Drawpoint

CHAPTER FOUR

The apartment building was as decrepit a structure as any the members of Able Team were likely to find in the area. Looking around, Carl Lyons shook his head. The buildings here had a sense of history. It was obvious this had once been a much better neighborhood. Now it was dying, rotting from the inside out, a victim of the animals who lived there and preyed on one another. Able Team had visited many such places in their battle against terror and crime. Still, even a hardened former cop and veteran counterterrorist like Lyons felt a pang of regret whenever he saw a place like this one, so badly gone to seed.

They were dressed casually. Lyons wore a bomber jacket over denims, while Blancanales and Gadgets wore slacks, polo shirts and windbreakers. Their nondescript attire did nothing to conceal the weapons in their hands. Lyons would normally have moved much more discreetly, but they had received a scrambled call from the Farm only minutes before reaching their destination that morning. Phoenix Force had taken down an ambush in India, and no one knew precisely how the enemy was a step ahead of what the Stony Man teams were doing. Given that, the former L.A. detective didn’t intend to get blindsided. They were going in, yes, and they were going in hot.

The target was an apartment building, and specifically a unit on its top floor. The site was part of the list produced by the Farm’s computer wizards. Each target on the priority-ordered list was linked to a person or persons of interest relevant to the WWUP or the ecoterror groups funding them, as Kurtzman had explained it. The fundamental mission had not changed. Both Able Team and Phoenix Force were shaking trees to see what fell out of them.

These trees, of course, often bore lethal fruit.

The shotgun Carl Lyons held in his calloused fists was a Daewoo USAS-12, a massive selective fire 12-gauge shotgun styled something like an M-16 and fitted with a 20-round polymer drum magazine. Lyons carried extra drums in the green canvas war bag slung across his chest. Schwarz and Blancanales carried similar bags. The rest of Lyons’s armament consisted of his personal handgun, the Colt Python, as well as a Columbia River Knife and Tool “M-16” tactical folding knife. The blades carried by the other team members were of the same brand but in different styles. Blancanales had opted for a fixed blade CRKT Ultima, while Schwarz carried an “M-18” folder model.

Schwarz was armed with a Kissinger-tuned specialty, the silenced Beretta 93-R machine pistol, and several 20-round magazines were in the pouches of his web belt, under his windbreaker. Blancanales had opted for something a little less exotic, but no less effective—a short-barreled CAR-15 with a collapsible stock and vertical foregrip complete with flashlight unit.

The three men took the stairs leading up to the target apartment with practiced precision, covering one another with Lyons in the lead.

They had discussed the fastest way to breach the door to the apartment. Lyons’s first thought had been to use a portable battering ram of the type used by SWAT teams, but the warning from the Farm had nixed that plan. He did not want any member of Able Team to be vulnerable, even temporarily, if armed hostiles were waiting on the other side of the door. In the end he had simply loaded the Daewoo’s chamber with a fléchette breaching round. The first shot from the awesomely powerful weapon would be to take down the lock, after which Lyons and his teammates would blitz the door and overwhelm whoever was waiting on the other side.

The hallways through which they walked were padded with stained, threadbare carpet, which softened the impacts of their combat boots. The hallways smelled of cooking food. Lyons could hear a baby crying through one of the doors on a lower floor; he signaled to Schwarz and Blancanales and frowned. His warning was clear. There were innocents nearby and they could risk no collateral casualties.

Their earbud transceivers were active, but Lyons didn’t want to risk even a whisper as they neared the target doorway just past the top-floor landing. He signaled to his teammates, who took up positions on either side of the door to back him up. Lyons aimed the USAS-12 and braced himself. He looked to his teammates both of whom nodded.

Lyons pulled the trigger.

The shotgun blast disintegrated the lock. The big ex-cop immediately slammed the sole of his combat boot into the spot immediately left of the hole, slamming the flimsy hollow-core door open. He led Able Team into the apartment, his weapon sweeping the room for targets. Blancanales and Schwarz flanked him, taking opposite sides of the room as he advanced. They would sweep and clear in both directions, each man covering the other to prevent any nasty surprises.

“Clear!” Lyons shouted. The living room was empty save for a broken and half-collapsed flea market sofa and an ancient console television boasting a bent pair of rabbit ears. Pizza boxes were piled in a corner of the room, next to two blue plastic bins into which empty beer and soda cans had been piled. While the apartment itself was typical of the hovels third-rate scumbags occupied, Lyons thought to himself, it was surprisingly clean.

“Bedroom’s clear!” Schwarz called from the next room.

“Bathroom!” Blancanales sang out. “Got a live one!”

