by Dick Stivers
"He gave out his home phone number?" Lyons asked with surprise. "Doesn't sound like any lawyer I ever met."
"Mr. Holt knew they needed him. That's the kind of guy he was. I guess I'll call his family, ask if they got news."
Gadgets stayed in the rented car as the others went to a row of pay phones behind the gas station. He sprawled out in the front seat, his sneakers on the steering wheel, his head against the passenger door. By habit, he adjusted the rear view mirror so he could watch behind him without moving. He always called Lyons "paranoid," but in fact, they all qualified as paranoids.
You deal with snakes, you learn to be a snake charmer.
Like that Holt lawyer. He knew he had taken on a case involving terrorism. Right-wing Salvadoran terrorism, but still the same: terrorism. And the case ate at him.
Gadgets wondered if they really faced right-wingers. This is all too weird. What would the Salvadorans have to gain by wasting North Americans? Only made for headlines.
And the headlines made Congress scream. After those four missionaries got snuffed, Gadgets had figured the job for a Commie hit. Why not? What is worse than murdering nuns?
Raping nuns, then offing them, that's what. If a newsman had interviewed Gadgets Schwarz—ex-Green Beret and expert on Vietnamese Stalinist terrorism—he would have said the Commies had dressed up in government uniforms and offed the women. The People's Army of Vietnam specialized in crazy numbers like that. Dress up in South Vietnamese uniforms and walk through a village shooting little kids. Or get some rice in bags that bore the stencil of an American flag and mix in some poison. Or send in one sniper to kill a few Americans in a passing patrol so they would call down an airstrike on the village.
That was the way Commies operated. But then on national television, what does he see? Salvadoran soldiers confessing to the murders. Too much. Nothing like murdering Americans with American weapons to make Americans think twice about sending more weapons and ammunition.
Then those two labor lawyers. Wow. Zap someone in the local Sheraton coffee shop and think no one will notice? What did the Salvadorans expect people in the United States to think? Maybe the lawyers didn't tip and a waiter got pissed? So he put a few bursts of .45 ACP through them?
Then all the others. The tourist who got shot "while attempting to escape." Except that he had powder burns on the back of his head. The Dutch newsmen who got caught in a "cross fire" and took point-blank bursts. What does that mean, cross fire in a phone booth?
And this Ricardo Marquez, the reporter. Hack off his head and leave it on a fence post? Even the PAVN wouldn't do that to a reporter. Makes for piss-poor press relations.
If he did not know the facts, if he did not know for a fact that Cubans and Nicaraguans actually did fight in the mountains with the rebels, Gadgets would have suspected the Salvadoran government was a Communist plot.
Forty thousand death-squad murders in three years! Thinking about that made his gut twist. Forget the Cubans and Nicaraguans and the Commies; if Gadgets Schwarz was a Salvadoran, he would be in the mountains, too. After he put down the death squads, he would fight it out with the Commies.
He saw Blancanales and Lyons jog back to the car. The expressions on their faces told him something had gone wrong. Blancanales jerked open the door.
"They've canceled the mission."
"What?"
Lyons got in the back seat as Blancanales explained. "Washington has downgraded this to witness protection. They told Brognola the FBI will take it over in the morning."
"What do you make of that?" Lyons sneered. "I don't think I'd feel very safe with a collection of overweight bureau boys packing thirty-eights, up against Salvadoran Nazis and the Black Liberation Army."
Gadgets blinked. "What? Black Liberation Army?"
Blancanales nodded. "That's who tried to hit us on 101 South. One of their wounded said a white man hired them to hit some CIA spooks. That's us. The white man paid in Krugerrands."
"Bet you one of those Krugerrands," Lyons hissed, "that the white man was Prescott."
Looking at Lyons's face, Gadgets laughed. "I think I just heard someone pronounce a sentence of death. Not subject to the approval of the Supreme Court."
"Speaking of a death sentence," Blancanales continued, "that Salvadoran we left at the hospital? He's dead."
