by Dick Stivers
9
July 12, 1530 hours, Atlanta, Georgia
Lyons had to credit Deborah Devine — she did not take forever to dress. He showered, shaved and put on jeans, a jean jacket and a plaid shirt in his customary twelve minutes. At that, she was waiting for him in the lobby of the building.
Her hair, still damp from the shower, was pulled into a long ponytail. She wore slacks, a silk blouse and sensible walking shoes.
As they left the building, Lyons noticed a man, still buttoning his shirt, come around from behind the building. He wondered how many other goons had been sent to keep an eye on him. It was a problem. He could do nothing to arouse their suspicion, but he would have to ditch them, so that he could warn Brognola about the impending attack. He was not worried about the blonde at his side. Brognola would find some way to separate them when they reached Elwood Electronics.
“Let’s take a taxi,” Lyons suggested.
He steered them toward Fulton Industrial Boulevard, hoping to flag a cab there. Deborah did not move particularly quickly. She decided it was time to check how she looked. Lyons swore as she pulled a mirror out of her handbag. Then he noticed that she was not really looking at herself — the mirror was doing a scan. He filed the information.
They had no luck finding a cab and soon found themselves walking to the nearest bus line. Lyons itched to look back, but he did not want to make his companion suspicious.
Half an hour later, they were in downtown Atlanta. Soon they would find a bus headed for Marietta, which would drop them in Smyrna, within walking distance of Elwood Electronic Industries.
“I wanna stop and eat,” Deborah said.
Lyons thought about that. He had picked out only one tail, sitting three seats behind them on the bus. Lyons could not crane his neck trying to spot the car he was sure would be following them without giving himself away. Stopping to eat would give him a chance to spot and ditch whoever was following them.
“Sure,” he agreed. “Let’s get off here.”
“There’s no restaurant around here,” she complained as he led the way to the door.
“We’ll find one.”
The tail walked to the front of the bus in order to keep his back to them. His technique was so clumsy that Lyons was sure he was there simply to be ditched.
They got off at a corner and started walking down the longest block he could find. Their tail wagged himself after them.
“You sure picked a tough part of town to take a stroll in,” Deborah complained.
Lyons was looking for a way through to the next block. In the middle of the next block, he found exactly what he was looking for. A narrow gap between two buildings served as a walkway from the parking lot behind to the front of the building. Beyond the parking lot was the entrance from the next street. A car would have to go around the block to pick them up and Lyons could spot whoever followed them on foot.
“Through here,” he grunted, picking up the pace.
He turned his head as he spoke. A man was hesitating at the mouth of the walkway. Lyons could not see enough from the corner of his eye to make an identification. He then caught sight of Deborah’s face. She was eyeing him.
The parking lot was sheltered by buildings on four sides with just two lanes for entry and exit. In its secluded confines they ran into trouble. Six punks were stripping two cars and stowing the loot in the back of a van. Two other punks held switchblades on the elderly parking attendant.
Lyons’s Colt Python rode a pancake holster in the small of his back, but drawing it would probably get the old attendant sliced. He turned his steps toward the attendant’s booth, pretending not to notice the gang stripping the two cars.
“Get out of the way,” he commanded Devine in a voice that would not carry.
She nodded and drifted off between the cars.
Lyons approached the booth as if he was oblivious to everything but his own thoughts. He rummaged around in his pockets, searching.
“I have my monthly pass here, somewhere,” he muttered to the attendant.
The street gang was one of the few that had achieved integration. One of the attendant’s tormentors was a blond fair-skinned youth, the other looked as if he was of Puerto Rican origin.
The blond youth snickered. “Yeah, sucker. Your ticket’s just been canceled.” His knife came away from the old man’s throat and pointed at Lyons.
Lyons looked at the speaker as if seeing him for the first time. He was about twenty, thin, but tough looking. He then looked at the Puerto Rican punk. With a growl the goon slashed at Lyons’s face.
The Able Team member’s left hand clamped on the Puerto Rican’s knife wrist, his right hand came up behind the elbow, forcing it straight. He used the punk’s stiff arm to lever him into his buddy, who was knocked back three paces before he knew what was happening.
A sudden amount of extra pressure on the wrist snapped it like a dry twig. The knife fell to the asphalt. Lyons pushed back on the arm and let go. The punk staggered back a step. Lyons executed a snap kick to the crotch that introduced his opponent to a new world, one where nothing existed except pain.
The blond hood came in fast, his knife low and weaving. A grin of cruel satisfaction decorated his face.
“You gonna die slow,” he told Lyons.
Lyons turned. The knife-wielder charged, straight into a back kick that broke his forearm and dumped him on his ass. Before he could figure what had hit him, a roundhouse kick to the temple relieved him of the necessity of ever figuring anything out again.
One of the youths who had been stripping a car stepped out from between the parked cars. He held a Saturday night special in a professional-looking two-handed grip.
“See how good you are at kicking bullets,” the gunman sneered.
Lyons was in the open, too far from the gunman to reach him. Deborah Devine materialized between the cars, behind the gunman.
