Warlord of Azatlan at-6

by Dick Stivers

  "Tell you what, Konzaki," Lyons ended the jiving. "You don't like me talking, kick my ass."

  Blancanales and Gadgets went silent, waiting for the ex-Marine's response.

  Konzaki had lost both legs during the Tet Offensive. He stared at Lyons. The others waited for rage or mayhem. But Konzaki merely laughed.

  "Why should I break up my good plastic feet on your worthless body? However, I just might twist your head off if you don't shut your mouth. Now will you let me proceed?"

  Lyons laughed too. He said nothing as Konzaki flipped through pages. Mack Bolan's primo weapon-smith continued to summarize the documents and reports for Able Team. "Yesterday a semi-tractor trailer left a Houston warehouse. The task force had agents in cars following the truck, plus men and helicopters waiting as backup. Out in the desert, the cars got hit. The last radio transmission from the agents reported rockets. Apparently the lead car got hit, then the gunmen got the second car. When the backup teams got to the scene, they found both cars burning. The first two agents never knew what hit them. The other two men died in the desert. Somehow they got away from their car before they got rocketed.

  "The agents fought with shotguns and .38 pistols. The gang hit them with military weapons. The backup officers found 5.56mm brass, 7.62 NATO, M-60 belt links, 40mm grenade casings.

  "The agents must have wounded or killed a few of them. There were several blood trails. But after both officers were wounded, the gang overran them and executed them with point-blank riflefire. Then they mutilated them, and left them for the backup officers to find."

  "And we're following the gang?" Lyons asked, his voice quiet.

  Konzaki nodded, Blancanales asked the next question: "How do we know they're in Guatemala?"

  "National Security Agency satellites tracked a flight, probably a turbo-prop cargo plane, from Texas to Guatemala. It landed in the State of Q-U-I-C-H-E, pronounced key-chay, in the interior of Guatemala.

  "Clouds blocked the satellites from photographing the exact landing area, but chances are the gang has an airstrip and warehouses up there somewhere.

  "The killings in Texas ruined what looked like a successful conclusion to an investigation spanning years. But you men will have the benefit of all the information acquired.

  "We may not know the names of the men who pulled the triggers and did the cutting, but we know who hired them. His name is Klaust de la Unomundo-Stiglitz, a Guatemalan billionaire known in that country by his Spanish name, Unomundo. Here are photos of him."

  Konzaki passed out photos and folders of biographical details. "He's blond because his father was German, a Nazi SS officer on the run after the victory in Europe. He married a debutante from one of the wealthiest families in the country.

  "It wasn't enough for Unomundo to be born rich. After college in Germany, he went straight into his father's business. He multiplied his inheritance through drug and weapons smuggling.

  "This punk was not subtle. The FBI knew about him from the start. But he ran a tight organization, a Spanish-speaking Mafia with a Gestapo philosophy.

  "No one crossed him and lived. One time, one of his managers went to Miami with a set of account books. He said he'd cooperate with the U.S. Justice Department to break a transnational scam if they'd help him get his family out of Guatemala. But our people couldn't locate his wife or kids.

  "One day, the accountant gets a big set of photos. They showed his wife and kids hanging by their arms, going down slow, an inch at a time, one photo at a time, into tubs of acid. The guy killed himself the same day.

  "Unomundo took over his father's companies. He made billions, invested billions in land in Guatemala, El Salvador and Mexico, in manufacturing and transportation industries throughout Central America. He used his winning ways — extortion, murder, terror — to build up his financial empire. His death squads wiped out unions, competitors and government officials.

  "He also invested in politicians. His death squads worked for his politicians to make sure they took power. Sometimes the killers passed themselves off as right wing, sometimes as Communists. But it was always murder-for-money.

  "We have reports of his influence — meaning money and weapons — spreading to very powerful right-wing leaders. That's where we thought his weapons went to. But then we got information on other shipments, other weapons.

  "Here's a satellite photo of a ship off the Guatemalan coast. That's a Huey. Here's another. A Cobra gunship in flight to the central mountains of Guatemala. These helicopters are a mystery.

