Читать книгу Season of Harm - Don Pendleton - Страница 10

The Southern Tier of New York State

The rutted dirt road turned and twisted, the rented Suburban bounced and jolted despite its heavy-duty suspension and four-wheel drive.

“We’re approaching the target coordinates now,” Lyons said into his secure satellite phone.

“I’m uploading all of the satellite imagery we have to your phones,” Barbara Price told him. Mission data would be sent to each team member’s wireless unit; they would study the satellite images before making their run.

“You’re certain we’re on the right track?” Lyons asked for the third time.

“Yes, Carl,” Price told him. “NetScythe’s analysis of satellite imaging of that area has resulted in several clusters of probable hits,” she explained. “The chain is a long one and took several hundred hours of data mining to establish, but the Triangle is running at least one chain of drug shipments from New Jersey to the target location, and back again. Multiple distribution points run from that location, too. The satellite data definitely supports your location as a hub of the Triangle’s network.”

“And we’re facing what in terms of opposition?”

“More than likely,” Price said, “a local biker gang reportedly up to its chrome exhaust pipes in the local drug trade. The Grubs, according to what I have here. There have been quite a few reports fired at local, regional and state levels concerning them and their activities, but so far New York’s attorney general hasn’t managed to nail them down, and neither have the Feds.”

“Grubs. Catchy name.”

“Very,” Price said.

“How big?”

“No definite numbers,” Price said, “but there are quite a few bodies on the ground. Unless it’s a racetrack or an amusement park, you can assume anywhere from a dozen to two or three times that number. Completely speculative.”

“Wonderful,” Lyons said. “All right. Just wanted to be sure. Give Hal my love.”

Price laughed. “I might just do that.”

“Able, out,” Lyons said. He closed the connection.

“I always knew you two had something going on,” Schwarz said absently. He was examining the data the Farm had sent to each man’s phone. Blancanales was driving, so Schwarz quickly and quietly gave him a rundown of what they were facing. Lyons brought up the data on his own wireless unit and listened in as Schwarz spoke.

“Okay, Pol, we’ve got a main building here, a double-wide, in the center of this clearing,” Schwarz explained. Lyons examined the photographs provided by the Farm. They were enhanced shots taken from space, the detail provided by NetScythe reportedly enhanced, according to the notation, using the amazing device’s programming logic. “Outlying trailers here and here.” Lyons found the two structures as Schwarz described them. “According to the heat-signature analysis, the double-wide is the cookhouse, almost certainly crystal meth, if local law-enforcement reports are any hint. One of the outlying trailers may be storage for drugs, or may not be. One of them is most certainly the primary residence, where most of the personnel on-site congregate during the evenings. That much is verified by the heat clusters.”

“Bet it smells wonderful,” Lyons grumbled.

“I’ll bet it does, at that.” Schwarz smiled then turned more serious, all business where the work itself was concerned. “How do you want to play it, Ironman?”

“You and Pol,” Lyons said, “will use the cover of the trees surrounding the property, work your way around to either side. West and east. I’m going to take the truck straight down the middle, up the road and to their front door.”

“Uh, Ironman…” Pol started.

“Yeah?”

“Won’t that mean they’ll start shooting at you almost immediately?”

“It might. So?”

“Well, all right. Never mind, then.” Blancanales shrugged.

“On my go,” Lyons said as if the interruption had never occurred, “you’ll move in on the cookhouse. I’ll try to recon the storage trailer and take out the residence trailer while you do that. Expect resistance around and in the cookhouse to be the worst. There’ll probably be plenty of guards.”

“Probably?” Schwarz asked.

“Shut up,” Lyons said automatically. “All right, no sense delaying the inevitable. Let’s hit it.”

Blancanales sped up as much as he dared, bringing the Suburban through the curves in sprays of dust and gravel. When, according to their GPS unit, they were just short of the clearing in which the target trailers stood, Lyons signaled Blancanales to bring the truck to a stop.

“All right,” Lyons said. “Everybody out.”

Blancanales removed an AR-15 from the back of the truck. It would be his primary contact weapon for the operation. Schwarz checked the 20-round magazine in his 93-R machine pistol.

“Ironman,” Schwarz said, looking up at the big blond former cop as the man took the wheel of the Suburban, “be careful.”

“Never,” Lyons said.

“One of these days,” Schwarz started.

