learn..."
"And you, American? You would torture him? Then murder him? In the street a few minutes ago, in combat, I saw you as a soldier. You fought, you risked your life for your friends, then you risked your life for my soldiers. You would not escape without searching for wounded or men left behind. I respect you. But now you would torture and murder? If you did not say it yourself, if I did not watch you say the words, I would not believe it."
"Illovich is a Soviet. An officer of the KGB..."
"And in El Salvador, the death squads say 'Soviet' and they murder teachers and doctors and campesinos."
"Yeah, but we know, we're positive, absolutely..."
Blancanales cut Lyons off. "The captain won't allow it. This is, in fact, his operation. It became his operation when we entered Mexico."
"Yeah, yeah, all right..." Lyons thought about the problem for a moment. "How about if I kind of terrorize him? Don't actually touch him?"
"How?" Soto asked.
"I've got my ways. And then later on, we let him go?"
Again, Blancanales stopped the argument. "Illovich is a professional. Do you believe, even if you tortured him, he would break? I believe, that if we approach him correctly, he may cooperate."
"You're kidding! Why do you think so? "
"Understand. He had a plan worked out. His men would destroy the Iranian gang that wants to kill our President. To cover up the Soviet Union's role in the action, he intended to leave our bodies there. The bodies of two dead Americans and a Lebanese — all past or present employees of the United States government. If we take his explanation of 'world peace seriously, he would therefore accomplish his objective without seeming to involve the Soviet Union in the problems of the United States and Iran. I can understand that."
Lyons nodded. Pulling on a clean shirt over his bandages, he called into the garage. "Hey! Mr. Marine! Come here."
"What do you want, crazyman?"
"Just come here, will you?" Lyons turned to Blancanales. "He heard Illovich give that speech. We'll get his opinion on a straight-out request for continuing cooperation."
The Texan bebopped into the office, snapping his fingers to a beat only he heard, singing the words, "Kill, kill, kill. Make the world safe. Kill, kill, kill..."
"Cut it out," Lyons told him.
"So what's the plot?" Powell asked. He swung his hand to slap Lyons's back. "How you feeling, tough guy?"
Reflexively, Lyons's left hand flicked out and hit Powell's arm precisely above the elbow, on the inside where the nerves and tendons controlling hand motor function passed through the joint. The flick stopped the slap before it touched his wound.
"Excellent block!" Powell grinned. "Shotokan?"
"Shotokan street style. What's going on with Frenchy? She staying away from the Russian?"
"Crowd of vatostrying to romance her. She's still shaking from the cowboy movie. And don't worry about Illovich hearing you all. The Wizard's got head-phones on Illovich, blasting him with Mexican radio. Old man's rocking 'n' rolling, shaking his bones."
"Everyone in Texas talk like you?"
"The Wizard from Texas?"
Blancanales interrupted the banter. "When Illovich delivered his world-peace speech, you think he was sincere?"
"I don't know. I know I got some peace for him. Peace by .45 Colt automatic pistol."
"That will not happen," Blancanales stated. "You think he would help us get those Iranians?"
"Maybe if you say, 'Please.' And then put a flare up his ass..."
Lyons laughed. "A rifle flare or a highway flare?"
"A rifle flare would kill him too quick. And it would most definitely get my rifle dirty."
"What we will do," Blancanales spoke over their laughter, then lowered his voice, "is offer him his life if he helps us preserve world peace."
Powell snapped his fingers. "Kill, kill, kill! Those wacky Eraquis, they got it right! Hit those Eranies with insecticide!"
"Get serious!" Lyons faked a punch for Powell's solar plexus.
Hands flashed, the Marine officer enfolding Lyons's arm in a graceful aikaido block. Powell applied pressure to the nerves in Lyons's wrist, then released him.