Blancanales touched Lyons' shoulder. "Adios."
Lyons laughed. "Don't get sentimental." When Blancanales blacked out the landing and had taken cover, Lyons crept to the roof door. He ran his hand along the steel door frame, felt nothing. Then he flattened himself against the wall, and started to ease the door open.
The cool evening wind touched his face. He heard the distant throbbing of the helicopters. Lyons didn't continue through the door. It made no sense to him that the door wasn't booby-trapped. Unless this was the way the crazies intended to take to the helipad.
Even if that's true, he thought, they should have it set so we can't follow them.
He couldn't risk a flashlight. Instead, he took a slip of paper from his pocket, a diagram of the WorldFiCor rooftop area, and tore off a strip. Using it like a feeler, he ran it along the doorframe.
Just above ankle height, the paper caught on something. Lyons touched it again, then laid himself down on the landing and looked closely.
There, finer than a hair, glinting with starlight, a transparent strand of filament extended from one side of the doorway to the other. Lyons checked for other trigger-strands. Then he spoke into the radio-mike.
"We got one here. One line of filament, ankle high. I'm going on."
Carefully he stepped over it. He found the charge: it was a kilo of C-4. Then he continued, scanning the rooftop and helipad for terrorists. He lifted his feet high as he walked. He couldn't search the entire roof for booby traps, but he would have to do all he could to avoid the trip-lines.
Making it to the elevator's motor housing opposite the helipad, he felt carefully again for trip-lines or pressure triggers, then went up the ladder. On top, he spoke into his mike.
"Hardman One in position. Next, please. And good luck."
Blancanales came out, took his position in the air-conditioning stacks across the helipad from Lyons. Finally, Gadgets took a position on top of the stairwell housing. Regardless of how the terrorists came out elevator or stairs the Able Team had them in triangular ambush.
"Hey," whispered Gadgets suddenly. "They're on their way! Oh, good God! Politician, did I hear that Spanish right? Tell me I didn't."
"You did," Blancanales answered, his voice infinitely weary and sad. "All right, that's it. Let's do the best we can to save the hostages that the psychos bring up here. Zuniga has just poured gasoline on the ones he left downstairs. There's nothing we can do for them now."
16
It was happening in the auditorium on the mezzanine floor.
"You filthy Yankee scum!" Zuniga ranted from the auditorium's stage. "I will cleanse the earth of you. I will give you a few minutes of hell before Satan takes your souls for his inferno!"
Behind their packing-tape gags, the prisoners' faces contorted in silent screams, their eyes wide.
"You will die in flames for the sins of your Empire! There! Look there!" Zuniga pointed to the projection port at the back of the auditorium. On his cue, Ana smashed out the glass. She placed a box at the edge of the port. "You die when that bomb explodes! May your souls burn forever!"
Zuniga laughed. As he left the stage, he glanced at some prisoners who did not seem to be in a panic. Three of the young executives two men and a woman had already freed their hands and feet. They didn't scream or struggle. They waited for their chance to escape. They would be the leading players in Zuniga's comedy.
In the corridor, the members of his squad shoved and kicked several hostages into groups of two, then knotted nylon line around the prisoners' throats. Each squad member had two hostages who would serve as human shields when they stepped out onto the Tower's roof. The squad would take some into the helicopter, leave the others to die when the Tower exploded. The hostages in the helicopter would live only a few minutes more.
Zuniga blocked the auditorium doors and set the charges. The prisoners inside would break down the doors quickly, detonating the charges, which in turn would detonate the ton of C-4 and incendiaries.
"Fernando!" Zuniga called out.
"Yes, commander!"
"You remain here. Scream at them. Rave. When the helicopter is ready, I will signal. Then you come up to the roof. Understand?"
"I will come when you signal."
Each with a pair of hostages, the squad waited. Rico had the young blonde woman they had captured only minutes before on the fifty-third floor. He twisted the rope savagely around her throat. He kicked her into the elevator, and jerked her to her feet when she fell.
"Careful, compadre," Zuniga warned. He glanced at his watch. "She must live another two minutes."
Zuniga pressed the elevator button marked RH for roof/helipad.
Lyons felt the cables and motors start to vibrate in the elevator's housing beneath him. He spoke into his throat-mike: "Here they come. Helicopter, come on down. Any problems with our guest star?"
"He is one very frightened man."
"They just came out the door! Over." Turning up the volume on Alcantara's body-mikes, Lyons heard the man's petulant voice complaining over the noise of the rotors. "... the vileness of your threats... I thought this was a civilized country... I don't believe you'd dare..." Lyons flicked off the safety on his CAR-16.
Have no doubts, Mr. Alcantara, Lyons said to himself. We have the nerve, all right.
Clutching a hostage against him and holding his M-16 at ready, Zuniga left the elevator, stepped over the filament and into the rotor storm. He scanned the rooftop for ambushers, saw no one. He motioned for his squad to follow, cautioning each one about the booby trap, then shoved his first hostage ahead and dragged the second behind him. She staggered, fell, choked as Zuniga pulled her to her feet by the rope around her neck.
He heard the second helicopter and looked up. He warily approached the helicopter on the pad. He pointed his automatic rifle through the side-door.
"Is this a trap, federates! If it is, you all die!"
Alcantara, his leader through all the months of planning and preparation who had given Zuniga's pointless life meaning, who had brought his lifetime of hatred to flower stepped from the helicopter. The landing lights made his coward's face seem like a mask of blood.
"Zuniga! My compatriot! Yes, they planned a trap for you! But I learned of it and changed the plans.
The helicopter will take us all to freedom! Victory is ours!"
Too surprised to speak, Zuniga said nothing. His leader, who had always been so proud and aloof, aristocratic, strangely blond, threw his arms around Zuniga, embraced him.
"Where is the detonator, my friend?" Alcantara asked him, his voice almost begging. "May I have the honor of pushing the button?"
Lifting the walkie-talkie to his lips, Zuniga called down to Fernando. "We are ready, come now. Viva Puerto Rico Libre!'
Zuniga turned to his leader, studied his face. Alcantara's smile quivered, became a grimace of fear. Now Zuniga knew.
"How could you have learned what the federatesintended?" And he raised his M-16 to Alcantara's throat. The burst ripped away his leader's head.
From the third-floor stairwell, Charlie Green heard the psycho screaming curses in Spanish. He inched the door open, saw a young Puerto Rican in a moving company's overalls pacing the corridor, turning every few seconds to laugh or shout at the closed doors of the company auditorium. The doors' handles were lashed together.