She grabbed his right shoulder with her left hand and pulled. At the same time she stomped hard into the back of the thug’s right knee. The knee buckled and the gun was jerked to the side, its bullet flattening a tire on the car beside Deborah and her prey.
As the man turned, Deborah grabbed his gun wrist. With leverage on both his shoulder and his wrist, the would-be killer was easy prey to the curvy blonde. She twisted him around until his head met the corner of the car windshield with a solid whack. The gunman screamed in agony. The gun fell from his fingers. She shifted her left hand from his shoulder to his greasy hair. The head was smashed into the corner post once more. Devine let go of the unconscious form, picked up the gun and ran over to Lyons.
The thug’s scream had alerted the rest of the gang. They abandoned the cars and came running. There were five of them. Two had revolvers, one had an automatic. The other two sported switchblades.
Deborah held the captured gun in a two-handed firing-range stance.
Lyons shot the gang member whose revolver was closest to being lined up on target.
The 158-grain wad cutter slammed into the punk’s chest, stopping him dead. The two cannibals behind him were sprayed by the half pound of flesh that was shredded away from the exit wound.
Panic caused the animal with the automatic to fire prematurely. The Browning BDA .380 kicked and spewed its death seed into the air. Deborah’s captured gun barked back and the punk spun away with the impact of a .38 in his shoulder.
What was left of the gang took off in a sprint for survival.
Deborah dropped the .38 into her purse as the parking-lot attendant walked up to Lyons.
“Thanks, mister,” he said. “I thought I was gone.”
“You’re welcome,” Lyons grunted.
The old man surveyed the dead punks. “I’ll have the cops pick up the litter. They’ll want to ask you some questions.”
“Sorry, friend. I’ve got things to do. Just tell them that a pair of concerned citizens gave you some moral support.”
Lyons and Deborah strolled toward the street. There
was no use hurrying. Whoever had followed them had lots of time to set up both exits from the secluded parking lot.
Lyons spotted a grungy cafeteria in the middle of the next block.
“Still hungry?” he asked.
She nodded.
He mechanically began eating. “So what made you decide to help butcher people who work for computer firms?” Lyons asked around a mouthful of meat loaf.
Deborah finished chewing her mouthful of sandwich before answering. “I used to earn four hundred dollars a week as a stripper.”
“Paint, film or clothes?” Lyons asked. He stared straight ahead while they talked, never looking at her. He shoveled in the food.
“Uhhh, clothes. No one ever thought I might be some other kind of stripper. You’re the first who ever asked me a question like that.”
“So what happened?”
“You ever notice how many fewer burlesque houses there are over the last five years? It’s the video games that do it. Even the Roxy where I worked for years, is now a video-game parlor. If it weren’t for those damn computers and all those silly games, I’d still be employed.”
Lyons continued to feed himself and stare straight ahead.
“You really believe that crap?” he asked.
“You haven’t told me about yourself,” she said, changing the subject. “Do you know that you’re the first man I’ve been with who hasn’t told me how important he is?”
“Then you’ve been with assholes,” Lyons snapped.
They finished eating in silence.
“Great food,” he said. “Now, it’s time to get to work.”
“How do you plan on getting into Elwood and searching around?” Devine asked.
“I’ve got a plan,” Lyons replied.
He led the way to the street in a leisurely pace. Immediately he spotted a tail in a battered pickup. A scrawny character with a scar over one cheek was at the wheel. Lyons proceeded until he came to a pay phone. He looked up the number to the building department in city hall and placed a call, asking for a building inspector.
In a hoarse voice, he conned the inspector. “Hey, I’m a straight Gyproc man. I don’t go for this cheating on buildings. I don’t want no part of it.”
“What are you talking about?” the inspector asked.
“Having to pull every second stud out of walls, before putting the Gyproc up.”
“Where is this happening?”
“Ah, hell. Never mind. With my luck you’d use a magnet or something. Forget it.”
“What do you mean use a magnet?”
“Those stud finders you use actually are small magnets. They don’t find the wood. They find the nails. Whenever a stud is pulled, some nails are put through the Gyproc anyway.” Lyons hesitated. “Hell, if you meet me right away, I’ll go to the site with you and show you which walls to inspect, but no one can see me. I got to work for those people again, and I gotta keep my union membership.”
The building inspector was all fired up to be a hero. He took the location and said he would be there in twenty minutes.
“What the hell are you up to?” Deborah asked when Lyons hung up.
“We need identification and transportation. The city is about to provide it. When that inspector gets here, I want you to distract him.”
Twenty minutes later, the city inspector pulled his two-year-old Ford up to the curb alongside a large blond man, who stood with his back to the road and refused to turn around. The city employee honked his horn. When that produced no noticeable reaction, he climbed from the car and approached the man.
Before he reached Lyons, he was intercepted by a stunning blonde with a blockbuster figure.
“Could you tell me where Parsons Street is?” she asked.
He turned to her to direct her. At that moment the large blond man turned and struck him under the ear. The inspector’s knees buckled. Before he could fall, the blond man had him by the coat collar and the belt. The beautiful woman opened the back door of the car and the man dumped the unconscious city employee inside. They then climbed into the car and drove away.
