Able Team 07 - Justice By Fire

by Dick Stivers

  Gallucci glanced around at the other officers. They were combing the hillsides and killing ground. The Silverado blocked their view of him.

  As if he only walked back and forth to examine the ground, Gallucci eradicated the marks of his Salvadoran brother-in-struggle who had escaped.

  A sheriff called out, "Mr. Gallucci. We got a break!"

  "What?" Gallucci walked to the sheriff's department patrol car.

  "There's a gunshot case at the hospital."

  "Let's go!" Gallucci ran for his bureau vehicle.

  23

  Flashing his Federal Bureau of Investigation identification to the admitting clerk, Agent Gallucci demanded: "I got a report of a gunshot case here. What room?"

  Waiting outpatients and visitors crowded the reception room of San Jose County Hospital. A teenage candy striper wheeled a cart of magazines from couch to couch; a young man with a leg in a cast waved to get her attention. At the front desk, the clerk glanced at Gallucci's identification.

  "Just a moment…" The white-haired clerk touch-coded an extension number. "What is the status of the Mexican man?" She listened for a moment, then turned to the agent.

  "He's under sedation, sir. We're preparing an operating room for him now."

  "Is he conscious?"

  "In and out. He has a compound fracture of his left femur, shock from blood loss, serious gunshot wounds. I doubt if he could answer questions."

  "Where did you find him?"

  "In front of the hospital. Someone simply dumped him on the parkway. They had given him expert first aid, but—"

  "What name did he give you?"

  "That's a problem. The police tried to question him about that. His identification says he's from Mexico. On a business trip, but he told us he's Salvadoran. Kept begging us to call the State Department. The United States Department of State. Says he wants asylum. Is that why you're here?"

  Gallucci nodded. "How long until he goes into surgery?"

  "Soon."

  "Well, I'll see what he has to say."

  "Officer, he—"

  "If he's conscious, we'll talk. If not, I'll come back tomorrow. What room?"

  "Room 113. That doorway and to the right. Halfway down the hall."

  Passing through the lobby, Gallucci glanced at the security guard posted at the side of the large room. The potbellied guard leaned against the wall watching the waiting area's television. Gallucci continued into the hallway. He noted that the food-service workers wore plain white uniforms without badges or identification tags.

  Room 113 smelled of blood and antiseptic. The wounded Salvadoran opened his eyes as Gallucci went to the bed. Gallucci looked at the bandages covering the young man's body. He could not be the soldier who escaped.

  "You are State Department?" the wounded young man asked.

  Gallucci went to the room's bathroom. He looked inside, saw the door to the adjoining room open. No one occupied the other room. Gallucci pulled the door closed and locked it. Only then did he answer the Salvadoran.

  "So you want asylum? Why?"

  "I… have had enough of war and…killing. No more."

  "War? What're you talking about? You're a Mexican. Mexico's not at war with us."

  "I am Salvadoran… My commander, Colonel Quesada…he ordered… I come to kill North Americans."

  "Who shot you?"

  "North Americans. Why do you ask me that? I told them everything—"

  "You mean the police?"

  "Who shot me…who killed all the others… I told them everything…"

  "So you're willing to cooperate?"

  "Yes…I cooperate…"

  "That's all I needed to know. Adios, amigo."

  Gallucci left the room quickly. He went to a pay phone in the lobby of the hospital and called a San Francisco number.

  An hour after the young Salvadoran left surgery, a food-service worker entered his room. The worker pressed a pillow over the face of the Salvadoran.

  His war had indeed ended.

  24

  Stepping over trash and bottles, Antonio Rivera descended the urine-stinking stairs. Graffiti identified the gangs claiming and competing for the tenement as territory. At the first-floor door, Rivera peered into the lobby before stepping out.