  "If we spotted them going into Guatemala two years ago, we could have understood. The Carter Administration cut off Guatemala'a purchases of American weapons because of the old government's human rights violations. No helicopters, no rifles, no ammunition, nothing.

  "So the government went to other countries for their weapons. The Guatemalans are damned proud people and they don't take flack from anyone. They don't allow other countries to dictate their politics.

  "But now there's a new government. The younger army officers rebelled against the generals and threw out the general who was in office. They gave the presidency to the man who actually won the elections in 1974.

  "In 1974, after he'd won the popular vote, the generals invalidated his election and drove him into exile. Eventually he came back, but stayed out of politics. He worked for his church and became a pastor. Story is that he was sweeping out the church when the young officers came to ask him to be president of Guatemala. Then things changed. Overnight, no more death squads. No more disappearances. No more torture.

  "Now the U.S. Congress is planning new aid programs. Our President has already sent the Guatemalan president the spare parts the army needed for its helicopters, and it's only a matter of months before the Guatemalans get everything they need. But in fact the Guatemalans aren't asking for anything. They've got a war going on in the mountains with the Cuban, Nicaraguan and Marxist crazies, but the Guatemalans will fight it with rocks before they beg anyone for help.

  "That's why we don't understand about the Hueys and Cobras. The Guatemalan army doesn't need to buy them on the international market. Maybe next week they could get the helicopters at a Congressional discount. We thought maybe they were going to the Salvadoran army, as an indirect way of getting around the liberals in Washington. But they haven't shown up there."

  Lyons pointed to the satellite photos. "How do you know it's this Unomundo who's smuggling the helicopters?"

  "You figure it out. He's running tons of 7.62 NATO prepacked in canisters for gunship mini-Gatlings. Either the helicopters are his, or he's supplying whoever's got them. What you men have to do is go in and close him down. The Guatemalans are allowing you into the country because his gang hit FBI men."

  "Then we're official?" Blancanales asked.

  "Semi-official. You'll have a liaison officer, cars, and people working behind the scenes to keep the army and police away from Quiche long enough for you to find his airstrip and stockpiles. Hit the gang, destroy the weapons, hit Unomundo.

  "But remember — the Guatemalans are going way out on the international limb to let you chase Unomundo, hot pursuit or not. If the newspapers or the international media find out about you three, it could be a real embarrassment to the new Guatemalan government. So if you can't do this quick and clean and very, very discreetly, you pull out. The Guatemalans will take the job over. Agreed?"

  The three men of Able Team nodded.

  "Lyons, you understand?" Konzaki stressed. "We've gotten some reports of very extreme behavior in Cairo. We sent you there to resolve a problem and you liquidated the problem."

  "Resolve, liquidate, what's the difference?"

  "Torture is not the American way."

  "You weren't there!" Lyons snapped back. "I explained it all to Mack. Even he went with it. It had to happen."

  "Mack said that?" Konzaki asked.

  "It wasn't torture. Justice and torture are two different things. And victory is something else entirely. You'll n
ever see me pulling some crap just to make someone hurt. But you'll never see me stop when someone's between me and the mission. You understand that?"

  "All right, all right," Konzaki nodded. Enough had been said. "Here are maps. Satellite photos of the topography of Quiche. A dictionary of the language. The mass of the people don't speak Spanish. Maybe the village leaders and the merchants speak Spanish."

  "Key-chay, key-chay, key-chay," Lyons repeated, learning to say the unfamiliar word.

  "Here's a book on the life-styles of the Indians, here's a book on their traditional weaving, here's a book on modern Guatemala."

  Blancanales took the weaving book and leafed through the color illustrations of Indian men and women in Mayan clothes. Painted in watercolors, the illustrations captured scenes from a culture that predated the civilizations of Europe. Women wore designs thousands of years old, men sported the same costumes their ancestors wore to battle the Spanish marauders. They had lost their freedom not because of ignorance or poverty or weakness, but because they did not have the modern weapons of the Europeans. The Mayans had only copper and gold knives against steel swords and armor, only stone clubs and arrows against muskets and cannons. Hence they became slaves.

