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Manning nodded.
They burst through the doorway, weapons ready. A man on the floor was writhing in pain, holding his face. Manning quickly rolled him over and secured him with two pairs of plastic zip-tie cuffs at wrists and ankles.
“I’m headed upstairs,” McCarter said. There was a rickety stairway at the rear of the building. The ground floor itself was one large room, with a wooden table and several metal folding chairs at one end, and a makeshift kitchen at the other. A pool table, one leg gone and replaced by a pair of cinder blocks, sat in the center of the space. The felt was badly ripped.
Three different refrigerators in the kitchen area were connected to a generator, which still chugged quietly in the corner. An exhaust hose led to the outside. One of the refrigerators had been popped open by the blast or simply left open by the man who was now Phoenix Force’s prisoner; it revealed shelf after metal shelf of cold beer.
So it was a rec room, McCarter concluded as he took the stairs two at a time. To men like these, recreation had only a couple of forms. The first was the booze, and the second—
“Bloody hell,” McCarter muttered.
The stained mattress and twisted bedclothes in the center of the floor still boasted human occupants. A gunman wearing only olive-drab fatigue pants stood in the center of the room, with a naked woman held in front of him. The gunner had one arm around the woman’s throat and the barrel of a 1911-pattern pistol to her head. He spit something at McCarter that the Briton couldn’t understand.
“Easy now,” he said in a calm voice. “Let’s not do anything we’ll regret later, shall we?”
“English,” the man said. The girl squirmed and he tightened his arm around her neck. She was wide-eyed with fear and looked badly used; there was an old bruise yellowing on her jaw. McCarter guessed her age at midtwenties, though it was hard to tell. She was probably a local hooker but could just as easily have been kidnapped for the sport of the Triangle gunmen.
“English,” McCarter confirmed. “Speak the Queen’s tongue, do you?”
“I speak.” The man nodded. “You let me go.”
“We might be able to work something out, at that,” McCarter said. “But I tell you what, mate. I’ll lower my gun here—” McCarter gestured gently with the Kalashnikov “—and you let that girl go. There’s no need to hurt her. She’s done nothing to you, now, has she?”
“You let me go,” the man said, pressing the pistol harder against his captive’s temple. “I kill her. You see. I kill her.”
“That’s really not a good idea,” McCarter said. He placed the Kalashnikov on the floor. “You see? Completely unnecessary. My gun is down. Nobody’s trying to hurt you. Just let her go and you can walk downstairs.”
“No,” the man said. “You not alone. You all let me go.”
“Bloody hell,” McCarter muttered again. This one was not stupid, for all his other abundantly evident personal failings. More loudly, he said, “All right. Now look, friend, I’m sure we can come to an understanding—”
In midsentence, McCarter’s hand closed around the butt of the Hi-Power in its holster on his web belt. The gun came up, rattlesnake fast, and McCarter snapped off a shot that took the gunman between the eyes. His head snapped back. The 1911, and the dead man, hung there for a moment as if gravity was suspended…and then both the corpse and the pistol in its hand hit the ground, leaving the shocked girl standing there without a stitch on.
It only took her a few seconds to start screaming.
“Easy,” McCarter said again. “Easy. It’s over. It’s over.” He grabbed her and pulled her to him. “It’s all over now….”
The pearl-handled switchblade the girl had been hiding behind her back came up and snapped open. McCarter, who had been waiting for that, simply side-stepped and popped her under the jaw with a closed fist. Her eyes rolled up into her head and she folded, falling onto the now bloody mattress.
“David,” Manning said from behind him. “Are you all right?”
“Right as rain,” McCarter said, looking down and shaking his head. “Mind the girl, here. She’s one of them, or near enough.” He bent, folded the switchblade and pocketed it.
“I saw,” Manning said. “How did you know?”
“Kept that one arm behind her back even after he went down.” McCarter jerked his head to the dead gunman. “Probably figured to stick me after I gave in to his demands.”
“Triangle operative, you think?” Manning asked.
“No,” McCarter said, “not necessarily. Doesn’t appear to have been treated like just one of the boys, now, does she?” He regarded the unconscious woman as Manning gently rolled her over, wrapped her in a sheet from the bed and secured her wrists and ankles with zip-tie cuffs. “Probably just a local. Threw in her lot willingly with this bunch. Doesn’t matter. Let’s see if there’s anything to see.”
They searched the structure, then paired off in teams while Hawkins guarded the prisoners. Two at a time, they searched what was left of the burning camp, moving as quickly as possible. They found drugs, weapons and paraphernalia relating to both, but no additional intelligence and nothing that could be used against the Triangle.
“All right, lads,” McCarter said, signaling to Grimaldi, who was hovering around in close support. “Let’s clear out. Burn as we go, by the numbers. Move.”
Each team member had incendiary grenades. As they withdrew from the camp, they threw these into any structures not already on fire or otherwise destroyed. The dull, hissing thumps of the grenades going off was followed by the red-orange glow of the chemical flames they spread.
“Everyone to the evac point,” McCarter said.
“Meet you at the airfield, gentlemen,” Grimaldi said. He dipped the nose of the Cobra in salute once, then again, and then was flying away.
“Let’s hope those truck jockeys are where we told them to meet us,” Encizo said.
“Two to one says they’ve cleared out,” James put in, “rather than get caught in whatever heavy stuff they’ll figure is going down.”
“No bet there.” Encizo shook his head.
“Can the chatter, lads,” McCarter said. “If they’re not there, we’ll have a long hike to the airfield. Come on, people. Move.”
“Great,” Encizo said.
Manning smiled, shook his head and took off in the lead, setting a grueling pace.
“Well,” James said, nodding after the Canadian, “you going to let him show you up like that?”
“Bloody hell,” McCarter groused.
CHAPTER FIVE
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.