His shotgun at a low ready, Lyons found Blancanales standing over a twenty-something male who was doing his best to look nonchalant—while sitting on the toilet. He had been reading a magazine when the team had busted down his door, apparently. It was crumpled on the floor at his feet, on top of the fuzzy blue bathmat that covered most of the floor in the tiny bathroom. The title Earth Action was emblazoned across it.

“Is there anyone else here?” Blancanales asked calmly, the stubby barrel of his rifle trained on the young man’s face.

“No,” the man shook his head.

“Your name?” the Hispanic commando asked in the same even, almost friendly tone.

“Ryan,” the young man answered. “Ryan Pinter.”

“Well, Mr. Pinter—” Blancanales lowered the CAR-15 “—I suggest you cooperate fully. You’re in a lot of trouble.”

“But…but…I didn’t do anything!”

“We’ll be the judge of that,” Lyons said, easily playing bad cop to Blancanales’s good.

“First things first,” the Hispanic commando said. “Why don’t you, well, pull your pants up. You’ll be joining us in the living room.”

“Is anyone else expected here?” Lyons snarled.

“No, no, not for hours,” Pinter admitted readily. “Look, please, I haven’t done anything wrong. I don’t know what this is about, but—”

“Oh, you know,” Lyons said, planting a beefy palm between Pinter’s shoulder blades and propelling him into the living room as the young man left the bathroom, still hitching at his pants. Pinter almost collided with the couch and tried to crawl up into a ball on it, looking up at each of the armed men who had suddenly invaded his world.

“Look, you can’t just break in here and…Do you have a warrant?”

Lyons, playing his part now, raised the USAS-12 menacingly. “This is my warrant,” he said.

“You’re a member of the World Workers United Party,” Blancanales informed him.

“So that’s what this is?” Pinter became indignant. “You’re rousting me because of my political beliefs? Oh, man, I knew this Patriot Act thing was going to turn into oppression! You can’t suppress my political beliefs at gunpoint! I’ll sue, I’ll sue and you’ll be—”

“We’ll be what?” Lyons asked. “You are aware, aren’t you, that the director of the WWUP here in Illinois was killed while attempting to murder federal law-enforcement officers?”

Pinter looked down, the wind taken out of his sails for a moment. “I heard he was maybe in an embezzlement scandal.” The young man shook his head. “That he tried to shoot his way out rather than get caught. That isn’t right, man, but it shows you that capitalist greed can infect even those who—”

“Shove a sock in it,” Lyons growled. “I’m not interested in your speeches.”

“But look, man, you can’t hold every member of the party responsible for what one guy does.”

“Three guys, actually,” Lyons said. “Or don’t you read the news?” An officially scrubbed version of the events at the WWUP facility had been released to the media, complete with rumors of corruption as the official reason behind the shootings. The rumor mill had already started to manufacture plausible backstories, with the assistance of a twenty-four-hour cable news media desperate for unfounded speculation with which to fill its schedule. All of this put the public off the trail, as was intended. There was no point in starting a panic—though at this point, even the Farm didn’t know enough to guess as to why the WWUP director had been so fast on the trigger—with the real story behind the events, and of course Stony Man’s covert operatives had to be shielded. Lyons knew that Brognola’s heartburn only intensified every time Able was involved in so public a shooting, but it went with the territory. The big former L.A. cop had been as surprised as anyone when the probe had turned to gunplay so fast. The fact that it had was just proof for Brognola’s theory that big things were happening, or about to happen. The worm in front of Able Team now could well prove the key to unlocking some part of the puzzle. If not that, he might lead them to those who could.

“This is not about politics. At least, it’s not about your public politics. You’re also member of the Earth Action Front,” Blancanales said calmly. “A highly ranked member, in fact.”

“Look, man, you got it all wrong,” Pinter said desperately. “I’m an environmentalist, sure. Green Party, a few other groups. I care about my planet, is that a crime? But I’m not in the Earth Action Front.”

Lyons snorted and lowered the shotgun. He stepped away long enough to duck into the bathroom, grab the magazine Pinter had been reading and throw it at him. Ryan flinched as the dog-eared, glossy pages hit him.

“So what’s that?” Lyons demanded. “A little light reading?”

“ Earth Action is a reputable publication,” Ryan almost whined. “Just because the Earth Action Front names themselves after a green magazine, you can’t—”

Lyons snarled, set the shotgun on the carpeted floor and drew the Colt Python from his shoulder holster. He leveled the heavy barrel at Pinter’s face. “Let’s just stop dicking around, shall we?”

“Ironman,” Blancanales said, sounding concerned. He, too, was playing a role for Pinter’s benefit.