  Yet the Mayan culture survived the long horror of the European overlords. With the Revolution, all Guatemalans — those descended from the Spanish masters and those who had survived as property — became citizens of a New World nation, equal under the law, yet as different and distinct as peoples from different planets.

  As he leafed through the pages, Blancanales heard someone's breath catch. Lyons was staring over his partner's shoulder, his eyes fixed on the paintings of lovely mahogany-skinned women, proud barrel-chested men, children playing in priceless handwoven clothes that in North America would only be seen in museums.

  Even Gadgets, the technological wizard, stared. "The places we go, wowie-zowie."

  "Here are your weapons," Konzaki announced, lifting a large fiberboard carrying case onto the conference table.

  Blancanales gave the book to Lyons and turned his attention to the gear they would carry into the mountains of Guatemala.

  Konzaki passed him an M-16/M-203 hybrid assault-rifle and grenade launcher. The rifle part of the over-and-under weapon fired 5.56mm slugs in single shots, three-round bursts, or full-auto through the new quick-twist NATO barrel. The lower tube fired 40mm grenades. In addition to the three-mode sear mechanism, the Stony Man weaponsmith had added luminous nightsights.

  "With buckshot rounds?" Blancanales asked.

  Konzaki nodded. He took out a Heckler & Koch MP-5SD3 submachine gun. A small weapon that fired 9mm slugs, the weapon featured integral silencing and Starlite scope. "Notice the scope mounts. They're quick-release, positive-lock. If the going gets rough, put the Starlite in its protective case. And here's the Atchisson."

  The weaponsmith lifted out Lyons's favorite assault weapon. Looking much like a standard M-16, but heavier, larger, the Atchisson fired twelve-gauge shells in semi-auto, three-shot burst, or full-auto modes from a seven-round box magazine. Konzaki hand-loaded the shells, cramming a mixed load of double-ought and Number Two steel balls into each shell.

  "Hey, Ironman," Gadgets jived. "Your true love just made her entrance..."

  Lyons didn't take his eyes from the colors and Mayan faces of the book.

  "Hey! Listen up!" Konzaki ordered.

  "What?"

  "Briefing isn't over yet. Here's your LCKD — The Lyons Crowd Killing Device," he said as he passed the Atchisson across the aisle. "Pay attention, or someday you just might not come back."

  "Someday I might find someplace I don't want to comeback from."

  "Look at him," Gadgets told the others. "He likes that book."

  "I like what I see. Maybe this is the place I don't come back from."

  "Ironman the Romantic," Gadgets laughed.

  "And Mr. Schwarz," Konzaki continued. "You're carrying the radios and electronic gear. We thought of assembling the same package of components you took into the Amazon, but I rejected the idea. Anywhere in Guatemala, you've only a three-or four-hour drive from phones with microwave links to international lines."

  "Thank God. That satellite radio must've weighed fifty pounds on its own."

  "Everything else is standard. The Beretta 93-Rs. Radio detonators and a kilo of C-4. Battle armor. Bandoliers. Ten thousand dollars cash for expenses. Except for the long guns, everything's in backpacks, ready for a hike. So, gentlemen, questions?"

  Lyons looked from the beauty of the Mayans to the weapons, the ammunition, the explosives. He looked at the other military gear. An uncharacteristic sadness touched his face. Then his eyes returned to the book. He read the strange and beautiful words aloud:

  "Qui-che. So-lo-la. Cak-chi-quel. Tzu-tu-jil."

  "And Lyons, remember what Bolan told you," Konzaki concluded. "Put your mindinto your work. No recklessness."

  3

  Smoke swirled from burning cornfields and obscured the valleys. In the ninety seconds of their approach to La Aurora International Airport, Able Team saw volcanoes crowned with clouds, jungle patterned by scorched fields and yellow-dust roads, the raw earth of new subdivisions carved from the hills and ravines around Guatemala City. Then their jet's wheels screeched on the blacktop.

  The jet taxied past the passenger terminal and continued down the runway to the private and corporate planes at the far end of the field. Passing parked Pipers, Beechcrafts and Lear jets, the pilot halted their plane only a few steps from an open hangar.

