Choke Point
“Holy mother of—” Brognola began.
“My sentiments exactly,” Price interjected.
“Get Lyons on the phone. Immediately.”
* * *
WHEN CARL “Ironman” Lyons got the page from Stony Man to be on the alert, he was in the middle of climbing the Grand Tetons.
A particularly long and grueling mission that had taken him and his two compatriots into the heart of Iran, ending in a scrap from which Phoenix Force had come running to bail them out, had left the Able Team leader tired and ready for some vacation. The past three weeks had been a good rest—they’d gone to Florida for the first week, the second week Lyons had gone to northern Minnesota by himself on a fishing trip, and this week he’d reunited with his teammates, Hermann Schwarz and Rosario Blancanales, for a sprightly few days of fun and camping in the Rocky Mountains.
While Grand Teton National Park provided an excellent environment for these activities, Lyons had always been much more of an outdoorsman than his two companions, so they had opted not to join him for this climb. Instead, they stayed at the campsite to drink beers and talk of whatever exploits regarding the female species came to mind, half of them probably fiction.
Lyons had just pulled himself up and over a huge rock, swinging his muscled legs into an anchoring position and getting his angle before negotiating it with the rest of his body. Lyons stopped to mop sweat from his brow with a bandanna he’d secured around his neck and tucked into the neoprene shirt he wore. He surveyed the shimmering horizon, realizing it was just about time to think about going back. He’d promised his friends he’d return before dark and if he didn’t make good on it, chances were they would get concerned and come looking for him.
The vibration of his secured satellite data phone, the invention of Kurtzman’s electronics team, signaled for his attention. He snatched it from his belt and barked, “Go for Lyons.”
“Carl, it’s Barb. Are you with the others?”
“Not at present. What’s up?”
“We just received an intelligence report compiled from several multijurisdictional investigations conducted into the death of New Hampshire Senator Charlie Maser.”
“And?”
“We’re sending a chopper to get all three of you now,” Price replied. “I’m afraid R and R is canceled.”
“That doesn’t sound good.”
“It’s not,” Brognola’s voice boomed in Lyons’s ears. “We’ll be able to better brief you on the details once you get here.”
“We’re coming to the Farm?”
“Yes, although it’s entirely too lengthy and difficult to explain now,” Price said. “Just get here as soon as you can.”
“We’re on our way,” Lyons said and signed off with the standard catchphrase, “out here.”
Lyons returned the phone to his belt, took a deep breath and sighed. He’d hoped for another couple of days to recuperate but he could tell just from the tension in the voices of Price and Brognola that something had gone very wrong. Lyons couldn’t even recall having heard the name Charlie Maser before, not that he kept a running tally on every elected official in Wonderland. For sure, there were some who were much more visible than others and needed to get some attention from Stony Man Farm, in Lyons’s humble opinion. But it wasn’t really in his job description to make those kinds of determinations—he preferred to be pointed at the threat and let loose to deal with it.
The hit-and-git mentality defined the collective psyche of Able Team. They were America’s urban commandos, three berserkers trained to bring justice by fire to American streets and keep its citizens safe. This mode of operation was not only the one that Lyons preferred, but also the one in which he felt most comfortable. Lyons wondered if he’d ever live long enough to retire. What the hell would he do with his life when he didn’t have something desperate to pursue, some terrorist or crime lord to take down?
He’d only completed about a third of the distance to the camp before he heard the whip-whap of chopper blades, spotting the light from the setting sun reflecting in red-orange tints off the body of the helicopter before the whole shape came into view. The chopper dipped low and Lyons saw the familiar form of Blancanales as he reached out and gestured to some point nearby, probably a clearing beyond a copse of trees. Lyons waved his understanding and then broke into a jog so they wouldn’t have long to wait for him.
Within a few minutes he emerged from the line of evergreen trees to find the chopper waiting for him. It was the dead of summer but even the nighttime air was significantly cool. The rotor wash whipped at Lyons’s blond hair, which had started to become increasingly tinged with hints of gray over the years—probably a bit prematurely given the nature of his job—although not anywhere near the blanched white of Rosario Blancanales.
