Ramrod intercept, p.24
Ramrod Intercept, page 24
A grunt, Schwarz keeping that wolf’s stare locked on the gate.
“You’ve been acting kind of strange since L.A. You want to talk about it?”
For a few moments, Blancanales was looking at a piece of stone, then Gadgets showed some life. The mean slash, passed off as a grin, didn’t stir much confidence in Blancanales over his friend’s state of mind.
“It’s not the hang-glider thing, if that’s what you’re wondering.”
“Okay,” Blancanales gently prodded. “Then what?”
“Lake. He’s bad news.”
“No question.”
“I feel…I don’t like letting myself down. I don’t like having been laughed at by that bastard. I want him. He’s mine.”
Blancanales drew a deep breath of cold air, a move that only gave the raw chill tapping down his spine an extra bit of walking freeze. No, he thought, this wasn’t going to be good.
He couldn’t think of any appropriate response, so went back to watching Lyons. This mission had ground them all down, pushing them out there into some shadowy borderland of boiling rage and frustration. Catching, then losing Lake all over L.A. Borderline but not entirely innocent folks getting gunned down in the process. And still the psychopath was somewhere, on the grounds, Blancanales was certain.
If something didn’t break soon, he knew both Ironman and Gadgets were set to go over the fence, all but flinging the presidential directive back at the Oval Office.
Suddenly, even Blancanales found himself getting antsy, some hot blood lust stirring in his belly.
Not good at all.
“HI, BUZZ, how the hell you doing? Jimbo around? You’re looking kind of mean today. Problems with your bowels? Maybe the little woman’s on you about rethinking your objections to Viagra? Or maybe you have a boyfriend?”
Lyons was baring his teeth, holding the shark’s smile as the hardman walked toward the gate. He felt both his anger and the cold working hard to cut loose his temper. He knew he was being watched by the two cameras mounted over the gate, but that was part of the ploy. Two big main buildings, made of some kind of steel, were all that made up the DYSAT complex. Lyons could well imagine they ran belowground, intersecting hallways, work areas, and somewhere in one of those buildings he knew Lake was hunkered down. He could almost see the guy, somewhere in a room, chuckling even then.
“Something I can do for you, pal?”
Lyons laughed. “You sure can.” He looked into the camera. “Tell Jimbolina I’ll be down at the Moosehead. Happy hour’s still in swing. Tell Jimbolina I’d like him to make it. I’ll even buy the beer, seeing as his C-130 looks set to fly. A farewell toast, wishing him good luck, all that good-buddy jazz.”
Lyons looked at the stone face on the other side of the gate. “Hello? Anybody home, Buzz?”
“I’m listening.”
“So, you’re telling me Jimbo’s around?”
“I’ll go have a look.”
“And that beer?”
“I’ll see if he’s available.”
“Make it happen, asshole.”
And that nearly tripped the switch. The hardman’s hand twitched a couple inches toward the holstered side arm, Lyons ready to grab his .357, blast it out right there. Buzz thought better of it, his chuckle making Lyons wonder if there was some special Jim Lake course they took to sound like that.
“I’m done— ‘we’re’ done playing games,” Lyons said, putting an edge to his voice. “If he doesn’t show, I’ll assume he’s either a coward, hiding in some hole underground. Or he’s plain old rude. I don’t like rude people. I don’t like cowards, either. One hour. I’ll be back. And if he has good sense he’ll try and run. If that Herc is still grounded, as sure as I’m standing here, I’ll blow that plane into the next state.”
“I’ll pass it on.”
There it was. Lake was home. But Lyons was already walking away, braced, just in case Lake passed on the order to shoot him in the back. He didn’t think that was the man’s style, but he wasn’t about to put anything beneath the crazy colonel.
Now, all he had to do, Lyons thought, was wait a little while longer. Lake had an ego the size of the Rocky Mountains, and Lyons had to believe he’d pushed the right psychotic buttons.
If not, well, when he came back with his Able Team comrades in tow his mind was made up.
They were going to storm the fort.
Lake was going down for the count, one way or another, whether it was the tavern or here at the compound.