"He should have made it!" Gadgets said. "You had him stabilized. He just needed a cast and a transfusion."
"After he left the recovery ward, someone smothered him."
Lyons shook his head. "Those Salvadorans…"
They all turned at once as they heard Jefferson's shoes slap the asphalt. The young man sprinted to the car. In the streetlight, they saw his face as white as his gold-toned skin would allow. He gasped out the words.
"The Riveras called the Holts. They're in Los Angeles. And the Holts sent Bob Prescott to pick them up. He knows where they are!"
The men of Able Team looked at one another. Stony Man had cancelled their mission. The Federal Bureau of Investigation now had the case. If Able Team went to the aid of the Rivera family, they violated their authorization.
But their eyes voted to help the Riveras.
Blancanales spoke first. "Our man in Washington told us the FBI would take it over in the morning—"
"Not the FBI!" Jefferson startled at the mention of the bureau. "Holt trusted the FBI and now… now…"
Blancanales calmed the young reporter with a hand on his shoulder. "Just because they told us we're off the case, doesn't mean we'll get off it."
Floyd Jefferson looked at the three "specialists" he had learned to respect and trust. "You'll help the Riveras? Even if it's not your job anymore?"
"I'm free," Lyons joked. He questioned his partners: "You guys got something else you'd rather do?"
27
Cruising past the neon-bright bars and porno theaters of Main Street, Able Team scanned the few parked cars and trucks. Derelicts sprawled beneath the blue white glare of streetlights. Others gathered in doorways or shuffled through the alleys, shadows within the skid-row desolation. Beyond the two-or three-story shops and hotels dating from the 1930s, the light patterns of the contemporary Los Angeles high-rise skyline stood against the night like an image from a dream.
Here, where alcohol and 16mm pornography had replaced hope for crowds of Americans born in the United States, other Americans—speaking Mexican-Spanish and Quechua and the patois of Belize—hoped for a life in a country free of institutionalized poverty and racism. Often, after weeks of bus travel through Central America and Mexico, then days of claustrophobic transportation in the closed trucks and vans of smugglers, the immigrants' first vision of the United States shocked them: to see the filth of Main Street, to see the gaunt winos wandering in search of intoxication, to see and hear the raving street-crazies—the immigrants feared they had journeyed thousands of miles only to join the inmates of a vast prison.
But when they searched for work, they saw the other sections of Los Angeles. Men returned to their families in the hotels and told of neighborhoods where the decent Americans lived.
Though they described the mansions of the super-rich on Sunset Boulevard and the fabulous wealth of the shopping centers, the other neighborhoods gave them the strength to return to their menial jobs every morning. The streets of the small houses, with the battered cars and work trucks parked in the driveways, gave them hope. A man who worked with his hands could never hope to join the rich. But he could hope for the chance of a steady job, then an apartment, then—after a decade of working six or seven days a week plus overtime—a house and a place in a community of free Americans.
The men and women from the villages knew the United States offered them the hope of self-improvement. If they stayed in their villages, they could expect only poverty and disease and early death, but in the north…
If a man and woman worked, they could buy a car, they could go to night school, they could send their children to school, they could buy medicine so most
of their children lived. They could hope.
Only hope and faith sustained the immigrants thrown into the cesspool of Main Street. They feared any contact with the authorities of the United States. Rather than risk questions as to their immigration status, crimes went unreported, children went hungry, diseases went untreated. The honest, struggling immigrants enjoyed none of the services the derelicts and winos exploited. The immigrants feared the Immigration and Naturalization Service more than hunger, disease or robbery. The INS could end their dreams with handcuffs and deportation.
Lyons knew every doorway and alley, every step of Main Street. As a rookie with the Los Angeles Police Department, he had walked the downtown streets with his regulation uniform and weapons, utterly confused and frustrated by what he encountered. If the department's regulations had also required that he speak the languages of the people he encountered, he might have helped them. Instead, he often saw bloody victims run from him. He heard conversations stop when he appeared. He saw murderers drinking and laughing because witnesses to their crimes would not speak to a detective.
