A silent .45 slug through the top of the head rocked him back. His arms flailed like a spastic marionette before he collapsed to the floor. Already dead, his last breath wheezed through blood in his throat.
Pointing to the telephone, Lyons whispered to Luis: "Can you get that phone to ring? Call somebody, get them to call you back?"
Luis nodded. He dialed the operator. "Senorita. Hay una problema con este telefono. Esposible.…"
Lyons and Blancanales watched the interior of the warehouse through cracks in the wood of the office wall. Beside them, the phone rang, once, twice, three times.
Finally, Colonel Morales looked toward the ringing telephone. He called out: "Armando! Armando!"
When the ringing continued, the colonel marched to the office.
Once inside, Blancanales pinned his arms. Lyons slapped a hand over his mouth and asked. "You want to live, Nazi? Want to live?"
Seeing Lyons's face, the colonel threw himself back, twisting and kicking. But Blancanales and Luis wrestled him to his knees. Lyons felt the colonel gasping against his palm as he put his knee into the middle-aged man's back to immobilize him. Making sure the guy had seen the silenced Colt, Lyons pressed the weapon to the back of the colonel's head.
"I want to hear you say you want to live. Say it."
"Traitor to your race!" the colonel grunted.
Lyons hooked his elbow around the colonel's throat and jerked his head back. He kicked his prisoner's knees apart from behind, and hissed: "You're a brave one, Nazi. You think you're a man because you torture and murder. But are you brave enough to learn a new word? The word is eunuch..."
He jammed the muzzle of the auto-Colt up between the colonel's legs.
The colonel went white. A whine rattled in his throat. Watching, Luis laughed. Lyons looked to the young man. Luis enjoyed the fear and suffering of the officer.
"Shoot him, American! It will be justice."
Lyons ignored the laughter and the demand for revenge. He continued the interrogation of the man he held.
"Now, do you cooperate? Tell me, Nazi!"
"Yes, yes, I..."
"Shout that the police are coming. The army. Tell your scum terrorist crew to run. Now! Shout it!"
Shouting out in Spanish, the colonel told his workers to evacuate the warehouse.
They called out to him, he told them to flee. He would follow soon in a moment.
Blancanales keyed his hand-radio to alert Gadgets. "Nazis coming out. Hit them all."
From his position on a rooftop across the street, Gadgets sighted his silenced Heckler & Koch MP-5SD3 submachine gun, the electronics of the Starlite scope illuminating the shadowy doorway of the warehouse. He snapped single shots into the chest of every green-glowing form that left through the door.
In the office, Lyons jerked Colonel Morales to his feet. "Okay, Nazi. Now you take us to Unomundo."
The colonel's eyes rolled in panic. "Pero no se"...
I do not know. He is in the mountains. I see him only at meetings."
"How do you communicate?"
"Sometimes telephone, sometimes couriers."
"Take us to the couriers."
7
Two soldiers guarded the iron gates of the estate.
The teenagers in camouflage and combat gear looked at the taxi as it passed by the street. Seeing only a cab driver and a blond North American, the soldiers returned to throwing coins against the guard post's wall.
Lyons looked back. Within the wide gates, a long, lighted driveway crossed an immaculate lawn. The glare of floodlights around the mansion created an all-night noon. Mercury-arc security lights bathed the landscaping and garages behind the big house.
A spiked iron fence, eight feet high and topped with concertina wire, enclosed the estate. As the taxi cruised past, dogs ran along the fence. Dogs barked from adjoining estates. But Lyons saw no sentries at the other gates on the avenue. He keyed his hand-radio.
"It's a high-security mansion. It's got dogs. Lights. Razor wire. Two soldiers out front. This Lieutenant Garcia lives real well on army pay."
Questioning Colonel Morales, Able Team had learned the identities and duties of Lieutenant Garcia and his wife. Both served Unomundo as couriers. Garcia exploited his post in the Office of Army Intelligence to maintain contacts with other traitors in the army and government. Senora Garcia, a coordinator in the Department of Tourism, traveled throughout the nation to arrange Indian ceremonies and markets for tourists. She carried information to and from Unomundo's base in the mountains.
"Think we can go straight in?" Blancanales asked Lyons by radio.
"Three possibilities. A tunnel. Or parachutes. Or straight through the gate. I think I can take them quiet. There's no one else on the street to see it happen. You got any alcohol?"
"Huh?"
"Rubbing alcohol. In your medical kit."
"Come and get it."
"There in a minute."
Luis had listened to the radio conference. "You will kill the soldiers? With that silent gun?"
Lyons shook his head. "We don't know that they're Nazis. They look like eighteen-year-old draftees pulling guard duty."
"You must kill them. It is the only way. Any alarm will bring many trucks of soldiers."
"No. Why should they die for other people's politics?"
A few blocks away, Gadgets and Blancanales waited in the rented van, the Nazi colonel tied and gagged on the floor. Within sight of the North Americans, three other cars waited. Squads of men and women from Dr. Orozco's anti-fascist group watched for a signal from Blancanales. They all had good weapons now, snatched from the dead Nazis after the ambush on the bomb factory.
As the taxi slowed beside the van, Blancanales extended his arm from the window and said to Lyons: "If there's trouble, we're thirty seconds away. Good luck."
"Won't be any trouble." Lyons took the plastic bottle. As the taxi returned to the avenue of the wealthy, Lyons splashed the alcohol on his shirt and jacket. Then he scribbled an illegible series of numbers and names on a scrap of paper.
"Let me out at the corner," he said.
Luis turned to Lyons and spoke with sneering hatred. "Kill them. They would not hesitate to kill you."
"That makes it exciting," Lyons laughed.
Stumbling from the taxi, he fell. He wobbled to his feet. He almost fell again as he slammed the door closed. Luis accelerated away, leaving Lyons alone on the avenue.
Glancing at the scrap of paper, Lyons staggered down the center of the avenue. He stopped from time to time to look for address numbers. Finally, he walked to the soldiers.
The teenagers watched the drunken North American. Laughing, they motioned him away. Lyons held up the paper.
"This is where my friends are." He pointed at the paper, then pointed at the house.
"Lo siento, gringo. No hablo ingles. Vayase, por favor."
"Really, guys. They invited me to a party. Here's the address."
The teenage soldiers smelled the alcohol as Lyons approached. Still laughing, one of the soldiers took the paper. While he tried to read the scrawl, Lyons staggered to the gate. Gripping the bars, weaving on his feet, he scanned the grounds. No other soldiers guarded the estate.
"Senor, no se permiten a..."
Driving a kick into the nearest boy's stomach, Lyons dropped him instantly. As the other teenager grabbed for the pistol grip of his Galil, Lyons simultaneously kneed him in the groin and smashed an elbow against the underside of his jaw. The youth tumbled. The first boy groaned on the ground. Using his right fist like a hammer, Lyons smashed down on the back of the boy's head, stunning him.
He took their rifles, then dragged them into the guard booth. Jerking plastic handcuffs around their wrists, he searched their pockets for the gate keys. Lyons buzzed Blancanales and Gadgets.