Justice by Fire at-7

by Dick Stivers

  “So? You work for a rich general, you can afford flashy clothes.”

  “The ones in that parked Dodge…”

  “I didn’t see them.”

  “Men on a surveillance detail usually can’t afford five-hundred-dollar suits…”

  “I never could…”

  “And if one can afford a five-hundred-dollar suit, he wouldn’t wear it to sit in a parked car all night. Unless perhaps he worked for a billionaire.”

  Lyons laughed. “Hey, Rosario. I’m the paranoid. Not you. And what you’re talking about is totally paranoid.” Both knew Blancanales referred to a dangerously crazed billionaire known only too well to Able Team. “Why would Unomundo put a U.S. Congressman under surveillance?”

  “Who hit his Azatlan base?”

  “He doesn’t know that we…”

  “He saw you and Nate. Saw you face to face.”

  The Lincoln turned from the boulevard onto a winding avenue leading in to the homes on the Twin Peaks. Lyons slowed as a van roared past on the narrow avenue. He glanced at the van’s passenger window and saw a middle-aged, gray-haired man in a conservative sport coat.

  “Crazy San Francisco,” Lyons commented. “Businessmen drive like hot-rodders. Pol, I want Unomundo, you know that. I got that Nazi’s name on my list. But I’ll have to go south to find him. He wouldn’t send his people north.”

  “He sent his people to Texas…”

  Lyons looked at Blancanales. “Yeah… but why this congressman? Buckley’s a liberal, a dove. Peace to the world. He wrote that antigun amendment. Want to repeal the second amendment to the constitution. He thinks everyone should talk Russian…”

  A buzz from their hand-radios interrupted Lyons. Blancanales keyed his radio.

  “What goes?”

  “You see those two straights in the van?” Gadgets asked.

  Blancanales looked ahead. He saw the white van tailgating the Lincoln. “Yeah, they’re ahead of us. Behind the Lincoln.”

  “That’s because they’re following the Lincoln…”

  Lyons keyed his radio. “When did you spot them?”

  “About a mile back. The one on the passenger side has a walkie-talkie…”

  “But I saw him. He’s an Anglo. Holy shit! They’re hitting Buckley…”

  A hundred yards ahead, beneath the overspreading branches that shaded the street, the Lincoln had stopped at an intersection. A gray-haired, overweight Anglo in slacks and a sport coat ran from the van. Acceleration slammed the passenger-side door closed as the van swerved past the Lincoln and into the intersection. Then it came to a screeching stop in front of the Lincoln.

  The gray-haired Anglo pulled an auto-pistol from a shoulder holster. Pointing the weapon with both hands, he advanced on the trapped Lincoln. The other man left the van and pointed a CAR-15 at the Lincoln’s windshield.

  Jerking back the Ford’s transmission lever into first, Lyons stood on the accelerator. He saw the scene float past as if in slow motion.

  The Anglo on the sidewalk looked toward the sound of the accelerating Ford. A blast came from the right rear window of the Lincoln, the Anglo gunman’s face and head disintegrating in a spray of blood and flesh, the corpse flying backward. Even as Lyons’s Ford whipped around the Lincoln, the Lincoln accelerated in reverse, tires smoking. The cars passed in opposite directions, only inches apart as the second gunman’s Colt rifle sprayed a burst of 5.56mm slugs.

  Lyons did not slow as slugs ricocheted off the Lincoln to hit the Ford, breaking the side window. Blancanales braced his Beretta 93-R in both hands. The silenced selective-fire pistol sent a three-round burst into the chest of the gunman, then the van blocked his line of fire.

  As the Ford smoked through the intersection, Blancanales leaned from the window to sight on the gunman behind them. The wounded man staggered back, the Colt assault rifle still gripped in his right hand, his left hand clutching at his chest.

  Pivoting in the seat to point the Beretta, Blancanales aimed another burst, but the slugs went into the sky as Lyons slammed on the brakes. A car backing from a driveway blocked the street. A housewife with three children in the back seat of her station wagon stared at the firefight.

  In the rearview mirror, Lyons saw the wounded gunman lean against the van. One hand clutching his bloody chest, the gunman struggled to raise his assault rifle. Lyons slammed the Ford into reverse.