Lyons had reached his limits. It was time to kick ass.
End of discussion.
“OH, I KIND of like you guys, I really do. I’m going to miss you even.”
Lake chuckled, pacing around the command-and-control room, enjoying, as he usually did, the sound of his own voice. It sounded especially sweet to him when he was all alone.
“Damn shame to waste talent like that. Almost breaks my heart.”
He grabbed up the handheld radio, patched through to Monroe. “Mr. Monroe.”
“Sir?”
“Everything in order?”
“Another thirty minutes.”
“Leave that particular task to someone else. Round up eight men. We’re going out for a beer.”
FEELING THE BOMB ticking in his gut, Lyons occupied the last booth, nursing a draft beer. Gadgets and Pol were outside, watching the tavern, covering his back. He checked his watch. Forty-six minutes, and still waiting.
It was a cowboy crowd, he noted, packed pretty much wall to wall with locals, sawdust floor to soak up any spilled swill, or vomit.
Maybe even the blood, if some rancher tied one on, maybe a sore loser erupting at the pool table where Lyons saw them shooting eight ball, rumpled bills on the railing.
Blood, he thought. If or when Lake arrived, he couldn’t help but wonder just how crazy the man really was, if he would go berserk, start shooting up the place, innocent bystanders and all. He didn’t think so, Lake’s ride to wherever ready to fly, the man believing he had a future, all light and sweetness, as he sailed off for the horizon. Meaning the crazy colonel couldn’t afford to start gunning down local heat.
Or so Lyons hoped.
And what was with Gadgets, anyway? he wondered. Schwarz had lapsed into some state of silent, simmering anger since Los Angeles, chewing on whatever his thoughts, looking ready to rip the head off the first guy who even gave him a chance.
It was going to blow, Lyons knew. He and his men were at a breaking point. It was unprofessional, to some extent, letting emotions filter into cold, rational judgment, but Lake had pushed them to a point of no return, where the only way back was to wax the bastard.
Thus Lyons could allow Gadgets his silent rage. He understood it all too well. Since he felt the same exact way.
The handheld radio crackled with Blancanales’s voice. “Yeah.”
“The colonel just arrived, Carl. Two vans. I’m counting eight goons.”
Now Lyons wished he’d brought the Uzi subgun. Six rounds, two speedloaders for the Colt Python, well, it would have to do the job, if Lake went ballistic. Of course, at the first sound of an opening shot, his teammates would come barreling through the door, weapons blazing.
The cowbell jingled, the door going wide. It was uncanny almost, Lyons thought, how Lake met his stare right away, as soon as he marched in, pinning him down. Grinning, no less, the arrogance of the man infuriating Lyons even more.
The locals went quiet, all heads turning toward Lake and his goon squad as they filed in.
“You’re obviously not the toast of the town,” Lyons said as Lake pulled up and slid into the booth, his hard-force taking up posts around the tavern. Three made some elbow room at the bar, a glower from one of the goons turning a cowboy into a mute statue as he looked ready to pursue a protest.
Three more slid over to the gaming area, hands folding at the crotch. The last two flanked the door. It was a bad setup, all things considered, Lyons knew, the goon squad split up, in position to both block any flying charge from Pol and Gadgets, while creating interlocking fields of fire on his roost.
“Who wants to be popular anyway?” Lake said, giving Lyons the full treatment of his ghoul’s chuckle. “I’d rather be rich than famous. Fame is overrated. Hey, I’ve been living in Hollywood. They can have it. The revolving door of rehabs, or whether it’s gross or net. The hangers-on. The lawyers, the snippy little no-talent film execs, shoveling shit up their noses around the clock, wondering why they haven’t seen a hard-on since Christ was a carpenter…well, you have the picture.”
“Is that what this has all been about, Lake? Money?”
“I’m a little deeper than that, but, essentially, yes.”
“It’s over, Lake. Sudan’s finished. The Thai Princess, I understand, is going to be boarded and seized by the FBI. The Iranian end users for your toys went up in flames under a major U.S. surgical strike.”