“One of these days, nothing,” Blancanales shot back. “He’s indestructible.”

“Wish I was.” Schwarz grinned.

“Go,” Blancanales said. Schwarz nodded. The two men split up, working their way through the trees that surrounded the property.

“Wish I was, too,” Lyons said to no one. He tromped the gas pedal and the Suburban shot forward, the big engine growling.

“Keep it tight, guys,” he said over his transceiver link.

“Got it,” Schwarz said.

“Will do,” Blancanales acknowledged.

Lyons did not have to drive far before he cleared the trees. Emerging at the opening to the clearing, he was confronted by a pair of leather-clad bikers sitting on elaborately chromed choppers. The motorcycles were parked across the dirt road, nose to nose. The men sitting on them were in their midtwenties to early thirties, greasy and unkempt, but the predatory air about them was unmistakable. Lyons saw no weapons, but both wore leather jackets that could conceal just about anything short of a rifle or full-size shotgun.

One of them came up along the driver’s side of the Suburban. Lyons rolled down the window.

“You lost, asshole?” the biker demanded.

“No,” Lyons said. He was very conscious of the other man at the nose of the truck.

“Then you’d best turn your ass around and get the hell out of here, hadn’t you?” the biker at his window said. He reached into his coat.

“You should probably get down on the ground,” Lyons said calmly. “Your friend, too. I’m a federal agent.”

“Oh, really?” the biker asked. He seemed to think that was funny.

“No, really,” Lyons said conversationally. “I’m with the Justice Department.” He held up the credentials he had plucked from his pocket while driving up. “See?”

“Oh, damn it all to—” He clawed a revolver from under his jacket, bringing it up to shoot Lyons in the head.

“Yeah,” Lyons said. The big ex-cop was faster. His Python was already pointing out the window of the truck. It spoke once, with authority, and the biker fell dead with a .357 Magnum bullet hole in his forehead.

Lyons stomped the gas pedal to the floor. The big Suburban pushed the other biker over. He went down screaming, still trying to pull his own gun, as Lyons simply drove over him. The two choppers were more of an obstacle, but the big Suburban powered over those, too, leaving behind bent and twisted chrome as it fought for traction in the dirt.

“Shots fired, shots fired,” Lyons said. “The Grubs drew down on me,” he reported to his teammates, “so assume armed and dangerous. I’ve taken two and am headed toward the buildings now.”

“Roger,” Schwarz said.

“Coming at you,” Blancanales said.

Lyons rolled up to the trailer designated on their intelligence files as the residence building. He leaped from the Suburban, his Daewoo USAS-12 automatic shotgun at the ready with a 20-round drum magazine in place. Several motorcycles were parked in front of the trailer, as well as an old Ford pickup. Lyons ignored the vehicles. With one combat-booted foot, he kicked open the door to the trailer.

The gunfire that poured out was so heavy that he was forced to leap away, landing on his back in the mud in front of the trailer door. The men rushing to kill him, bikers all, were so eager to shoot him that one of them managed to put a bullet in the back of another. That biker fell dead at Lyons’s feet, the Grubs colors on his vest spattered red with his blood.

Lyons fired from his back, hosing the doorway with double-aught buckshot. Men screamed and died.

The big ex-cop pushed himself up and through the doorway, the shotgun leading. He poured on the fire as he encountered several more bikers, some only half dressed as they were roused from fetid bunks by the fighting. Return fire devastated the cluttered, garbage-strewed trailer all around him, but none of it found the Able Team leader. Yet another biker died as a result of friendly fire, however, when Lyons dodged his clumsy knife attack and then yanked the man in front of him to play the part of human shield.

“Knife to a gunfight, pal,” Lyons muttered before firing out the drum of the USAS-12 from behind the dead man.

The small, dark-skinned man moved so fast that Lyons almost didn’t see him until it was too late. Levering the corpse off himself and bringing the shotgun up to acquire the next target, Lyons felt the shock transmitted through his big hands as the smaller man dived from hiding behind one of the bunks that lined the walls of the narrow trailer. He slapped the barrel of the shotgun so hard that Lyons’s palms stung. The weapon was levered from his grasp as the small man snapped a brutal kick into Lyons’s shin and then unleashed a hail of blows with his fists.