  Tires smoking, the Ford roared backward through the intersection. Lyons screamed to his partner, “Down!”

  The rear window exploded in fragments of sparkling glass. Slugs punched into the seats, slugs spiderwebbed the tempered glass of the windshield. Then the rapidly reversing Ford’s rear bumper hit the gunman and the van.

  Crushing both his legs, melding his body into the sheet metal and frame of the van, the crash killed the gunman instantly. The impact threw the van aside. Whipping wildly from side to side on the street, sideswiping a parked car, the Ford careered on. Lyons pumped the brakes, struggling to bring the car to a stop as it hurtled toward the Lincoln.

  Skidding broadside in the street, the mangled Ford stopped. Lyons looked out the window to see the muzzle of a shotgun aimed at his face. The shotgun withdrew and the window of the Lincoln rolled down. A young man of indeterminate race — his face the color of mahogany — shouted out the window.

  “Straight up the hill! We’ll pass you…”

  Lyons threw the shift into drive to accelerate past the smashed van. The Lincoln, then Gadgets’s Ford followed a second later. After two blocks, Lyons pulled over to the side and let the Lincoln take the lead.

  Looking over to his partner, Lyons saw Blancanales holding the Beretta beneath the window with one hand while he brushed broken glass out of his hair with the other. When the Lincoln and the second Ford sped past, Lyons followed.

  Blancanales surveyed the interior of the rented car, the shattered windshield, the smashed rear windows, the twisted trunk. He looked down at the upholstery. A slug had punched through the seat, a protruding tangle of foam and vinyl indicating what the slug would have done to his gut. The Puerto Rican veteran of twenty years of war closed his eyes and shook his head. “I’m getting too old for this.”

  Speeding another five blocks through the narrow, winding streets, Lyons saw the Lincoln ease through the gate of a house screened from view by a wall overgrown with ivy. Gadgets’s Ford followed. A few seconds later, Lyons parked his Ford on a brick driveway.

  As Able Team got out of their cars, the dark young man — his sawed-off shotgun in one hand — ran to the gate and pushed it closed. Wood slats and interwoven ivy provided privacy from neighbors. The young man ran back to Able Team. With the wide eyes and manic grin of adrenaline, he shook hands with Lyons, Blancanales and Gadgets.

  “I don’t know who you guys are, but you are my friends forever.”

  15

  Pacing through the black-and-white decor of the room, Jefferson told Able Team his account of the preceding three days. Though he had heard the story before, Congressman Buckley listened to it again as his aide, Bob Prescott, tape recorded Jefferson’s words and took notes.

  Able Team absorbed the story without comment, Blancanales also taking notes, Gadgets taping Jefferson’s monologue on his pocket recorder. Lyons studied the interior of the aide’s home.

  Decorated with the stark design of Northern European high-tech, the room seemed to be a showroom of “minimalist chic”: white vinyl couches, black plastic coffee table, gray industrial carpet over a floor finished in white plastic. Slender white enamel lamps focused light on African masks carved of ebony. On one wall, Lyons saw framed awards and photographs of Prescott with politicians and community leaders. One award commended the aide for work with the American Civil Liberties Union. But though his eyes wandered, Lyons did not miss a word Jefferson said.

  The exhilaration and bravado of the street firefight faded from the young reporter’s voice as he spoke. Panic returned as he described his meeting with the Riveras and their children,
the disappearance of David Holt, then the attempt to kidnap him.

  “They took Mr. Holt, they took those people from El Salvador, and they tried to take me. I don’t know what I’m on to, but they sure want to get me off it. You saw. Right there on the street, pistols and machine guns. They want me.”

  “To be exact,” Congressman Buckley interrupted, “they want the photos. Those photos could establish an international conspiracy…”

  “Linking Quesada to the murder of the reporter?”

  Buckley explained. “The newspaper has photos Ricardo Marquez took of the men following him in San Salvador. Floyd has photos of Salvadorans — soldiers, he believes — meeting Colonel Quesada in Miami. And now the police have four dead men. If the men photographed in San Salvador went to Miami and then came here, the photos establish there is in fact a conspiracy. Of course, Quesada is implicated.”