Blancanales, a husky man with muscular forearms and dark eyes, smiled at his friend and offered Lyons a hand. The Able Team leader nodded his thanks as he gripped his friend’s hand and hopped aboard a chopper belonging to the U.S. Forest Service. In a moment, the blades increased in pitch and the chopper lifted smoothly from the green-brown terrain of Jackson Hole Valley.
Seated on a bench with his back to the rear wall of the fuselage was the other Able Team member. Hermann Schwarz was not only the team’s resident electronics and computer expert, a talent that had earned him the “Gadgets” nickname, but he also possessed a wicked sense of humor. Schwarz was actually one of the most fearless men Lyons had ever met, not reticent to start cutting up even in the middle of a firefight. He was wiry but strong, not scrawny in the least, with wavy brown hair and a thick mustache.
“How was your stroll?” he asked Lyons over the thunderous noise of the chopper.
“I wasn’t strolling,” Lyons replied. “I was climbing.”
“You’re one of those mountaineering snobs, aren’t you?” Schwarz deadpanned.
“You should try it sometime. It’s good exercise.”
“I don’t mind fresh air. I just prefer the finer things in life.”
“Such as?” Blancanales asked, unable to resist bantering with his two friends.
“Swimming pools surrounded by beautiful women sunning themselves in bathing suits.”
Lyons shook his head and jerked a thumb at Schwarz. “You believe this guy? Surrounded by all of this natural beauty and he’s pining away for a Marriott.”
“It’s sad,” Blancanales said with a mock despondence. “He never wants to rough it.”
“Any hotel that doesn’t carry your bags in for you is roughing it,” Schwarz replied.
“Pathetic,” Carl Lyons said. “Simply pathetic.”
* * *
“WE’VE UNCOVERED a horrific situation,” Barbara Price announced.
“Barb’s correct,” Brognola said. “I don’t think we’ve ever seen anything quite this bad before. Not on our own turf.”
“What the hell’s going on?” Lyons asked.
“Senator Maser was being extorted for a ransom payment to free his daughter,” Price began. “Near as we can gather, his daughter had been kidnapped by parties unknown, who then contacted Maser and demanded a half-million dollars.”
Schwarz let go with a whistle. “Holy cripes. So he delivered the money and you think the kidnappers killed him.”
“It’s not clear what happened since there was really no evidence in the area where Maser’s body was found,” Brognola replied.
“Local police are convinced Maser was killed somewhere else and dumped in a shallow marsh site near one of the many coves in Chesapeake country,” Price continued. “Apparently, a duck hunter spotted his body and called police, who in turn called the FBI when they discovered the deceased was a U.S. senator.
“There isn’t much physical evidence but the police eventually found Senator Maser’s abandoned vehicle off a secondary road. There were tracks but nothing distinctive enough to allow them to make a positive identification. It’s believed the vehicle was a pickup truck and that’s where Maser had gone to make the exchange. Rain was apparently the chief culprit in dispersing any other hard physical evidence the police might have collected.”
“So what’s all the excitement?” Blancanales asked easily.
“We’ve discovered that Senator Maser isn’t the first one to have been the victim of this kind of thing,” Brognola said. “Although this is the first death that’s resulted from it.”
“You mean there have been other politicians whose kids got snapped?”
Price nodded with a frown. “Unfortunately, yes. But apparently authorities were never alerted because the kidnappers always returned the kids unharmed. The kid would get snatched, the kidnappers would call with a ransom, the official would cough up the money and the kid would make it home in one piece.”
“Exactly how many kids are we talking here?” Blancanales asked, shifting in his chair uneasily.
Price looked at Brognola, who nodded, and they could see her swallow hard before she exchanged glances in turn with each of them. Finally she replied, “Hundreds.”
CHAPTER THREE
“What?” Lyons stiffened in his chair. “How the hell could that be?”
“Easy, Ironman,” Blancanales said, putting a friendly but firm hand on his friend’s shoulder. “Let’s hear this out before we start jumping to conclusions.”
Lyons looked hard at Blancanales at first, but then his expression cooled some and he relaxed in his seat.
“Go on, Barb,” Blancanales urged.
“There’s no question this organization has been operating for some time,” Price said. “They’ve built a reputation as a secret society, dubbed by many of their victims as the Red Brood.”
“That’s a lovely name,” Schwarz said with a snort.
