Able Team 07 - Justice By Fire

by Dick Stivers

  Brognola groped for the phone. "Chris Buckley?" he whispered, to avoid waking up his wife. "Ah…this is Hal. What's the problem?"

  "Sorry to wake you up. But I've got a bad situation and I need help with it tonight."

  "Well, the Justice Department doesn't operate like that. Litigation can take years. Have you called—"

  "The police? The FBI? The FBI may be involved in this problem. But on the other side. I thought you could put me in touch with some… specialists."

  "Don't know what you mean, Mr. Buckley."

  "Is this a secure line?"

  "No."

  "Give me the number. I'll call on the other—"

  "Mr. Buckley, if I had a secure line, and if I could somehow help you with this problem you have, it would be a matter of authorization. And that authorization would be available only after consultation with my bureau. We have regulations and procedures."

  "Remember Las Islas de Sabana ?"

  "What did you say?"

  "Let's talk on the secure line."

  Brognola gave him the number.

  11

  Floyd Jefferson watched the boulevard. Three floors below the congressman's office, a light came on in the rented Dodge. A Salvadoran left the car. Jefferson watched the man run to a pay phone down the block.

  In the inner office, Congressman Buckley finally hung up the phone. The door opened, a swath of light silhouetting Jefferson against the window before he could jump to the side.

  "Sir! Turn off that light. They're down there."

  "Oh…yes. I'll—" Buckley returned to his office for an instant. The suite of offices went dark again.

  Below, the Salvadoran glanced up to the office windows as he talked on the pay phone.

  "They haven't left?" The middle-aged, balding congressman joined Jefferson at the window.

  "It's called surveillance. They're just down there watching. One's still in the car, the other one's calling his boss, I bet."

  "Has Bob seen anything?" Buckley asked. His aide, Bob Prescott, stood guard in the lobby. If the Salvadoran attempted to enter the building, he would warn Buckley and Jefferson.

  "Checked with him a minute ago. Nothing. What did they say in Washington?"

  "He told me to wait. He'll need to make a few calls."

  "Who did you call?"

  "It would be a violation of the President's confidence if I told you the man's name—"

  "I meant, was it the FBI? Mr. Holt went to the FBI office down in Los Angeles yesterday. He told them what he knew. And now he's gone."

  "No, it wasn't the bureau. This group is independent. That's all I can tell you."

  "Did you tell them about the two goons I shot?"

  Buckley nodded. He glanced past Jefferson to the boulevard. The Salvadoran at the pay phone hung up the receiver, then punched another number. The middle-aged congressman ran his hand over his balding head. He turned to the young reporter.

  "You realize the story you told me, this…intrigue—does not mitigate the fact that you shot two men. I have no doubt the police are now searching for you. I advise you to consult a criminal attorney very, very soon."

  "Hey, man. You're a lawyer, you been a lawyer all your life—"

  "Twenty-five years."

  "You run around in Washington Dee of Cee, talking laws, writing laws, voting on laws," fumed Jefferson, "but just because there are police and courthouses and jails doesn't mean the law is real. You grow up like I did, you'll know there's laws and then there are people. There are people who won't cross the street in the middle of the block and then there are people who don't give a shit if it's your body they serve for Sunday dinner. And in this particular instance, we are dealing with some people of the latter variety. So, you'll forgive me if I don't give the police a whole lot of thought. If I live through all this, then I'll go talk with the police. Because those goons down there, those Salvadorans, they come from a different world."

  "Floyd——" The congressman walked through the darkness of his office as he considered his response to what the young man had declared. "Do you actually believe I am a stranger to reality? As you say, there are laws and there are people. I am not unfamiliar with conflicts between the law and reality. Yet I serve and obey the law."

  "But you just called some dudes on the phone who aren't legal, right? If they're not police and they're not FBI, then chances are—"

  "Let me qualify what I said. I serve and obey the law whenever possible."

  "Uh-huh. I get it. You made an exception in this case. Does that exception have anything to do with the reality that some goons are parked in front of your office? They didn't know I was coming here. They didn't even recognize me. They were watching you. Is that why you made an exception?"