  Blancanales shook his head. “Only indirectly.”

  “Any lawyer with a loud mouth,” Lyons added, “could beat that charge. ‘Constitutional right to free association, blah, blah, blah.’ “

  “Sir!” the congressman protested. “I am an attorney, I have been an attorney for twenty-five years, and I assure you the practice of law requires more than a loudmouth.”

  “Oh, yeah. Right. A lawyer needs a typewriter and a Cadillac, then he’s all set.”

  “If you continue to disparage my profession,” Buckley warned, “you can expect a discussion of the morality of your profession.”

  “Sure, let’s talk about it.” Lyons looked to Prescott. “You an attorney, too?”

  The congressman’s aide nodded.

  “I notice you got six-foot walls, the legal limit. And a security system. And that sign for the private patrol. When you work for the ACLU, do you ever think about the people who can’t afford to wall themselves off from the scum you set free?”

  Gadgets laughed. He kicked Lyons in the shin. “Be cool. They’re on our side.”

  “Not my side.”

  Speaking through a sneer, Buckley asked Lyons, “Tell me, Mr. Specialist. What are the qualifications to join a death squad? Perhaps you can help us understand these Salvadorans we confront. Did they find you in a prison? Or a metal institution?”

  “Yeah, that’s it. I’m a psychopath. I think children should have the freedom to walk to school. I think old people should have the freedom to leave their windows open. A society without fear. I got these totally crazy ideas in my…”

  Blancanales interrupted Lyons. “Will you stop? We have a mission to complete. If you disagree with Mr. Buckley’s politics, write him a letter. Floyd, those two men in the van weren’t Salvadorans. You have any idea who they were, or how they may have come into this?”

  “Yeah… maybe. When I was out in front of Quesada’s place, when the Miami police put me down on the sidewalk, I looked over and I saw two who weren’t Hispanics. One was blond and had fair skin showing through his hair on top. The other one had black hair speckled with gray. Both were heavies, big shoulders, thick necks.”

  “But not the two who died today?”

  Jefferson shook his head. “Never saw those two before.”

  “Never see them again, either.” Lyons laughed.

  Jefferson laughed with him. “Would’ve been in real trouble if you guys weren’t behind us. Bob there…” Jefferson grinned to his friend “…he sees that machine gun pointed at his face and he freezes. I go ka-boom with my shorty and everything happens at once. Mr. Buckley hits the gearshift and Bob finally gets with it.”

  “Sorry,” Prescott apologized. “My law school didn’t teach counterterrorist tactics.”

  The telephone rang. Prescott left the living room.

  Blancanales glanced at his notes, then asked Jefferson. “Did you recognize the two Salvadorans who came to your apartment house? Were they in the group you photographed in Miami?”

  “I don’t really know. It was dark and I was afraid and nervous and I didn’t really look at their faces. It just happened too fast.”

  “Oh, my God!” Prescott gasped in the other room.

  Jefferson turned. He opened his mouth to call out to Prescott. Lyons grabbed his arm to silence him. In a whisper, he warned the young man. “Police are looking for you, right? If that’s a detective on the phone, he’s listening for background voices.”

  “Oh, yeah, right.”

  They waited in silence as Prescott spoke. “Has Mr. Buckley been notified? No, he’s not with me. Floyd Jefferson? Yes, I know him. How could he be involved with that? Oh, of course. Thank you, officer. This is terrible. Thank you, of course I’ll call if… Goodbye.”

  He returned to the others, his face blank with shock. “The police found David Holt’s body. He was tortured and murdered and then dumped in the bay.”

  Congressman Buckley groaned. Jefferson started to speak, his mouth moved, but no sound came out. Lyons spoke first.

  “Now we know they’re serious.”

  “It could’ve been me!” Jefferson blurted out.

  “But it wasn’t,” Blancanales told him.

  “And it won’t be,” Lyons added. He looked to his partners. “We got a plan yet?”

  Jefferson’s voice cracked with a sob. “And… and that’s what they did to the Riveras. Those little kids…”

  “We don’t know that,” Blancanales told him.

  “But they disappeared. I went there and it was like they were never there.”