“Do we know any more than that?” Lyons asked.
It was Brognola who replied. “We do. And that’s why we’ve called you back here. We believe there’s a better than off chance the group that hit Maser is just part of a larger organization, a slaver outfit that’s been kidnapping kids all over the country. Boys, girls, blacks, whites, Hispanics...the list is nearly endless.”
“And they’ve chosen to expose themselves now?”
“It looks like these operators actually ended up stepping outside of the parameters of their original orders,” Price said. “We think they got greedy and stole the money. What they didn’t count on was that Senator Maser kept a journal of everything he did—the phone calls and the money and the drive they took him on. Local authorities found the journal he left behind in his SUV. They believe, although can’t prove, that the location of the vehicle is likely where he was killed.”
“So where do we start?” Blancanales asked.
“Charlie Maser had a close friend, Congressman Thomas Acres of Florida,” Price replied. “Nine hours ago, Acres got a call at his private residence outside of Georgetown and was told his son had been taken from the private school he attends. They gave Acres instructions to put together a half-million-dollar ransom and told him they would contact him with delivery instructions.”
“How did they make the connection?” Schwarz asked.
“The FBI has had a wiretap on Acres for some days,” Price said. “Completely coincidental but as soon as they heard this they contacted their highers, who immediately flagged it and in turn routed it to the investigative team assigned to Maser’s case.”
“Your mission is to follow Acres to the delivery point and attempt to apprehend the kidnappers,” Brognola said.
“And if they won’t come quietly?”
“Terminate with extreme prejudice.”
Lyons nodded. “Now that I can understand.”
* * *
IT TOOK THE THREE MEN of Able Team less than a minute to figure out that Thomas Acres, Republican congressman from the great state of Florida, was being tailed.
According to Stony Man’s intelligence, the route the kidnappers gave Acres was identical to the one Maser had driven—a fact that had come straight from the deceased senator’s journal—although the destination turned out to be quite different. Instead of turning south once in Maryland and following the Chesapeake Bay route, Acres had been instructed to head straight into the heart of downtown Baltimore.
They were in a late-model Dodge Charger, just one of the many vehicles in the Stony Man fleet, with untraceable Washington plates. Any cops who ran those plates would be politely informed that, while domestic, they belonged to the U.S. Diplomatic Corps and as such the occupants of the vehicle were immune from detainment or search. It wasn’t an uncommon thing in this part of the country, especially so close to the nation’s capital, and was typically enough to send the police off to look for juicier prey.
The tail on Acres turned out to be a Chevy van with New York plates. Blancanales had suggested contacting Stony Man to run the vehicle registration but Lyons dismissed the idea.
“Better to stay back and see where this goes,” Lyons said as he withdrew the Colt Anaconda from shoulder leather and double-checked the load.
While his partners chose semiautomatics, Lyons preferred a wheel gun. He had plenty of experience with semiautos and no problem using them in a pinch, but in the end he felt more at home with the knockdown power of the .44 Magnum loads. John “Cowboy” Kissinger, resident gunsmith for the entire Stony Man arsenal, had once asked Lyons to try a .44 Desert Eagle, the Executioner’s preferred heavy-duty pistol, but Lyons ultimately dismissed the idea for his trusted Anaconda. In earlier days Lyons had often carried the .357 Colt Python, but he realized eventually the necessity of an upgrade. It suited him, frankly, and Carl Lyons would never apologize for carrying whatever firearms seemed most comfortable to him. The sleek weapon’s stainless finish glinted in the overhead lights of the highway as Lyons holstered his weapon.
Blancanales had opted for a P-239 chambered for .357 Magnum. The SIG-Sauer sported a 7-round detachable box magazine and a muzzle velocity of more than 400 meters per second. In the hands of Rosario Blancanales, the weapon meant death for whatever target he aimed at.
The arsenal was rounded out with a Beretta 92F. Designated the M-9 by the U.S. military when adopted as its official sidearm, the 92F chambered 9 mm Parabellum rounds custom-loaded for the pistol in 158-grain SJHP, the hottest load Kissinger would permit for the weapon. While the pistol had been known to endure up to 185-grain loads without jams or misfeeds, Kissinger had insisted the lower grain was more effective for the semijacketed hollow points. Schwarz would not dispute it, having seen the pistol perform fantastically in the field time and again.