Lyons released the shotgun rather than fight for it. He deflected most of the punches, though a few got through and very nearly rocked him. His opponent was small, but all wiry muscle, and he packed a hell of a punch in his small frame.

Lyons got a good look at the man’s face as they fought.

Thawan.

He’d had his doubts as to NetScythe’s ability to point them to targets ahead of the curve. He’d even entertained the notion that they might have stumbled on a local meth gang completely unrelated to the Triangle. The presence of Mok Thawan here, however, clinched it. They were definitely dealing with the Triangle.

Lyons threw a powerful front kick that staggered Thawan. In that instance, Lyons knew that, ultimately, he could take the little bastard if it came to that. It wouldn’t be easy, especially in this confined space, but he thought perhaps he could do the job. He came in, angling for a decent shot. Just one edge of a hand to the neck or a leopard’s paw to the throat and Thawan would be on the floor of the trailer, fighting to breathe. That was all it would take.

The glittering blade of the balisong flashed out and nearly caught Lyons in the face. He fought for room to draw the Python. Thawan anticipated that and slashed him in the arm as he tried to draw the gun, slamming a vicious elbow into Lyons’s midsection as he followed through. Then he was past Lyons and running from the trailer.

“I’ve got Thawan!” Lyons shouted. “He’s running from the residence!”

“Tied up here!” Blancanales shouted back. Lyons could hear the gunfire coming from the cookhouse. The firefight sounded ugly.

“Pinned,” Schwarz reported. “We can take them but we won’t be able to get to you.”

“On it,” Lyons said. He was already running as they talked, scooping up the USAS-12 and bulling his way through the trailer door.

The flash of light that accompanied the blow to his face was so sudden he thought he’d been shot. As his vision turned gray and he began to feel himself falling off the edge of the world, he heard a mocking voice.

“Gun to a knife fight, pal.”

He reached out, wanting to wrap his fingers around Thawan’s throat, hoping to stop the man then and there despite whatever injury had felled him. Then everything was receding and he could feel and hear nothing more….

THE VOLATILE CHEMICALS of a meth amphetamine cookhouse, Schwarz knew, meant that a firefight in a meth lab was a very iffy proposition. Fortunately for him and Blancanales, however, they’d caught the bikers in between runs of the chemical. They had been transferring a completed batch from the cookhouse to the storage trailer when the two Phoenix Force soldiers initiated their hit.

“On your left!” Schwarz called out. He triggered a pair of 3-round bursts from the Beretta 93-R and watched as the two men converging on Blancanales’s position fell where they stood. They were using the heavy workbenches in the cookhouse for cover, hoping that none of the chemicals or equipment on top of those benches suddenly exploded or set fire to the entire trailer. In addition to the bikers they’d seen and dispatched, there were several men who were clearly not Americans. Both Stony Man team members shot several operatives who, from their size and skin tone, could very likely be Triangle operatives from Thailand or Myanmar.

“Come on,” Blancanales said, finally luring the last of the cookhouse guards into the opening and putting a 5.56 bullet in the center of the man’s face. “We’ve got to help Carl!”

“I hear you.” Schwarz nodded. The two men made a cursory sweep of what was left of the cookhouse trailer, making sure no armed men still hid within. They came under fire as soon as they tried to leave, however. There was a shooter on the roof of the residence trailer.

“Sniper!” Schwarz warned.

As bullets ripped into the front of the cookhouse around the door frame, Blancanales very calmly assumed a shooter’s crouch on one knee. He brought the AR-15 to his shoulder and, very carefully, took aim. The gunner was just beginning to track his shots in toward Blancanales when the Politician’s rifle fired. The single shot did its deadly work; the shooter on the roof grunted and was still.

“Let’s go,” Blancanales said.

They found Carl Lyons flat on his back in front of the trailer. Schwarz produced an ampoule from his first-aid kit and broke the glass vial under Lyons’s nose. The big excop drew in a ragged breath and then turned away.

“Jesus, Gadgets, that stuff stinks,” he complained. “Get it away from me, damn it.”

“Are you okay?” Schwarz asked. Blancanales, with his AR-15, adopted a protective stance in front of the two men, ready for trouble and looking for any other gunmen who might still be on the move around their position.

“I’m fine,” he said. “Where’s the Ford?”

“Ford?” Blancanales asked.

“The pickup, a beat-to-shit Ford pickup truck. Where is it?”