  Inside the inner office, the phone rang. Buckley rushed away without answering Jefferson. The young reporter heard the door lock before the ringing stopped. As the murmuring, almost inaudible voice of the congressman came through the thick oak panels of the office door, Jefferson took the old Smith & Wesson from the floor.

  Surrounded by walls of law volumes—the leather bound two-hundred-year history of the world's most successful experiment in justice—Floyd Jefferson put the hacksaw to the shotgun and, as fast as he was able, sawed off the barrel to fourteen inches.

  12

  In the predawn darkness, a chill wind swept from the Smoky Mountains. Able Team gathered at the Stony Man Farm helipad. Hal Brognola had called from Washington only half an hour before. Now the three men of Able Team waited. Unshaved, their close-cut hair windblown, their sport coats and slacks pulled from hangers, they waited for the helicopter that would take them to Dulles International. Lyons knotted his tie, Blancanales smoothed the wrinkles from his slacks, Gadgets listened to an early-morning talk show on a pocket stereo.

  They had not needed to pack their suitcases. Cases packed with clothing and equipment stood ready at all times. They needed only to know their destination, then take the proper prepacked case of clothing and equipment. Professionals, they knew action might come at any time.

  "I didn't really get what Hal told me," Lyons wondered aloud. "What do you think's going on? He said, 'Until we consult with the bureau, you three have highest authority.' Does that mean we hit the problem first, then the federals take over? I was still half-asleep, or I would have quizzed him on that one—"

  "Sounds like we're in the gray zone on this," Gadgets answered him.

  "Sounds like we're walking point for the FBI," Blancanales said.

  "No." Gadgets shook his head. He wound up his transistor radio's earphone wire. "I asked Hal if we would have access to bureau equipment in San Francisco. And he said—" Gadgets pressed a button on the miniature stereo. Hal Brognola's voice came from the tiny speaker: "Absolutely not. Under no circumstances will you identify yourselves to law enforcement personnel of any other agency, local or federal. There are several uncertainties that must be resolved before we can request liaison or technical services…"

  Gadgets clicked off the replay. "Comprende dat jivo?"

  "You record everything?" Lyons asked.

  "When I get a call from Washington, and the man's talking jive, I record it. It was recordings that got Tricky Dick in the shit. I'm hoping recordings might keep this Wizard clean."

  Blancanales shook his head. "Hal wouldn't send us out without authorization."

  "He never sent us out with conditional authorization before," Lyons countered.

  "Conditional highest authority," Gadgets laughed. "I mean, that's jive."

  Rotor throb came from the east. Their heads turned simultaneously to the sound. Lyons laughed cynically. "How about Conditionally Beyond Sanction? Conditionally Beyond the Law? No way. Mack Bolan acts beyond conditions, and so do we. Sometimes, my friends, the law's got nothing to do with it, and that's one condition I can understand."

  13

  In the oily scum of a tidal flat in San Francisco Bay, a dog discovered a bundle wrapped in black plastic. The dog sniffed
at a rip in the plastic bag. A man in a sweat suit and Windbreaker whistled, once, twice.

  The man squinted through the gray dawn light. As he waited on the beach, he saw his dog tear at the glistening black object. Something gray appeared.

  Backing away, the dog barked. It barked incessantly, circling the gray and black bundle. Impatient with the dog's exploring, the man whistled again before jogging away. He looked back and saw that his dog did not follow him.

  "Aqui! Venga aqui perro loco!"

  But the dog continued barking. Cursing in three languages, the dog's owner picked up a stick. He found a path through the muddy flotsam and driftwood of the tidal flat. Waving the stick, he shouted at the dog. " Vengase, perro!"

  The dog left the bundle. Splashing through shallow mud, the dog ran to its master and barked. Then it returned to the bundle, circling it and barking.

  Dirtying his expensive jogging shoes, the man pursued the dog. He splashed past the bundle and swung the stick at the dog's hindquarters. Dodging away, the dog tore at the plastic of the bundle again.

  An arm fell out. Gray against the black muck, the arm seemed to glow in the half-light.