  He saw the clerk staring at a television behind the steel wire and bulletproof glass of the manager's office. An elderly resident of the deteriorating hotel slept in an overstuffed chair salvaged from some garbage heap. A Mexican resident pushed through the doors. Recognizing the Mexican as an illegal, Rivera knew he could leave the hotel without risking walking into a squad of Immigration and Naturalization officers.

  With a quick "Buenos" to the Mexican, Rivera hurried out. Derelicts and winos sprawled on the sidewalk, warming themselves in the late-afternoon sunlight. Rush-hour traffic from the offices of downtown Los Angeles sped past. With their windows rolled up, secretaries and lawyers and accountants drove past without looking at the human dregs littering Main Street.

  Rivera hurried to the corner of Eighth and Main. There, he went to a pay phone in the corner of a café. Taking a business card from his wallet, he punched the buttons for a San Francisco number. After depositing a dollar in coins, the phone rang.

  "Good evening, Holt, Lindsey and Stein."

  "Buenas tardes. May I speak with Mr. Holt."

  "This is the answering service, sir. The office is closed for the day. Would you like to leave a message, sir?"

  "Mr. Holt has gone home?"

  "I have no idea, sir. I only take messages for the office."

  "This is Antonio Rivera calling—" He turned the card over. On the back, David Holt had written his home number. "I will call Mr. Holt's home. I must speak with him personally. Thank you."

  "Good night, Mr. Rivera."

  The second call cost him the last of his coins. After several rings, a young man answered the phone.

  "This is the Holt residence. Who is calling?"

  "Buenas tardes. This is Antonio Rivera. May I please speak with Mr. Holt?"

  Only a quick intake of breath answered him. He heard a hand close over the phone. Then the voice returned.

  "Mr. Rivera, this is Michael Holt. My father's dead."

  A cold fear seized Rivera. Though he dreaded what he must ask, he asked nevertheless, his mouth dry, "An accident?"

  "No, sir. He was murdered."

  "Who…?"

  "We don't know who. But it's important for you to help us now. My father talked of your case. He was on his way to the airport to go to Washington, when they kidnapped him—"

  "Los escuadrones de muerte… aqui."

  "What, sir?"

  "The death squads. Here."

  "Floyd Jefferson went to your apartment in San Diego. But your family was gone. We were afraid that—"

  "We saw the Immigration. So we left."

  "Can we have your new address, please? We need your help. The police won't believe why this happened."

  "North Americans don't understand. They killed my son and the North Americans said it was the Communists. They killed Senor Marquez and…"

  "Will you talk with the police, Mr. Rivera?"

  "If they send us back to El Salvador, we all die. I, my wife, my daughters. Los escuadrones wait for us."

  "You will not be deported. You are now material witnesses in a murder investigation. An American murder investigation. My father's law firm will bring you to San Francisco. We will protect you. If you have any difficulties with the officials, we make bail for your entire family. We need your help…Please, we need your address and phone number."

  "I have no telephone. We stay at a hotel in Los Angeles—" Rivera gave Michael Holt the name and address of the Main Street tenement.

  "Thank you, Mr. Rivera. Together perhaps we can bring my father's and your son's murderers to justice. Tomorrow, a friend of my father will go to Los Angeles. I'll call him now. He's the personal aide to a congressman. He's offered to help us in every way possible."
/>   "I am so very, very sorry my troubles have killed your father."

  "No, not your troubles. Our troubles. Now we are together in this…"

  "What is his name? This man who will come for my family?"

  "Robert Prescott."

  25

  A night wind from the Atlantic misted the lush tropical garden. Lights hidden among the flowers—transplanted from Salvador—created shadows and translucent colors. Colonel Roberto Quesada walked the cobble-stoned paths of his estate. Though he appeared calm and impassive to the trusted guards stationed at the corners of his property, the colonel's mind raged with anger and impotence. His hands knotted into fists inside the deep pockets of his silk smoking robe. Quesada stared furiously at the lights of Miami.

  He cursed his allegiance with the North Americans. The weaklings, incompetent weaklings. But what could he expect of men who would betray their country for Salvadoran gold?