“Not here.” Blancanales nodded toward the road. “Fresh tire tracks there, could be your truck, or could be that one.”

“He got away,” Lyons groaned.

“Who, Thawan?” Schwarz asked.

“Thawan.” Lyons nodded. “Little bastard came out of nowhere. He’s fast, too.”

“You’re lucky he didn’t kill you,” Schwarz said.

“I said I’m fine.”

“You don’t look fine,” Schwarz said. “In fact, you look like you’ve been cut badly.”

Lyons looked down. His arm was bleeding freely. Schwarz cleaned the wound and applied a bandage from the first-aid kit, clucking like a hen. “You were lucky, Carl,” he said. “It’s not too deep.”

“Good,” Lyons growled. “Now get off me.”

“Uh,” Schwarz said. “Carl, there’s no easy way to say this but…”

“What?” Lyons demanded.

“You…you have a line across your face.”

“What?” Lyons pushed himself to his feet and grabbed the mirror of the nearest motorcycle.

There was a tire iron lying on the ground not far from where Lyons had been attacked. That had obviously been what Thawan had used. Lyons looked at the long, straight red welt across his forehead.

“At least he hit you in a nonvital area,” Schwarz said.

They took some time to secure the area as best they could. The local police had not arrived yet, and for that the team members were grateful. There would be time for that complication in due course; right now, they needed to see if there were any clues to the Triangle’s activities among what was left of the meth lab and the surrounding buildings. Lyons and Schwarz went back out to the front of the residence trailer as Blancanales searched from building to building, Schwarz pestering Lyons to within an inch of his life.

“Seriously, Carl, you could have a concussion,” Schwarz advised.

“Do I look like I do?” Lyons growled back. “I don’t have time for this crap.”

Schwarz examined Lyons again, checking his pupils and testing a few other vitals. “All right,” he said, “but if you start to feel any dizziness, nausea or light-headedness, you sing out. Don’t be a hero. I know that doesn’t exactly come naturally to you.”

“Whatever.” Lyons frowned.

“Hey, guys,” Blancanales said. “Look at this.” He had in his hand what Lyons at first took to be a sheaf of papers. When Blancanales got closer, the big ex-cop realized the man held a badly folded road map.

“What have you got, Pol?” Schwarz asked.

“Not the most subtle encryption job.” Blancanales grinned. He spread the map out over the seat of one of the parked motorcycles. A route was laid out in highlighter on the map, leading through New York State and beyond. At intervals, red marker had been used to flag certain cities. Numbers had been written in over these cities.

“You’re right,” Schwarz said. “I believe, with time, we can crack this code.”

“Knock it off,” Lyons grumbled. He put his hand to his face and then to the back of his aching head. “Analysis.”

“Clearly drop points,” Schwarz said. “Even better, turn it over.”

Pol realized that Schwarz was looking at something on the curled corner of the map. He flipped it and they saw another set of notations written in the margin next to one of the street grid listings. It read, “Van 1, Van 2, Van 3.” Under each of these headings was a list of product quantities with the letters H and M.

“Heroin,” Schwarz said, “and meth.”

“And three vans.” Lyons nodded. He immediately regretted moving his head that much.

“Looks like we’ve got the route they plan to use,” Blancanales said.

“And that’s powerful information for NetScythe,” Schwarz said. “We can use this to coordinate with the Farm and intercept those vans before they get where they’re going.”

“We know where they’re going, don’t we?” Lyons asked.

“Yes, but not when,” Schwarz said. “We can use this data so Barb and NetScythe can help us figure out when they’re likely to get there. Then we can arrange to be there right on schedule.”

“That I like,” Lyons said. “Call the Farm. Arrange for a cleanup crew out here. Let’s police up what we can and get gone before the cops come and start asking us about the body count. And let’s make sure this place doesn’t burn to the ground while we’re at it. No need to cause a forest fire.” He paused, making a sour face. “Also, make sure Barb knows that I saw Thawan but he got away.”

“Don’t sweat it, Ironman,” Schwarz offered. “We’ll get him.”

“Oh, we will,” Lyons said. “And when we do, I owe him a nearly broken face.”

“Payback?” Schwarz asked.

“Payback hell.” Lyons shook his head, groaning. “That’s just me saying hello.”

“I’d hate to see you say goodbye, then,” Schwarz said.

“So will Thawan,” Lyons vowed.