“You realize,” Blancanales said as he signaled and changed lanes to maintain flank on the driver’s side of the van tailing Acres, “that we have no idea if these are just observers or the actual kidnappers.”
“Doesn’t really matter,” Lyons countered. “The fact is we have orders to either take them alive or take them out.”
“I understand that.” Blancanales maintained a suave, easy tone, leaving no doubt as to how he’d earned his “Politician” moniker. “All I’m saying is that this could go hard very fast if we jump the gun.”
“Understood,” Lyons said. “Let’s just see where it goes before we start getting jumpy.”
“Tell you what I’m getting,” Schwarz interjected. “Hungry.”
Blancanales’s eyes flicked to the backseat. “How you can think of food at a time like this?”
“How you can you not?” Schwarz cracked.
“Heads up,” Lyons interjected. “Acres is exiting the highway.”
“Here?” Schwarz shook his head and referred to his phone with a full, secure satellite uplink direct to the Farm’s computer network. “This isn’t anywhere near the stopping point.”
“It’s a rest area,” Blancanales said as he had to negotiate two lanes of traffic in order to make the exit in time.
“Idiot,” Lyons muttered. “The transcript from the wiretap indicated his instructions were not to stop anywhere.”
“Maybe he has to take a leak,” Schwarz observed.
“And risk his son’s life?” Lyons shook his head. “I don’t think so. Something’s not right.”
Acres cleared the exit, followed by the van with the Able Team vehicle bringing up the rear. Blancanales tried to drive as nonchalantly as possible, although he realized that was a bit of a misnomer. How the hell could anybody drive nonchalantly? There wasn’t anything casual or nonchalant in what was going on here and it was pure stupidity to think for a moment that his driving could somehow make it appear differently.
Acres parked his car in one of the many open spots directly in front of the entrance to the restrooms. He remained in his car as the van rolled past him and swung into one of the spaces three down from Acres’s spot.
“Damn, I was hoping they’d park closer,” Blancanales said.
“It’s going to look weird us pulling in well beyond either of those vehicles.”
“I don’t think we’re going to get the chance,” Lyons said.
To the surprise of all three Able Team warriors, Thomas Acres climbed out of his car, closed the door and turned toward the van as he pulled a pistol from a belt holster concealed beneath his suit coat. Muzzle-flashes cast his silhouette to Able Team as Acres fired round after round into the passenger-side window of the van. The glass shattered under the impact of the first two rounds, and the third rewarded Acres with a bloody spray. He’d hit someone.
“Shit!” Lyons whipped the Colt Anaconda into play. “Get between them!”
Blancanales stepped on the gas and whipped the nose of the sedan into a point between the two vehicles, although much too late to reach Acres in time. The van’s side door slid aside to reveal a pair of tough-looking gunners clutching semiautomatic machine guns. The pair opened up simultaneously and red splotches exploded from Acres’s body in grisly, random patterns. The man jerked and twisted under the impact and eventually succumbed to the onslaught as his body collapsed to the dirty pavement.
Blancanales had his window down and extended his arm, the SIG clutched steadily in his left fist. He squeezed two rounds and then tromped the accelerator, causing the sedan to ride onto the shallow curb. The shots weren’t meant to actually hit anything as much as to keep heads down and buy Blancanales the time he needed to get their vehicle out of the direct line of fire. The maneuver worked well enough, taking the gunners by genuine surprise.
As soon as Blancanales reached the pinnacle of the turn, he put the accelerator to the floor at the same time as he hammered the brake pedal. The maneuver spun the rear of the vehicle, churning grass and mud from the finely manicured area designed to walk pets. As soon as the vehicle came to a stop, Lyons and Schwarz went EVA with pistols at the ready.
The first of the two gunners appeared at the front of the van and sprayed his enemy with autofire from his SMG. Lyons and Schwarz ate dirt and Blancanales ducked to avoid the rounds that went through the windshield and caused a massive spiderweb to form across the safety glass. Lyons, propped at the elbows, leveled the muzzle of the Anaconda and squeezed the trigger. The weapon boomed twice, undoubtedly causing as much fear as physical damage in its reports. The first 300-grain SJHP connected with the gunner’s chest, punched through his right lung and exited his back. The hit spun the man, causing Lyons’s second round to graze his neck, but he twisted enough to reveal the gaping hole left in the wake of the first.