  Often, his disgust at his allegiance with the gringos threatened to shatter the mask of diplomacy he maintained. He gave them abrazos of brotherly friendship. He called them his allies in the war against international communism. He contributed hundreds of thousands of dollars to their political campaigns.

  But they would never have the strength and discipline required for victory. Quesada saw it in their faces. Once, when he made the mistake of including a gringo politician—a Republican who claimed to support the principles of private property and military strength—in a breakfast conversation, an officer joked about "cleaning out the lice" that had populated a region Quesada needed for the production of coffee. The Republican asked why "lice eradication" involved the army. Did the Salvadoran army supervise the use of insecticides? The officers gathered around the breakfast table had laughed. "Only for the eradication of Indian lice." But the Republican went white when he realized the officer had directed the killing of thousands of Indian campesinos.

  How the North American had degenerated in only a hundred years! Quesada had read the history of North America. All of North America had been the land of the Indians. The European settlers had marched west over the bones of Indians. Their generals had stated: "The only good Indian is a dead Indian."

  "From nits come lice."

  Now, as El Salvador attempted to maintain the purity of its Spanish heritage and culture against the Indian and mestizo Communists, the North Americans talked of land reform, of law, of justice, of human rights.

  What rights? Perhaps men and women did have rights. But the racially impure? The sickening half-breeds of lustful soldiers and Indian whores? The slothful poor in their filthy slums? The ignorant? The masses of campesinos who spoke their subhuman dialects, their supposed language an affront and slander to the melodious mother tongue of Castile?

  The Communists recruited those filthy slum creatures for their wars against the Families. Scum led scum.

  But why did the North Americans take their cause also? White people marched in "solidarity with the people of El Salvador." To protest military aid, the educated and prosperous North Americans poured their own blood on the steps of federal offices. Although inflation and unemployment racked their country, North Americans sent medicine, food, clothing, and United States dollars to the revolutionaries.

  Only an international communist conspiracy explained the strange phenomenon. Jews and Communists and dreamers funnelled their propaganda into the empty minds of North Americans.

  The major newspapers of North America—all Communist controlled. The radio and television networks— Communist controlled. The publishers—Communists.

  Worse, the elected officials of the United States now mouthed Communist lies.

  Land reform.

  Elections.

  Justice.

  What nonsense! Where would the land for the Communists come from? The Families had developed the lands throughout the centuries since their Spanish forefathers brought civilization to El Salvador. Why should the Families give up ancestral holdings? And elections, another joke. Allow the ignorant and poor and subhuman to vote? What would they vote for except the theft of land and wealth? And justice. Prosecute soldiers for killing Communists? Nonsense!

  Colonel Quesada had launched the war against the North American Communists to combat the lies threatening the survival of his nation. Victory in El Salvador would not guarantee the future of the Families. Not while North Americans continued their assaults on El Salvador's traditions and culture.

  A few North Americans volunteered to join Quesada in his war against the contagion in the English-speaking Americas. Others accepted his gold. All of his North American allies recognized the historical imperative to destroy the non-white insurgents, whether they fought in Sonsonate Province or Liberty City.

  But their decision to fight did not mean they had the strength and discipline.

  Or the will to act as necessary.

  Robert Prescott had failed him. When he had the opportunity to kill the black journalist, he did not. The congressional aide had talked with the journalist throughout the night, but had not killed him. Prescott had instead hired two local gunmen. The gunmen failed. Then Prescott had hired black nationalist mercenaries to pursue the journalist and his three guards. Again Prescott's hired gunmen failed.

  Now California newspapers carried photos of dead men on the freeway.

  Not only had Prescott failed to execute the Communist, he had failed to inform Quesada of the true threat presented by the "three specialists from Washington." He had failed to tell Quesada the three men carried military weapons.

  When Quesada dispatched Captain Madrano to intercept the reporter and his three guards, the Salvadorans died in an ambush. True, Captain Madrano should have recognized the trap, but without proper information, any man might have blundered into the ambush.