“So I heard.”
“You don’t sound too concerned that you’re next on the list.”
“We’re looking at the end times, good buddy, my human freight train, my bulldog. You might as well get it while the getting is still good. The pie’s getting smaller by the day. Me? I’m bailing before the whole roof comes crashing down. Now, whoever did whatever over there? They think maybe it was revenge for recent events in the Middle East, or some preemptive strike to show the Muslims Uncle Sam didn’t come to that particular dance to sit in the corner. A quick fix. All they did was make the fanatic Islam world even more angry, more determined. I’ve seen it coming for years. They’re going to be here soon, lots of them, whole armies, hell, they’re here already.”
“I’ll play along. Who?”
“The terrorists. Come on, crawl out from under your rock.”
“My eyes are wide open, and I’m looking at nothing more than a traitor, no more, no less.”
“The hell you say.” He chuckled. “This country hasn’t even begun to know what horror is yet. Yes, I see them on 60 Minutes, telling the civilian masses not to fear, they’ve got all this super counterterrorism intelligence that will save the day, their tidy little suburban enclaves, their shopping malls. No one is safe. You know, a part of me considered offering you a job.”
“You’re serious, aren’t you?”
“Deadly. Then I thought, nah, you can’t be bought.”
“First rational thing I’ve heard you say yet.”
“You know, I sit here, looking at you looking at me, I’m reminded of Al Pacino in Scarface. I’m the bad guy. But, you know, the guy was right about something. You people need me to feel alive, to validate some naïve notion that you’re the good guys.”
“We can do this the hard way.”
“Yeah, yeah, or the easy way. I throw my hands up, hit my knees, grovel for mercy and forgiveness, all will be right again in heaven. Come on, Bulldog, you know better.”
“I’m afraid I do.”
“Where’s this beer you were going to buy me? No, forget it. I don’t accept generosity from fools. I see you. You want to pull that piece and just blow me away. Go ahead. I’ve got eight men here. We’ll clean this place out before you cap off the first round, before your girlfriends get two steps away from their SUV. I know you don’t want that, all that innocent blood on your head.”
Lyons screwed his eyes shut, his anger building in the face of this evil, blood pressure pulsing in his ears. He put his hands in his lap, trying to will away the trembling in his arms. It was all he could do to keep from pulling out the Colt Python, go for broke.
“Suck it up, Bulldog. What have you lost? A few soft bastards who were nothing more than scapegoats, marched right into the trap by me from the beginning. This was a done deal, long ago.”
“I guess so.”
“Goodbye, Bulldog.”
Lyons waited for Lake to go for it, but the man was all chuckles and loose limbs as he rose from the booth. Slowly backing up, he tossed a wink at Lyons.
The guy appeared like some wraith, floating on air, and illusion, of course, Lyons knew, owing the moment to his own extremely heightened combat juices. Lake chuckled on as he backed away, folding into his phalanx of goons.
“See you soon, honey,” he called back, then was gone.
“You can count on it,” Lyons muttered, and drained his beer.
“Carl! Carl!”
Lyons thumbed the button on his handheld radio. “I’m here.”
“What’s the story?”
Lyons simply told Blancanales, “Lock and load, gentlemen.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
In some perverse way, Lyons decided the setup fit the crazy colonel’s style.
Nuts, all the way, a high-noon touch waiting for the three of them.
It wasn’t the best approach for Able Team, by any stretch, but the gates were wide open, lights beaming down over the bare stretch between the two buildings.
Calling them. Daring.
Before moving in, Able Team had given the entire complex and perimeter a lengthy scoping. The Herc was still parked on the runway to the north. From a high surveillance point, they spotted no snipers on the rooftops. Lake was home, burrowed inside, Lyons knew. He hadn’t expected less.
The challenge, after all, was issued back at the Moosehead, the colonel defying them to all but come on and try their damnedest to take him out.
Three men, at least, were more than willing to oblige.
Two problems they discussed before moving in on foot, weapons ready, harnessed up, with webbing, each man loaded down with frag and incendiary grenades, half-dozen spare clips for their respective weapons.