Schwarz spotted the second gunman rush toward Acres’s sedan. The man whipped open the back door and retrieved a large silver suitcase that Schwarz knew would be filled with cash. Oh, no, that just won’t do, Schwarz thought as he lined up his sights on the man and took a deep breath. He let half out, adjusted for lead time and then triggered three successive rounds. The first caught the man at a point just above his left knee and as he pitched forward a second round ripped through the side of his neck. The last passed a bit too high over his head but at enough of an angle it would easily clear any vehicles on the highway and likely come down harmlessly in the field beyond that point.
As Schwarz and Lyons climbed to their feet, the van engine roared to life and the vehicle began to back out of its space. Blancanales thought desperately for a moment before hammering the gearshift downward and tromping the accelerator. More mud and grass flew from under the wheels as the sedan sluiced forward and finally gained purchase on the broad sidewalk. The van was just at the point of stopping when Blancanales tapped the brakes and connected with the right fender. The maneuver spun the nose of the van into a 180-degree arc and smoke rose from the wheels as rubber burned on the asphalt.
Unfortunately for the driver, who could not keep his vehicle under control, the van’s rear tires connected with the opposing curb. The impact jarred the van just enough that it listed sideways. Gravity and Archimedes’s law of the lever did the rest, flipping the van onto its side and causing it to come to rest on the slight incline of the hill that separated the rest area from the interstate.
Blancanales jumped from the sedan and rushed the incapacitated enemy vehicle, SIG-Sauer held at the ready. The driver had wriggled his way through the open window just as Blancanales reached him. He saw the Able Team warrior’s approach and clawed for shoulder leather but not before Blancanales managed to jump up and snatch hold of the back of the man’s neck. Blancanales yanked as he came down and then twisted his body with enough strength to flip the man head over heels. The thug landed ass down on the pavement and air audibly whooshed from his lungs.
The gunman started to moan with pain, rolling onto his side and clutching his wounded tailbone with one hand. He froze and a horrified look crossed his face as Lyons and Schwarz arrived and both leveled their pistols at him.
Blancanales smiled at his friends as he holstered his weapon and then dusted his hands. With a flair for the dramatic, he put his hands on his hips. “Well, looks like I managed to keep one of them alive.”
“Kiss ass,” Schwarz replied.
* * *
AFTER VERIFYING Congressman Thomas Acres was in fact dead, Able Team got the hell away from the scene before police arrived.
They needed a chance to question their prisoner before turning him over to local authorities and it wouldn’t do their timetable a lot of good to hang around and wait for the cops to arrive. And as Lyons had pointed out, he didn’t want to have to explain the situation to the boys in blue any more than he wanted to involve Stony Man to clear them if they could avoid it. Instead, it made more sense to take their prize and run.
They took the money with them, as well, intent on making sure it was returned to the Acres family—it probably wouldn’t save the life of Acres’s son at this point anyway.
Able Team returned to the outskirts of Washington, D.C., and proceeded straight to a safe house the Farm kept in the area for just such occasions. En route to the place, Lyons placed a hurried call to Stony Man and requested Calvin James meet them there.
James had been the successor to Keio Ohara, one of Phoenix Force’s original members, and had become a critical part of the field units. A former Navy SEAL and medical corpsman, James had grown up on the mean streets of Chicago and studied police science. He’d been working as a SWAT officer when chosen to join Phoenix Force. He was an expert in underwater operations, and as someone with advanced medical training, he’d become proficient with the chemical interrogation of prisoners.
Many liberals would have considered such techniques inhumane, but Calvin James felt the opposite for a number of reasons. He’d never administered the drug to anyone without a fundamental knowledge of their anatomy—it was critical to ensure the viability of a subject’s cardiac and respiratory systems before proceeding with the tactics. Moreover, James considered chemical interrogation significantly more humane than some of those methods employed by CIA and others on the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, for example. That boiled down to torture even in the most abject sense, but what James did—while most would fault him for it—could be implemented in a controlled environment.