  Furthermore, how could he possibly discipline Madrano, the son of Quesada's lifelong friend and business partner?

  Agent Gallucci confirmed the military weapons and precise tactics the "specialists" employed. Perhaps Madrano could be forgiven his defeat.

  Fortunately, Gallucci eliminated the coward in the hospital, who had survived the defeat, before he could betray his commander and his fatherland to the North American media. Of all the North Americans, only Gallucci had demonstrated any ability. As he should. His loyalty cost more than any of the other hired gringos.

  But Gallucci had not found the Riveras. Nor could Gallucci eliminate the black Communist journalist while the specialists protected him.

  Now the defeat of Captain Madrano's squad forced Colonel Quesada to commit another squad of soldiers to the pursuit of the reporter. The young officer, the son of his dear friend, would have another chance to execute the Communists.

  First, the journalist. Then the Communist traitor Rivera. Quesada had given orders that Rivera not die before he had seen his children suffer. The tortures Captain Madrano was going to inflict on the children would be punishment for Rivera's treason.

  But how to remove the "specialists" who interfered with Quesada's justice?

  Prescott had told Quesada that the "specialists" had come from Washington after a request by Congressman Buckley—that foul male whore whom the degenerates and blacks and socialists of San Francisco had elected to serve the interests of debauchery and Soviet Russia. Obviously, puto Buckley had friends in Washington.

  Colonel Quesada also had friends in Washington. He had hesitated to request their help, but now he must. His friends shared his resolve to defeat the subhuman Communist scum and all their sympathizers. Yet Quesada doubted their resolve. They had never fought a war like Quesada fought. They thought of wars as confrontations of armies on the field of battle, of tanks and airplanes and artillery striking at the enemy until the enemy surrendered.

  El Salvador fought a different war. Quesada had heard many North Americans discuss the realities of his nation's struggles, but only the Americans who belonged to very conservative political parties actually understood.

  The Nazi Party of the United S
tates understood. As Quesada entered his luxurious home, he realized he faced a long, long struggle. He must reform the politics of North America through education and armed struggle. Teach the wealthy the reality of a political war. Then make war against those who would steal the wealth of the elite.

  Without vigilance and unrelenting war against the subversives, private property and economic freedom would never be secure.

  All sources of subversion—Indians, blacks, Asians, Jews, eastern-European immigrants, intellectuals, unions, Protestants, "born-again Christians," reformist Catholics—must be exterminated. Only then could the United States be a strong ally of El Salvador.

  Without the extermination of the subversives, no one of high birth or privilege would be safe.

  Quesada went to his study, where he could speak without any of his soldiers or family overhearing him. As he unlocked his book of names and phone numbers, the telephone rang.

  "Buenas noches."

  "Hello, Colonel?" Robert Prescott asked, his voice urgent.

  The colonel could not restrain his anger. "Do you know what has happened? Do you know how many men died because of your incompetence?"

  But the North American's words calmed the enraged colonel.

  "I know where the Riveras are," Prescott said.

  26

  As the last light of the western horizon faded to the turquoise of night, Able Team parked on one of the boulevards near Los Angeles International Airport. Down the block, a neon sign advertised full-size Fords at economy rates. They had abandoned the Silverado in Monterey, rented a Chevrolet from a tourist agency, driven that car to Los Angeles. Now they intended to rent another car. No one would follow their trail to San Diego.

  Blancanales glanced at his watch. "Time to check in with Stony Man. If we wait until we get to San Diego it'll be one in the morning back east."

  "And I'll need to make calls," Lyons told them. "I've got police friends in San Diego. Maybe we can get some liaison for the search there—"

  "Maybe we won't need any help," Jefferson interrupted. "Hold off on the calls to San Diego until I call San Francisco. The Riveras had Mr. Holt's office and home numbers. If they're okay, they'll call him."