“This is better,” Lyons said. “Do you know how to find Smyrna?”
“Take 285 to the Cobb Parkway. What are you going to do with that inspector?”
“We should kill him, but for now just get me his wallet,” Lyons, playing the role of Carl Leggit, said.
Deborah leaned over the back of the front seat and fished into the unconscious man’s jacket pocket.
“I want a cut of this guy’s money,” she said.
“I want the entire damn wallet, but first check to make sure the id is there and it doesn’t have a photograph attached. That id’s going to get us into Elwood.”
“There’s a photograph,” she reported.
“Then I’m going to have to flash it only once and so damn fast no one can see a thing. That’s okay, though. If there’s a photograph, people assume you wouldn’t dare use someone else’s id.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Just watch.”
They arrived at Elwood Electronic Industries twenty minutes later. As they climbed out of the car, Deborah nodded her head toward the back seat.
“What about him?” she asked.
“He’ll sleep for another half hour. By then, we’ll be gone.”
The receptionist looked up politely. Her smile was warm, but her eyes held the calculating look of a prospective mother-in-law sizing up the engagement ring.
“Who’s in charge here?” Lyons demanded in a gruff voice.
“Mr. Brognola, but if you’ve no appointment…”
“Would you please tell him that John Ironman is here to do the annual building inspection?”
“Do you have identification, Mr. Ironman?”
“Of course I have identification, and I’ll show it to Brognola. Now, buzz him.”
The receptionist looked as if she was tempted to move around her desk and personally eject John Ironman, but she restrained herself and placed a call instead.
“Mr. Brognola will be right out.”
“Thanks.”
Hal Brognola appeared in the reception area twenty seconds later. He wore a gray suit.
“Mr. Ironman?”
“I’m here to do the annual building safety inspection,” Lyons said. He passed the stolen wallet in front of Brognola’s eyes so quickly that no one could have discerned a thing.
The new manager of Elwood Electronic Industries seemed more interested in the inspection than the inspector.
“I’m fairly new here. Just what are you looking for? And will you require any assistance?” Brognola probed, hoping Lyons could slip some clues into the conversation.
“Just looking for anything that might constitute an immediate safety violation. Don’t worry, our function is to advise you of unsafe conditions, not to issue a summons or anything. If we find things unsafe we return today or tomorrow and see if you’ve remedied the situation. We always figure that cooperation is better than attack.”
“That seems very logical. What can I do to cooperate?”
“Not much. I certainly don’t need three or four shadows following me around. Your people can stick to their own jobs. Miss Devine, my assistant, is the only observer I need.”
Brognola nodded, his face bland except for a slight hardening of the muscles around his mouth.
“Then I’ll tend to business. Let me know what you find. I’ll be in my office in about half an hour. I’ll wait until I see you again.”
“Okay,” Lyons answered.
“By the way,” Brognola asked, “how’s traffic along the parkway?”
“Not bad. I have one of those Fords that the city provides. I managed to get here without putting a ding in the fender. It’s hard to explain that you totaled another car because of some battered GMC pickup that you didn’t see.”
The acting chief-executive officer of Elwood Electronics shook his head as he left the reception area. “Amazing,” he muttered.
> “What’s so amazing about getting here without an accident?” Deborah wanted to know.
“With you to look at, it’s a miracle that I could spare any attention for the road,” Lyons told her.
She ignored his flattery. “Weird,” she commented. “What do we do now, Mr. Inspector.”
Lyons led her out of earshot of the receptionist, before answering. “We inspect. We go through every square foot of the place until we’re certain that this scientist is either here or not here. You have her description?”
“Of course. I was given it at the same time you were, remember?”
“Just barely.”
“Then let’s start inspecting, inspector.”
*
Hal Brognola hurried away from Lyons. He had been uncertain how the big blond would handle the undercover work. No one ever really knew what Lyons would do next. However, there was no doubting the communications, in spite of the witnesses who were watching and listening.
Brognola went over the points in his mind. “Advise you of unsafe conditions” and “return today or tomorrow” could only mean that Lyons had come to scout the place for another attack by HIT, but what were the conditions? Hopefully Lyons could clarify that before he left the building.
“Three or four shadows” when Miss Devine was the only assistant he needed was also clear. Brognola hustled into his office and locked the door behind him. He pulled out a sports bag filled with tools of the trade.
He slipped off his jacket and put on a soft-leather, breakaway shoulder harness. He checked the clip on a Heckler & Koch VP 70Z. The eighteen 9mm parabellums were all waiting for action. He slammed the clip home, making sure it was seated. Then he clamped a stubby sound suppressor over the end of the barrel, tightening small set screws into the thumb grooves on the side and front of the gun barrel.
With the suppressor and the internal spring mechanism that delayed the shell ejection, the automatic weighed almost three pounds. He slipped the deadly German-made gun into the clip under his armpit and then put his jacket back on. The impeccable tailoring hid the presence of the gun very well.
Brognola rummaged in his sports bag until he found a weighted cosh, which he slipped into his left pocket. He unlocked his office door and headed for a side-door exit.