“Shut up.” Lyons turned away from Pinter, to Blancanales, and winked. Then he turned back to the terrified young man. “You’re a radical activist who uses saving mother Earth as an excuse for supporting violent causes, and you hang out with people who do the same, or worse. We’re here because your activities aren’t secret. You’re on a list, kid. You’re on a bunch of lists, in fact. When we cross-index those lists we get the profile of somebody we think is just screwy enough to firebomb a fast-food restaurant, or maybe, just maybe, take a shot at a federal officer.”

“No way, man!” Pinter said vehemently. “Sure, I vote green. Sure, I want the EAF to succeed in bringing their voice to the people, man. But I’m, like, a pacifist! I wouldn’t hurt anybody.”

“You just support those who do,” Blancanales said, sounding disappointed.

Pinter said nothing.

“You have one chance, kid.” Lyons let Ryan Pinter contemplate the gaping maw of the Python pointed at his face. “If you know something that will help us, something that will take us to the EAF or the WWUP, something they’re doing that’s not on the up and up, you’d better spill it. Or so help me God, I will spill you.”

Pinter seemed to deflate in front of their eyes. He looked down, shaking his head. “I told them…I told them this wasn’t the way. I told them—”

“Told who what?” Blancanales prodded.

“My roommates, man.”

“Roommates?” Lyons looked around skeptically. “In this one-bedroom dump?”

“They don’t live here, exactly,” Pinter said. “But they crash here a lot. Hang out, sleep on the couch, plan stuff.”

“Stuff?”

“Direct action, man.” Pinter shook his head. “Stuff we can do to save the environment and the country from the capitalists and from depoliation.”

“Uh-huh,” Lyons snorted. “And you’re completely innocent in all this.”

“I wanted to help the planet and change the country, sure,” Pinter said. “But when they started talking about…well, I couldn’t do it. Maybe I’m a wuss. They said I talk a big game. That if I’m going to be a facilitator in the WWUP or a field operative in the EAF, I gotta do more than talk big. I don’t know, maybe they’re right.”

“Facilitator?” Blancanales asked.

“A recruiter, somebody who helps further the cause, volunteers in the offices.”

“And your ‘field operative’ status?”

“Direct action,” Pinter said again. “You know, go out and…do stuff.”

“Terrorism,” Lyons said flatly.

“It’s not like that!” Pinter insisted. “We’re not terrorists! We’re just trying to…trying to get people’s attention. Make them see that all this conspicuous consumption, all this crass commercialism, it’s killing the planet!”

“Shut up,” Lyons said. He lowered the Python, since Pinter seemed more than happy to talk. “What was it your friends wanted you to do?”

Pinter looked from man to man, turning pale.

“Don’t make me change my mind about punching your ticket,” Lyons snarled.

“Okay, okay,” Pinter said, defeated. “Mogray Estates. It’s a housing development. Full of bourgeois fat cats raping the land, pumping out too many kids. You know. In the suburbs, man. My roommates, they went to Mogray Estates.”

“To do what?” Lyons asked, a sinking feeling in his stomach.

“What they always do in the suburbs, man. Fight the sprawl.”

“Fight it how?” Blancanales asked.

“They’re going to burn it down.”

T HE BLACK S UBURBAN’S engine roared as Gadgets Schwarz directed the big vehicle through the traffic of suburban Chicago. In the passenger seat, Carl Lyons was on his secure satellite phone, connected to Stony Man Farm.

“That’s right, Barb,” Lyons was saying. “Mogray Estates, a housing development in suburban Chicago.” He rattled off the address Schwarz had pulled from the phone book in Pinter’s apartment. “We need you to scramble fire and local police out there. Not sure how many we may be dealing with. Could be two or three kids, could be something else. But this Pinter character says it’s happening today, now. Seems he chickened out of the party.” He paused again. “All right, Barb. We’re in transit now. ETA in…Gadgets?”

“Five minutes,” Schwarz said.

“Five minutes,” Lyons repeated. “Will do.”

“What did she say?” Blancanales asked from the rear seat. Behind him, in the cargo area, Pinter was trussed up in plastic riot cuffs, blindfolded and gagged, with ear plugs in his ears. The plugs were held in place by a long strip of silver duct tape that was wound around his head and secured his blindfold. For his part, Pinter had not resisted and seemed resigned to his fate. No doubt he feared he was headed to someplace like Guantanamo. There had been no time to transfer him into appropriate custody for further questioning, so Able Team had simply bundled him up and taken him with them.

“She said to be careful,” Lyons said as he closed the phone.

“We going to be careful?” Blancanales asked.

“Of course not.” Lyons shook his head.