One—Lyons and company had no firm read on enemy numbers. Two—the civilian workforce. Knowing Lake wouldn’t pull any punches now, Lyons figured the guy to keep either human body armor close at hand or have the guns aimed at the heads of hostages.
They hashed it over, and the end result—the grim reward of dropping Lake and his goons—outweighed the risks. Any hostages or innocents snapped up as shields would be dealt with, as it happened. If it happened.
Uzi leading the way, his satchel with five pounds of C-4 hanging down his back, Lyons led the slow walk past the gate. They were tied in via com link, if they were split up, forced to go their own ways.
Communications wasn’t the issue, Lyons guessed, since he knew all three of them were steeled in a mind-set to run and gun, take their chances.
They knew the drill, from long, hard and sometimes even painful experience.
Problem number three, however, was complete ignorance of the layout in either building. They were hunting Lake and goons on their home turf, where any number of hidden chambers, passageways, coves and cubbyholes gave the enemy a definite edge.
Nothing to do but go in blind, shoot it down if it showed up, armed and dangerous.
There was no trouble in the motivation department, since Lyons could feel the heat, easily read the looks in the eyes of Pol and Gadgets for what they signaled.
Time to rock.
A cold wind slashed Lyons in the face, howling down from the mountains at nearly the same instant the enemy gunners showed and got the rock and roll under way.
Midway down both buildings, a door flew open on each structure. Subgun fire stuttered from each opening, chasing Lyons and Blancanales for cover at the edge of the west-side building. Lyons sent a long burst of autofire at the shadows in the doorway, but Blancanales, even as the lead snapped the air around them like crazed bees, triggered his M-203 on the fly. Lyons didn’t see the explosion, but heard the thunder, the earth trembling under his feet.
And the brief screams, of course, told him Blancanales scored a big one. Guys wailing out the pain one second, then going silent, toppling down, out of play.
They were directing subgun fire at Gadgets, Lyons saw, chasing him to cover, but Schwarz was hosing down the doorway with his HK MP-5, sparking the jamb, lead shrieking in their faces, driving them back into their hole. But not before he tagged another, as a scream ripped from inside that opening, guns going silent, as if the surviving shooters were reconsidering their options.
The men of Able Team hadn’t forseen such a brazen show of force, weren’t necessarily surprised, but thought when they found the gate open and the grounds cleared that Lake was lying in wait until they breached one entrance or another.
No matter. It was game time, and none of them was about to slow it down for any oversight.
Lyons keyed his com link, told Schwarz, “Up the side. Hug the wall tight. We’re moving out, same thing.”
It made Lyons nervous for a moment, when Schwarz simply grunted, not even looking his way. No thumbs-up, nothing but him hauling out from cover, sprinting up the side of the wall.
Charging the shooters!
“Let’s move, Pol!”
They were nearly in sync, Schwarz taking the lead when a shooter kicked open the door, subgun poking out, loosing a short burst that sent bullets skidding off the wall over Schwarz’s head. It was one of the most anxious moments Lyons had swallowed down in some time, certain they had his teammate dead to rights, an eye blink away from chopping him down in his bulldozing path.
In the heat of the moment, Lyons knew he missed the grenade in Schwarz’s hand, armed and already flying. It caromed off the open doorway, a perfect bounce slicing off into their murky firepoint.
A crunching detonation, and then there was smoke boiling out the doorway.
And the silence of death.
Lyons ordered Schwarz to link up. They were going through the door, as one, together, or they weren’t going at all. Schwarz was hung out there in some twilight zone of killing hunger, and not even Lyons wanted to touch it.
Lake, he figured, contaminated even the best of men.
On cue, as Schwarz sprinted across open ground, Lyons sighted down on the smoky maw ahead, while Blancanales covered the death hole on the opposite side for any peepers.
Schwarz picked up the rear, falling in on a crouch behind Blancanales. Lyons mouthed, “Three count,” held up the same number of fingers and dropped them down, one by one.
Lyons went through the door first, and found bad company waiting on the other side.