Once, a Spanish-speaking officer had typed a card for him. In Spanish, the card stated that the police department did not work for Immigration. It stated that Patrolman Lyons would never betray anyone to Immigration. That they could trust the Anglo.
But many of the illegals could not read. Literate campesinos presented an unacceptable threat to aristocracies and military governments; therefore, schools did not exist in the villages and slums of Latin America. The card became only one more frustration for the rookie cop.
Even after reassignment and promotions, Lyons often returned to central Los Angeles to hunt the predators hiding in the tenements and alleys. But then he knew to bring a Spanish-speaking officer. Ironically, Lyons regretted that expediency; if he had learned the language himself, he would be a more valuable warrior now.
Passing the tenement where the Riveras hid, Gadgets wheeled the rented car around the block. On Spring Street, Lyons turned to Blancanales.
"You and Jefferson go in the hotel. I'll cover the back on foot. Wizard, park in front. Keep the engine running. Looks like we beat the goons, but who knows?"
"The Riveras know," Blancanales answered.
"True." Lyons nodded as he assembled his equipment. He clipped his hand-radio to his belt. Dropping two speedloaders for his Colt Python into his jacket's left pocket, he took a second pistol from his suitcase.
Unlike his partners, he did not carry a Beretta 93-R. The silenced Italian pistol required a perfect head shot for an instant kill. Underpowered to avoid the crack of the bullets breaking the speed of sound, the slugs had many times failed to knock down the enraged, adrenaline-charged men Lyons had faced. Konzaki, the Stony Man weaponsmith, had hand-crafted a hybrid auto-pistol for Lyons, stealing the best features of the Berettas—the selective-fire auto-sear, the oversize trigger guard and fold-down left-hand lever that provided a two-handed grip. The bastardized Colt Government Model pistol had proved itself on two missions, the first in Cairo, the second in Guatemala.
"Colt Frankenstein," Gadgets joked.
Lyons laughed as he shoved the silenced auto-pistol under his belt at the small of his back.
"You can tell he's serious," Gadgets continued, " 'cause that thing is dangerous."
An extra ten-round magazine of .45 ACP hollow-points went in Lyons's wallet pocket. He gave his partners a wave as he left the car. "See you guys later."
As Lyons disappeared into the shadows of an alley, Gadgets made another right turn. Blancanales snapped back the slide on his Beretta 93-R. He eased down the hammer. The double-action pistol had a heavy trigger pull, but Blancanales did not believe the situation warranted carrying the pistol cocked and locked. He heard paper rustle as Jefferson concealed his shortened Smith & Wesson and a box of shells in a shopping bag.
"You got a round in the chamber?" he asked the young reporter.
Jefferson nodded. "You better believe it."
"It isn't safe. Unload."
"We could be walking into a goon squad. It isn't safe not to be loaded."
"You're going into a hotel crowded with people. Little kids. You want to chance an accident? That thing will take a child's legs off. You want to live with that? Dream about it the rest of your life?"
The young man looked down at the short-barreled weapon that had already saved his life twice. Blancanales saw indecision and fear on his face. Both men—the ex-Green Beret and the freelance writer— knew what they faced if the Salvadorans took them alive. And what the Riveras faced if the Salvadorans took the family.
"Wait. I've got a compromise," Blancanales told him. "First, those shells, put them in your pockets. Then clear the chamber, reload, but don't close the bolt. Keep it slightly open. And when we walk in there, you keep your right hand in the bag, on the weapon.
Something happens, snap the slide forward with your left hand and your right hand's already on the action. No feeling for the safety. It's called 'Unlocked Carry.'"
"Yeah, makes sense."
As Jefferson readied his weapon, Gadgets and Blancanales gave Main Street a last scan. Then Blancanales ducked his head low and spoke into his hand-radio.
"Ironman, where are you?"
"Looking down on you," Lyons answered.
"That was quick."
"When you going in?"
"Right now. Over and out."