The entrance to the housing development reminded the big ex-cop of a gated community, except that there was no gate. It was an elaborate arch bearing the name of the development and boasting twin lion statues, their finishes painted to simulate verdigris. Why anyone would believe the statues and the development had been here long enough for the lions to look weathered was a mystery to the Able Team leader, given that the place was so new the lawns were still just dirt. He supposed those types of touches meant something to someone.

“Pulling up a satellite map of the complex now,” Blancanales said, reading the scrambled feed from Stony Man Farm. “It should be transmitting to your phones, as well.”

“What’s the play, Ironman?” Gadgets asked.

“Take us in deeper, toward the center of the complex,” Lyons said, watching the houses and parked minivans speed by. “We’ll split up, head for three points roughly equidistant, then start sweeping clockwise from the perimeter. Sooner or later we’ll find Pinter’s little buddies.”

“Let’s hope for sooner,” Blancanales said.

“That’s right.” Lyons nodded. “Otherwise it may be too late. Let’s move.”

Leaving Pinter trussed up in the SUV, the three Able Team commandos moved out. It was Schwarz who first called in over the earbud transceiver link.

“Ironman, Pol, I’ve got something,” he said. He relayed the street address, which his teammates could check on the browsers on their secure phones. “Looks like one man, in an attached garage. I can smell gasoline from here.”

“Move,” Lyons instructed him.

“Moving,” Schwarz responded. Lyons continued on it. He vaulted a low picket fence and rounded the corner of one of the many very similar houses. Parked out front was a panel van and emerging from it was a scruffy-looking, college-age youth with a gas can in one hand and some kind of electronic device in the other.

“Oh, shit,” he said.

“Drop it!” Lyons ordered. The Daewoo USAS-12 came up, its stubby barrel no doubt looking like the mouth of Hell from where the youth stood.

“Oh, God, man, don’t shoot, don’t shoot—”

Something, perhaps combat instinct, told Lyons to duck. As he did so, he could almost hear the bullet that burned through the air where his head had been.

The guy with the gas can never had a chance. His body rebounded against the panel van, leaving a red streak as he slid to the manicured lawn. Lyons was already turning, the Daewoo churning double-aught buck on full auto. The barrage stuck a man dressed in black BDUs and wearing a red bandanna over his face. His knees were chopped out from under him and he dropped his pistol.

“Don’t move! Don’t move!” Lyons shouted. Over the earbud transceiver, he could hear other gunshots, muffled through the automatic volume cutout the little units incorporated. There was no time to wonder what Schwarz and Pol had gotten into now.

The gunner was trembling, trying to remove something from inside the pocket of his BDUs. Lyons, ready to shoot again if the man’s hand came out with a weapon, checked his fire when he saw the Seever unit. The man on the ground, broken from the buckshot and clearly in shock as he bled out, did not even seem to notice him. He brought the Seever device to his bandanna-covered face, coughed once, and died. The Seever slipped from his fingers onto the grass.

Lyons checked the man’s pulse to make sure he was dead, then he went to the kid, finding no sign of life. The gas can was, well, a gas can. The other item was an electronic detonator with a stubby, rubberized wireless antenna. Lyons frowned. He and the rest of the commandos from the Farm were all too familiar with this kind of technology. Such a detonator could be used to set off a bomb by wireless phone, a tactic that had been used extensively with roadside bombs during the U.S. occupation of Iraq. He looked back at the dead, masked gunner, clearly much older than the young man he’d shot—accidentally or intentionally. A few kids with gas cans looking to burn down a housing development was one thing. It was ecoterror, yes, but it did not speak to some greater design. But high-tech wireless detonators, and additional personnel…now that was something else again. Lyons didn’t like it, not one bit, and it was looking more and more like there was no fooling Brognola’s gut.

“Pol! Gadgets!” Lyons said. “Report!”

“Two down,” Schwarz reported. “I have firebombs and detonator gear here. If these guys are friends of Pinter’s, there’s an age gap.”

“Meaning?” Lyons said.

“Meaning I’m willing to bet the Farm has dossiers on these two,” Schwarz said. “They’re way too old to be idealistic greens out for a night of arson.”

“I’ve got another youngster here,” Blancanales said. “DOA. I heard the shot, followed it in. Looks like his partner, another of our youth-challenged ecoterrorists, removed him from the equation. I engaged and he’s out of the picture. I have a firebomb here wired to go, and another of those Seever units.”

“Ditto here,” Lyons said.

“What do you think, Ironman?” Schwarz asked.

“I think this is a synchronized terrorist attack with external coordination,” Lyons said. “Get pictures and transmit them to the Farm, right away. I’ll do the same. Then I’ll talk to Barb.”

“Then what?” Blancanales asked.

“We roll on the next target by priority, unless we hear otherwise. And we might. Guys, I don’t like where this is heading.”