  Not believing what he saw, the jogger stepped closer. He saw the form of a torso inside the plastic. The arm, with the slight muscles of a man who had always worked in an office, showed the rust brown stains of crusted blood.

  Flame had curled and blackened the fingers. Like a claw, the scorched hand reached mud.

  As Able Team arrived at the office of United States Congressman Chris Buckley in the metropolitan center of the city, the San Francisco police and the men from the office of the coroner removed the mutilated corpse of David Holt from the mud flats of the bay.

  14

  Able Team cruised through the early-morning quiet of the San Francisco Civic Center. Though the light of dawn flashed from the plate-glass walls of the high-rise towers, darkness still held the streets and boulevards. Neon lights blinked. The blue white points of mercury arc streetlights seared the gray air.

  Arriving by commercial transcontinental jet at the international airport, the team had rented two new Ford sedans. Gadgets drove alone in one, Lyons chauffeured Blancanales in the other. Because they would work without liaison or backup, they carried all their gear with them—weapons, radios, clean clothes, even two shopping bags full of canned drinks and food.

  Only an hour after their landing, they followed the freeways to the end of the peninsula and the district offices of Congressman Chris Buckley.

  They drove past the building without slowing. Lyons scanned his side of the boulevard, his eyes searching for anything extraordinary. Blancanales memorized every detail on the other side. In the seconds of their passing, they saw only an empty Volkswagen in a No Parking zone in front of the offices; a Dodge sedan parked in a Passenger Loading zone across the street, occupied by a Hispanic reading a newspaper; a truck driver wheeling a rack of bread into a restaurant. A street sweeper weaved along the boulevard, swinging wide around the illegally parked cars and delivery trucks, swerving to the curb to scour the gutters of filth and litter. Another Hispanic, his hands in the pockets of his suit, stood at the end of the block.

  "No action on my side of the street," Lyons commented. "You see anything?"

  "Tal vez si, tal vez no," Blancanales answered. The Puerto Rican ex-Green Beret leaned low in the seat as he keyed his hand-radio: "Wizard, que pasa?"

  "Nada."

  "You see the one at the corner?"

  "Latin American? About five-ten, strong?"

  "That's him."

  "Looked like the one in the car. Same build, same hair, same style coat."

  "A flashy dresser," Blancanales added. "But the one in the car looked like he'd sat in those clothes all night."

  "Oh yeah…"

  Lyons heard the conversation through the earphone he wore. He needed no instructions from his partners. With the familiarity and routine learned in Able Team's dirty wars, he accelerated through the streets. After several smooth turns, he slowed and then parked on a street intersecting the boulevard. They now viewed the Dodge from the rear. The second Hispanic had gone to the parked Dodge. They saw the driver glance across the boulevard to the upper floors of the office building.

  Gadgets drove past in his rented Ford. He crossed the boulevard and parked where he had an angle on the front of the congressman's office entry. He buzzed his partners on their radios.

  "There's someone on the third floor," Gadgets told them, "looking down at the street."

  "Seems the two in the car are surveillance," Blancanales answered.

  Lyons joined the conversation. "Unless maybe they've waited all night for the office to open… or for someone to come out."

  Able Team did not fear the interception of their radio transmissions. They used hand-radios designed and manufactured to National Security Agency specifications. Encoding circuits scrambled every transmission. Any technician scanning the bands would intercept only bursts of electronic noise.

  Blancanales turned to Lyons. "We go in through the parking lot entrance?"

  "They could have a car down there." Lyons looked to the daylight blazing from the glass of the towering buildings. "I say no meeting here. There'd be people coming to work while we talked. Much too public."

  "Affirmative," Blancanales agreed as he opened the passenger door. He stepped out to the chill, damp morning. "Pay phone time."

  As Bob Prescott talked on the phone, Jefferson observed the Salvadorans on the boulevard watching the office entry. Hearing what the congressman's aide proposed, Jefferson whipped around. "They what?"

  Prescott put his hand over the phone's mouthpiece. "He says they won't come in. Says it would compromise them. He wants us to go somewhere else where we can talk. So why don't we go over to my place on the hill? It's quiet and private."