  Konzaki said farewell to the three men of Able Team. "See you next week. Do the best you can and be discreet."

  "We'll get him." Lyons shook Konzaki's hand, then dodged a friendly punch. He lifted his backpack and the fiberboard case concealing his Atchisson, and went to the cabin door.

  "One last question," Blancanales asked Konzaki. "If the Guatemalans are so nationalistic and proud, why are they allowing us into the country?"

  "Like I told you, hot pursuit. Also..." Konzaki glanced out the ports, saw field workers pushing stairs to the jet's door "...they think Unomundo's people might have infiltrated their security organizations. If they mounted an action, his spies would know. But if three North Americans drop out of the sky…"

  Gadgets looked to Blancanales. "My paranoia meter just red-lined. If Unomundo has spies in the police and army, why not in our liaison group. Like in Cairo..."

  Months before, agents of the fanatical Muslim Brotherhood had penetrated a secret U.S. Air Force operation in Cairo. With precise information on personnel and activities, the Muslims had plotted attacks and finally killed several Americans. Stony Man dispatched Able Team to Egypt, not to investigate the murders but to shadow the joint CIA/Egyptian task force investigating the acts of terrorism. In one long day and night of unrelenting action, Able Team smashed the Muslim fanatics. In a flaming climax, they tricked the Egyptian liaison who was betraying the Americans into betraying himself.

  "Ironman, what do you think?" Gadgets asked Lyons.

  "I think I don't like it. Andy, can we ditch our liaison?"

  "That's up to you. You three are the men working the operation. You make the decisions."

  The cabin door opened. Midday tropical glare and the roar of jet engines cut off the discussion. Lyons saw two Chevy Silverado vans — one-ton pickups built for nine passengers — parked inside a hangar. Two men in sport suits waited there.

  Pausing on the aluminum steps to put on his sun-glasses, Lyons scanned the immediate area. Directly in front of him, only twenty steps away, their Guatemalan liaison officers waited. Lyons looked to the hangars on the right and left.

  He saw no technicians at the parked planes, no airport workers moving in the other hangars. A truck had its hood open. A tarp on one fender protected the paint from tools and parts, but he saw no mechanic. In another area, a pickup truck idled, cargo stacked in the back, smoke wisping from the exhaust pipe, the driver's door hanging open. A step from the truck, fiz
zing pink pop spread from a bottle, sunlight glinting from the bottle as it rolled on the concrete.

  Lyons put his right hand behind his back, snapped his fingers to get his partners' attention, then straightened his forefinger and made the motion of cocking his thumb back like a pistol hammer.

  "Receiving on your wavelength," Gadgets answered. "No video transmission necessary. We got the picture."

  As Lyons clanged down the steps, his partners stayed in the jet. Blancanales turned to Gadgets. "When I walk down there, I'm going to embrace our brother officers of the law. Have any small gifts I can give them? So that I can always hear their voices?"

  "Electronic abrazos?Gadgets asked. Blancanales nodded.

  As Lyons stepped into the hangar's shade, the senior officer, a dignified middle-aged Hispanic wearing an expensive European-styled suit, white peppering his short black hair, extended a strong hand.

  "Colonel Morales," the officer told him. He motioned the second man forward. Younger, his shoulders thrown back in military stature, the other man also wore a tailored suit. A gold wristwatch flashed at his cuff.

  "Captain Merida."

  "Pleasure to meet you," Lyons assured them. "Let's hope we do this business quickly. I know you don't appreciate our troubles coming to your country."

  "Yes, we will be quick," Captain Merida told him.

  Lyons looked back. He saw Gadgets and Blancanales finally leave the jet. "My partners."

  "Only three men?" Colonel Morales asked. He waved toward the two nine-seat trucks. "We were told to expect a team. We thought..."

  Blancanales greeted the officers in Spanish, throwing his arms around them as if meeting lifelong friends. The officers politely returned the masculine embraces, then introduced themselves. They turned to Gadgets and shook hands, and introduced themselves in English to him. Finally, Captain Merida motioned toward one of the Silverado war wagons.