Parking illegally, Gadgets stopped the rented car. Blancanales and Jefferson crossed the sidewalk and pushed through the doors. Gadgets pulled away. He continued to the far end of the block and parked, the engine running.
The lobby stank of mildew and stale tobacco. Blancanales saw the clerk sleeping with his head on the desk. Three haggard residents shared a gallon bottle of wine. They watched the two visitors pass. Blancanales kept his face turned away.
At the stairway, Blancanales paused an instant. He listened. Then he jerked the fire door open but did not step into the stairwell. He snapped a glance into a brightly lit landing. No one. They went up the stairs quickly, almost silently, their soft-soled shoes making no sound. But the old stairs creaked.
They paused again at the second-floor stairwell. Blancanales motioned Jefferson to continue up the stairs, whispered: "Make some noise…"
Jefferson's scuffs and footsteps broke the silence of the stairwell. Blancanales counted sixty and jerked the door open. Snapping his head out, then back, he saw no one in the corridor. He hissed for Jefferson to return.
In the corridor, they heard televisions and voices. A woman berated someone in Georgia-accented English. Jefferson glanced at a room number, then pointed to a door. The moldy carpeting silenced their steps.
Blancanales went flat against the wall as Jefferson knocked. "Senor Rivera. . .estoy aqui.. .Floyd. Floyd Jefferson. Recuerdeme usted? El nino delarco iris."
Silence for a moment, then laughter behind the door. It eased open. Senor Rivera called out, "Is there anyone with you?"
"Yes, I have a friend with me. His name is Rosario." Jefferson motioned for Blancanales to show himself.
"Bienviendo, amigos." Senor Rivera opened the door wide for his visitors.
As he entered, Blancanales glanced behind the door out of force of habit. A middle-aged Salvadoran woman—Senora Rivera—stood there with a butcher knife, raised to stab. He slowly lifted his left hand, palm open. Rivera tut-tutted his wife. "Todo es bueno ahora," he told her. He apologized to Blancanales and Jefferson as he shook hands. "One cannot be too careful in difficult times."
"And these are very difficult times," Blancanales agreed. "Senor Rivera, allow me to express my sorrow for the death of your son."
"Thank you for your compassion."
Blancanales keyed his hand-radio. "We're here. The family's okay. Wizard, how's the street look?"
"No Prescott yet."
Lyons's voice answered also. "He is one man I am watching for, no doubt about it."
"Relax. We might be here until morning. Over."
"Coffee?" the Senora offered.
"Gracias," Blancanales accepted. "It will be a long night."
"We are ready to go to San Francisco." Rivera gestured at the furnishings of the room and laughed. "We can pack in two minutes."
"Not tonight," Blancanales said. "Maybe tomorrow or the next day."
"But Michael Holt, Mr. Holt's son, said he would send Mr. Robert Prescott to take us to San Francisco. He said perhaps tonight. Certainly tomorrow."
Blancanales shook his head, no. Then he explained what must be done.
28
Only minutes after his arrival at Los Angeles International Airport, Robert Prescott parked in the garage of the Sheraton Hotel. As he locked the rented car, his eyes searched the shadows and unnatural fluorescent glare of the stark cavern of structural concrete and gleaming automobiles. He saw no one watching from the other vehicles. No one loitered near the elevators. He did see a panel van—like the vans favored by surveillance teams—but a concrete pillar blocked the view from its front windows. The back windows faced away from him.
As he headed for the elevators, the roar of a late-night flight drowned out the sound of his feet on the pavement. He tried to keep his eyes straight ahead, to watch around him for surveillance only with his peripheral vision, but his fear forced him to keep turning his head for surreptitious glances.
The operation had gone public. West Coast and national newscasts carried the stories and video images of the death squad Prescott had hired to kill "a leading black reporter and his heavily armed goon guards." Though the commentators lacked the imagination or paranoia to link the killings of Salvadorans and ex-con assassins in San Francisco with the freeway battle, the late-breaking and fragmentary reports of the ambush slayings of the "illegal Mexicans" in the mountains outside of San Jose would hit the headlines tomorrow.