  "Forget that!"

  "We could slip out the parking entrance. That way they—" Prescott nodded toward the boulevard "—wouldn't see us leaving."

  "And what about the spooks?" Jefferson demanded. "They come in here, we've got a chance to check them out. We go where they want, we don't know what we're walking into."

  "Floyd…" The congressman spoke with his sonorous media voice, his tone paternal and wise. "Though I don't always see eye to eye with the man I called, I trust him completely. I have no doubt he dispatched…ah, specialists… who are also trustworthy."

  "Uh-huh. You trust them with your life. Hear this. Point number one, when Senor Rivera saw Ricardo Marquez get chopped up, he called the American Embassy. The next day, the Blancos came to kill him. They chopped up his son. Point number two, even after the embassy knew the Blancos had murdered an American citizen, they let those goons into the U.S. of A. Point number three, Mr. Holt went to the Federal Bureau of Investigation and told them he had a case against that Colonel Quesada and his gang of macheteros. The FBI told him to forget it. He didn't. He went public. He disappeared. Now you're telling me to trust some new people? No chance. You trust them with your life, not with mine."

  The veteran politician considered Jefferson's words. He took the phone from his aide.

  "Hello? This is Christopher Buckley. Who am I speaking to? Rosario? Rosario, I'm sorry to question your identity, but this is a very tense situation. Please give me the name of your commander— Good. What did he tell you about our problem? Yes, yes, I'm aware the phones are insecure. But you do have some idea of the threat that confronts us. I'm attempting to negotiate a meeting, but… quite frankly, my young friend is afraid. And he has reason to be. We need to satisfy not only your need for security, but his also."

  Buckley listened. "Yes, very good. I'm giving the phone to Floyd. Explain to him what you propose…"

  Floyd Jefferson took the telephone. "Yeah?"

  He heard a deep voice. "I'm Rosario. We can't come in with those—"

  "Yeah, yeah. Listen, we can work out a place to meet, okay. But hear me, you don't know where it is until we get there. I'm not wal
king into any surprises…"

  "No problem. I understand."

  "You'll follow us—" Jefferson put his hand over the phone. "Mr. Buckley, you still have that black Lincoln, right?"

  Buckley nodded. Jefferson spoke into the phone again. "A black Lincoln Continental. Easy to follow. You can't lose us. You let us go in, wait a minute or so, then you show up. But no surprises, see? I am one very jumpy dude lately, and if you try anything tricky, I just don't know what I'll do. Hear me?"

  "I hear you. No surprises."

  "All right. Give us ten minutes and we'll be coming out of the garage exit."

  "See you soon."

  "Yeah, later."

  Hanging up the phone, Jefferson turned to the others. "We'll go to your place, Bob. They'll follow us. But man, this could be a setup."

  Jefferson gripped the sawed-off Smith & Wesson riot gun. He had hacksawed the barrel off at fourteen inches, then cut off the stock to leave only a curled pistol grip. Black electrician's tape wrapped the grip. He held his finger straight against the safety and trigger assembly as he slapped the weapon's pump grip into the palm of his left hand.

  "They make a move on us, they are gonna suffer…"

  Watching in the rear view mirror, Lyons saw the black Continental leave the office building's underground garage. The luxury car accelerated past. Putting his car into gear, Lyons entered the traffic of early-morning commuters and trucks. Blancanales, his passenger, cued Gadgets.

  "That's the congressman's car."

  Lyons spoke into his radio. "Let us lead. You stay out of sight. No reason to show them all our cards…"

  "Check," Gadgets acknowledged.

  Blancanales glanced at their partner as they passed.

  Lyons stayed half a block behind the Lincoln as the black car sped from the Civic Center. In its back window, Lyons saw the silhouette of a head as someone looked back.

  "Give them distance," Blancanales cautioned. "The kid sounded like a panic case."

  "He's got reason." Lyons followed the Lincoln through a sweeping left-hand turn onto a one-way boulevard. "Most people couldn't cope with life on a death list."