  “Think about it,” Lyons told him. “Gunmen show up to take the family. Two, three, maybe four of the Blancos. The mother and father know what’s about to happen to them and their children. They’d fight. Kids would scream and cry. In a crowded apartment house? This isn’t El Salvador…”

  Jefferson nodded. “People in the barrio watch out for each other.”

  Lyons continued. “Did they leave any clothes? Any luggage? A death squad wouldn’t stop to pack up the family’s belongings. Not with crying children and screaming neighbors and every homeboy on the street putting out rounds. This isn’t El Salvador. Everybody’s got a pistol or a shotgun. That death squad wouldn’t make it to the street. I hope our esteemed representative…” Lyons turned to the mourning congressman “…will consider that fact the next time he authors an amendment to the constitution to repeal the right to bear arms. Those revolutionaries who wrote the constitution and bill of rights, they knew something you don’t, Mr. Buckley.”

  “Stop it!” Blancanales lunged across the coffee table to silence Lyons.

  “Yeah, yeah. I’ll write a letter. I’ll write a letter saying that a Mr. David Holt would be alive if he’d had a pistol in his pocket.”

  “I apologize for my loudmouthed associate,” Blancanales told Buckley. “This is not the time for his speeches. He is a good man but he has no grace…”

  “I got no grace,” Lyons interrupted, “but I got the plan! There are three things we have to do. Protect Floyd Jefferson. Find and protect the Riveras. And break the Guerreros Blancos. We can’t do that in San Francisco. I say we go to San Diego. Take Floyd with us.”

  “The police are looking for him,” Gadgets countered. “They’ll be watching the bus stations and the airport. We take him to the airport, he’s gone. And not to San Diego.”

  Lyons shrugged. “We drive, then. Four hundred, five hundred miles. We dump that wrecked Ford, rent another one. We’ll be there tonight.”

  “Take my motor home,” Prescott offered. “If anyone got your license number today, all of you are fugitives. The police can trace you through those rented cars. They could intercept you on the highway.”

  “A motor home.” Gadgets grinned. “What a luxury.”

  “Doesn’t go very fast but it’s very comfortable. Allow me to make one suggestion.”

  “What’s that?” Lyons asked.

  “Floyd, those photos from Miami. You should leave the negatives with our office…”

  “Noway!”

  “For safekeeping. You lose the negatives, it all comes
apart. We have no case to present to a court.”

  “No way, Bob.” Jefferson shook his head, repeated, “No way. I got three killings to explain. That short little fella…” the young reporter pointed to the sawed-off shotgun near his feet “…will keep me alive. The negatives will keep me out of San Quentin. They go where I go.”

  Prescott shrugged. “If that’s the way you want it. I’ll go get my camper out of the garage.”

  The others sat in silence for a minute. They heard Prescott slide open garage doors. An engine started, sputtered, finally idled. Prescott’s footsteps crossed the driveway. Looking to Lyons, Chris Buckley broke the silence with his first words since he had learned of the death of his friend.

  “Perhaps I am a Utopian. I believed I was acting in the best interests of the people of the United States when I proposed the amendment to limit the possession of weapons to security personnel. Until all this began, I did not doubt my reasoning that this is no longer a frontier nation, that this is now a nation governed by laws and protected by sworn personnel. I have faith in our country’s criminal justice system — despite all its flaws — and I will always believe that law and justice and compassion, rather than force, will create an American culture that will be the envy of all nations.

  “David Holt shared my beliefs. And now he is gone. You need not write that letter to me. Perhaps I should temper my Utopian hopes with pragmatism. Perhaps we arestill a frontier nation. It is one thing to hear of the suffering of others, it is another thing entirely to lose a friend. He was a fine man. Wealthy, yet concerned for those less fortunate. Totally committed to the future of our country. I have one request to make of you…”

  Lyons looked to his partners, then turned back to the congressman. “What? What can I do for you?”

  “When you find those who killed my friend…” Chris Buckley’s hand closed into a fist “…do justice.”

  16

  As Blancanales piloted the borrowed motor home south from San Francisco, Jefferson spun through the AM and FM radio stations. He paused to listen to news programs. Finally, he heard a report on the four killings: