Shadow War

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The narco-soldier tumbled, and, in the light of the single halogen lamp burning facedown on the warehouse floor, Blancanales saw three men hanging from chains. A man he instantly recognized as Humberto Lagos pulled a Beretta 92-F pistol from a shoulder holster and put it to the temple of one of the bound prisoners. The Able Team commando snapped the sights of his submachine over the man’s head and his finger tightened on the smooth metal curve of his trigger.

A slight figure stumbled out of his periphery, coming between him and Lagos. To his surprise Blancanales saw that it was the young woman from the car. He leaped forward and grasped the noncombatant by the arm, still holding his weapon up in his hand. He caught a flash of beautiful brown eyes as he held the woman close. His stomach clenched as he saw the hanging prisoner jerk like a fish on the line as Lagos put a bullet through his head.

The former Mexican commando turned to face Blancanales and the Able Team operator caught a sudden flash of a scar across the man’s neck. It was ugly, the tissue raised so that it looked like a piece of red licorice.

Blancanales pulled the trigger on his weapon, the 9 mm Parabellum rounds chewing into Lagos like spinning lead buzz saws. The Mexican dropped straight down as his forehead was brutally cracked open.

Blancanales felt the panicked woman squirm in his grip with sudden violence, twisting hard against his hold. He heard her cry out and suddenly he felt an icy burn stab into his stomach. He gasped at the sudden agony and the twisting hellcat broke free from his grip.

There was a second impact down low and another sudden burst of agonizing fire. He looked down and saw the woman snatch a knife from his lower abdomen. He looked up and she was snarling as she yanked the knife back to stab him again.

His knees buckled in surprise and he fell to the floor, striking the ground hard on his buttocks. He looked up. The woman rose above him with the knife swept up above her head in both hands.

Marta screeched and snarled as she slashed downward. Blancanales felt his conscious mind snap like the shutter on a camera. Gone was the young woman in slutty heels and too much makeup. Gone was blazing pain low in his gut. Gone was the booming of Lyons’s shotgun or the chatter of Schwarz’s assault rifle. Gone were the stumbling, dying Zetas.

All that remained was threat and response as blackness swarmed up to claim him.

The H&K MP-5 jumped in his hand as if of its own volition. But even then he couldn’t bring himself to do what needed to be done. The MP-5 jumped as he used it like a blunt instrument, striking the young woman with rapid-fire jabs like a boxer in the ring, first in the kneecap to bring her down, then into the soft curves of her body. Her slight frame shuddered under the impacts and she fell backward as she dropped her knife.

His guts felt as if scalding salt water had been splashed in them, but his arm was like the lever on an oil derrick and he laid the muzzle upside her jaw with a sound like a branch snapping.

She tumbled farther backward and fell to her back. Her head made a low, dull sound as it bounced off the floor. The arteries running into the avulsions left by the gun sight spilled her young blood onto the concrete floor, mingling with the puddle already formed by the blood of Lagos’s still-warm corpse. Marta’s eyes rolled back in her head and her jaw hung slack in loose reflex as she was shoved into unconsciousness. Her lover’s eyes remained fixed and open on the scene as Blancanales’s closed into darkness.

CHAPTER FOUR

France

“Yes, Henri,” Monica Bellucci said into the phone. “I’ll have copies of his cell-phone logs to you by the morning. You just get my money.” She hung up the phone.

Bellucci carefully tapped out a small amount of cocaine from a gold phial onto a little silver spoon she wore on a Gucci chain around her neck. She put the spoon to her nostril and quickly snorted the bump. She heard the lock on the room door unlatch as the key card worked the electronic mechanism.

She set the phial on the countertop and leisurely turned toward the entryway. She spread her legs slightly on her outrageously high stilettos and the black rubber dress stretched tight across her narrow thighs. She felt the last bump of coke kick in. She was fully engaged in her role.

The suite door swung open and Nayef al-Shalaan stepped inside the suite. Behind him towered four burly bodyguards in dark suits. In contrast al-Shalaan was short, but his face was set in the harsh lines of a man used to getting his way.

His mahogany eyes fell to the table and widened in surprise as he saw what was positioned there, sitting in plain view. Bright dots of color appeared on his dusky cheeks as he realized his bodyguards could plainly see the coil of rope. The manacles. The riding crop.

“Outside,” he snapped.

Immediately the crew stepped back, their faces impeccably passive. Al-Shalaan slammed the door shut and the lock engaged. His eyes rose from the accoutrements and devoured Bellucci. His hunger was naked and exposed, and he drank in the sight of her.

“You must be more careful—” he began.

“Shut up!” she snapped.

Al-Shalaan was paying for a dominatrix, and he was going to get his money’s worth. As high as a kite, Bellucci stalked forward like a cat closing in on its prey. She slinked as she moved, almost crossing the line between sensuous and slatternly, but the razor-sharp edge of predatory energy remained.

“Shut your mouth,” she repeated. Her voice had lowered from a bark to a hissing whisper. “You’re late. You kept me waiting.” She drew even with the table in the entranceway. “I’m not used to being kept waiting.”

Al-Shalaan quickly set his attaché case on the table. Made from the finest Italian leather, it featured clasps in 24-carat gold. Not plating, but solid gold fixtures, right down to the tumblers on the combination locks. The Arabic power broker kept his voice contrite and his eyes down as he answered his mistress.

“I a-apologize, please, one thousand a-apologies,” he stuttered.

His English came with an Oxford accent. She was near enough now for him to smell her perfume, a timeless classic. In her heels she was taller than him. Her heavily lidded eyes glittered like diamonds. With her left hand she reached out and pressed a fingertip to his lips, causing him to fall instantly silent. The nail was long and sharp and red as blood in a Baghdad gutter.

“No more talking,” she warned.

She leaned in close so that her full lips were near his ear. Her breath was hot against the flesh of his face and he smelled the gin. He felt his crotch go tight and he shut his eyes, body trembling. Bellucci reached over with her hand and wrapped her long fingers around the leather haft of the riding crop.

“Strip!” she ordered.

She brought the riding crop down against the polished wood of the table with a sharp crack and al-Shalaan hastened to obey.

T HE ELEVATOR DOOR OPENED with a tasteful, muted ding and the four teammates of Phoenix Force looked down the hotel hallway. Encizo sagged, hanging off the shoulders of Hawkins and Manning, the bottle still clenched in his fist. The four bodyguards in front of al-Shalaan’s door turned their heads in unison. The choreography of the movement was particularly impressive given that none of them seemed to have necks.

From the back of the elevator James, in his overwatch position, whispered under his breath, “I should have used more drug.” He stood behind a hotel wheelchair they had acquisitioned from a bellhop in trade for a generous tip.

“There’re four of them,” Hawkins gritted as Encizo pretended to stumble. “This wasn’t supposed to be a fair fight. This isn’t the goddamn Ultimate Fighting Championship, it’s supposed to be an ambush.”

“Grin and bear it,” Manning said.

“Hey!” Encizo lifted his head and shouted at the bodyguards in carefully memorized French. He made his voice slurred and the liquor in his bottle splashed as he gestured. “What the hell are you fat pigs looking at?”

The crew moved down the hall. James, who had learned French while serving as a Navy SEAL, spoke up quickly. “Don’t mind my friend, he’s had too much to drink. You know?” He shoved the wheelchair away and off to one side, as if the group of drunks had stolen it then tired of playing with the item.

The four juggernauts did not reply. One of them placed his hand under his jacket in an automatic gesture. James, charged with overwatch, tensed. “Parlez-vous français?” he called out.

“Voulez-vous coucher avec moi, ce soir?” Encizo said suddenly in his affected stupor.

“Oh, Jesus,” James moaned under his breath as he heard Encizo ask the bodyguards if they wanted to sleep with him tonight.

One of the bodyguards, a dark giant with a potato nose and a cell link in his right ear, snorted in laughter. He reached out a hand as large as a dinner plate and put a restraining hand on the guard who’d put his hand under his jacket. The big man muttered something, and the other three bodyguards laughed.

Manning could see the tension leak out of them, but the group remained vigilant as the four Stony Man commandos approached al-Shalaan’s suite door. In fact, he could see that they almost looked eager. Pummeling some of what they thought were drunk French tourists was an activity they seemed not averse to. This fit into the team’s plans perfectly. A brawl was fine. As long as the bodyguards didn’t feel the need to draw their handguns from the start, the odds would shift quickly into the team’s favor.

Phoenix Force moved down the hall, Encizo ranting in a slurred voice while Manning and Hawkins pretended to stagger under his weight. James began to drift out toward the edge of the group. Encizo started making gagging noises as if he were about to vomit.

The paneling on the walls of the long hotel hallway was of heavy wood, the pictures original eighteenth-century European cityscapes: Paris in autumn, London in the rain, Venice in the spring, Berlin at night. The carpet was thick, a burgundy laced with golden threaded patterns that matched the subdued wallpaper above the black walnut wainscoting. The resort was a beautiful, five-star hotel. In a detached way Gary Manning began to feel sorry for the grand old structure.

Phoenix Force had a tendency to wreak havoc.

As they approached the knot of the powerfully built, James rattled off a room number, addressing the bodyguards. “Where is it?” he demanded.

The dark giant, seemingly the senior guard, shook his head. “You’re not even on the right floor,” he snapped.

Encizo made a horrible retching sound and let a long line of saliva dribble out of his mouth and onto the carpet at the bodyguard’s feet. “He’s going to throw up!” James suddenly cried. Instinctively the four bodyguards stepped back, crowding them against the door.

Phoenix Force uncoiled. Gone was the comfortable banter. Gone was the easygoing camaraderie and tough-guy ball busting. No one was smiling. No one was laughing. The machine that was Phoenix Force had been initiated.

Manning stood closest to the guards, and he ducked out of Encizo’s arm, twisting at the waist. His right fist snapped out like a whip popping in a knife hand blow that struck the guard in the Adam’s apple while his left hand reached for the auto-injector positioned behind his back.

The bodyguard staggered, his hands flying up to protect his face in a boxer’s cover-up motion. Pulling the auto-injector free, Manning used his momentum to dip his massive shoulder and drive hard into the man’s body like linemen stopping a defensive back cold on the scrimmage line. The giant gasped as air was driven from his lungs and Manning’s shoulder hammered into his solar plexus. The man stumbled backward.

Instantly, Manning was on him, placing his leading forearm across the man’s neck and pinning him against the hotel wall. The man’s eyes grew wide with surprise, then quickly narrowed in effort as the bodyguard leader began to fight back. However, the pain from Manning’s initial neck blow had frightened and slowed the bodyguard’s reflexes so that his hook into the burly Phoenix Force warrior’s ribs was glancing and ineffective.

Manning brought up the auto-injector and shoved it roughly into the giant’s thick neck. The gun cycled and the sedative slammed into the man’s system. Manning wasn’t sure he’d hit the artery he was aiming for, but the muscles of the neck were extremely vascular. The bodyguard’s heart was now pumping wildly.

The man looked stunned, then panicked as he felt the air-jet of liquid medicine invade his body. He struggled to sit up, badly out of position, and Manning rammed an overhand elbow strike into his unprotected face, driving him into the floor.

James attacked simultaneously with Manning. He leaped forward and threw his right forearm hard into the throat of the bodyguard with a French Foreign Legion tattoo on his neck while his right leg simultaneously hooked behind the man’s ankle. As the bodyguard tumbled back against the wall, James fisted the auto-injector and thrust it forward.

He was aiming for the neck as Manning had, but the ex-Legionnaire twisted at the last moment so that the muzzle of the auto-injector struck him in the corner of his face, back toward the ear where the mandible hinge joint attached to the skull.

The man gaped in surprise, then almost instantly lost control of his jaw. The muscles of his face went slack even as James pulled back. He saw the bodyguard’s hand come up, slap ineffectually at the lapel of his blazer even as he finished sliding down the wall to the carpet in front of al-Shalaan’s door. James spun, auto-injector in one hand while he reached for his silenced pistol in case events were unfolding in a dangerous way.

He saw Encizo hammering a much taller man with huge, looping hooks, his knuckles smashing into the sides of the man’s face with rapacious energy. The bottle of liquor had bounced as it had been dropped and rolled away, spilling alcohol on the expensive carpet. Encizo stepped forward and grabbed the stunned man’s suit jacket by the lapels and shoved them down to his elbows, effectively pinning them to his sides in a hockey maneuver.

Encizo ripped his auto-injector free as the fingers of his other hand wrapped tightly into the close-knit curls of his target’s hair. He jerked once, swiveling from the hips, and the screaming man took a nosedive into the puddle of liquor soaking into the carpet.

The little Cuban dropped in a knee-led pile driver that slammed into the man’s back between his shoulder blades, pinning him to the floor. The auto-injector made contact with the easy target of the man’s pulsing carotid artery and he activated the device.

Encizo kept his weight pressing down on the prone bodyguard, crushing him into the carpet until the surgical anesthesia took effect. He felt the man’s struggles suddenly turn sluggish and then stop. The huge body in his grip went noodle-limp.

Hawkins had known from the beginning that when Phoenix Force unleashed its close-quarters ambush that of all the men in the phalanx, he would have the farthest distance to cover to initiate his attack. It was a distance of only two or three yards. But with an alert and possibly well-trained enemy, that scant distance would give his target a valuable couple of seconds of reaction time that the other bodyguards wouldn’t have.

If the man was competent, then Hawkins knew he could find himself in a stand-up fight instead of a surreptitious attack. When McCarter had set up the action plan, Hawkins had kept his face impassive as he listened to his assignment. Inside he had felt a sense of pride as he realized he had been given the position David McCarter would have taken for himself had his driving skills not been so imperative to the second phase of the operation.

As James drifted out around Manning’s broad form, signaling the start of assault, Hawkins sprang into action. He stepped forward from under Encizo’s arm and toward his man.

The bodyguard’s eyes grew wide in surprise, identically to those of his leader. Hawkins crossed the two endless steps between them as the rest of Phoenix Force clashed with the team of bodyguards. He felt a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach as he realized he might not make it. He went up on the toes of his left foot as he pulled his right knee back and up, almost to the level of his chin. His momentum carried him forward, and his leg lashed out as the black plastic alloy of the bodyguard’s Glock 19 was pulled clear of shoulder leather.

The heel of Hawkins’s low-cut boot slammed into the bodyguard’s sternum, and Hawkins felt the jar of the impact shock travel up his leg like the vibration of a tuning fork. He heard the bodyguard grunt as he continued moving forward, driving his foot down from the impact zone.

Hawkins had missed his specific target of the forearm attached to the hand holding the Glock pistol. He had made a mistake. As his right foot drove through the kick attack and landed on the carpet, the Phoenix Force commando was already following through on his first strike. He clamped his hand around the wrist holding the pistol as he whipped his right elbow around in an overhead crescent strike.

The point of his elbow smashed into the man’s face just below his eye and the bodyguard’s head snapped back into the wall, but the man didn’t go out. Hawkins dug inside himself and brought forth the aggression and anger and will that had served him for so long in such life-and-death struggles.

The bodyguard jerked his arm back, trying to clear the pistol for a shot. Hawkins squeezed hard, stymieing the movement the way an NBA guard stuffs a dunk attempt. The muzzle of the gun dug into the bodyguard’s stomach, keeping the man from pulling the trigger.

The man grunted, then forced his hand up, and Hawkins had to face the bitter truth that the man was stronger than he was. Millimeter by millimeter the gun began to move. Hawkins snarled then, and cold, greasy shots of adrenaline splashed into his knotted stomach.

Goose bumps rose on his flesh as fear-energy coursed through his system. In the blink of an eye he felt energized, supercharged.

His fingers crushed the man’s wrist. His elbow began to rise and fall with jackhammer rhythm, each impact of the sharp bone sending shock waves through the bodyguard’s head to rap his brain against the side of his skull. Hawkins’s strikes tore flesh open across the man’s forehead near the temples and blood gushed in sudden torrents.

The man went limp and the pistol fell from slack fingers. Hawkins rose, pulled his auto-injector free and shot it into the unconscious man’s neck.

He turned and saw the rest of Phoenix Force looking at him.

“What?” he asked, catching his breath.

“Nothing,” Manning said with a shrug. “If you’re through playing with your food, do you think we could continue?”

“Sure, no problem.”

“Next time I’m not going to give you a fancy toy if you’re not going to use it right,” James said.

“Fuck ’em,” Hawkins replied. “They work for scum. They’re lucky the powers that be didn’t want corpses on friendly soil.”

“Let’s roll,” Manning said.

CHAPTER FIVE

From his overwatch position Gadgets Schwarz saw Rosario Blancanales fall. He saw the incongruous figure of a schoolgirl stumble back, a bloody knife in her fist. He shifted the shortened muzzle of his Steyr AUG A3 toward the female as she stabbed Blancanales a second time.

The aiming reticle of his 1.5X power telescope filled with the young woman’s figure as she swept her knife up. She staggered in his sight as he attempted to put a 5.56 mm Teflon-coated round through the left side of her rib cage.

But the close-quarters battle exploded into a frenzy of activity as one of the Zetas gunslingers recovered his composure on Carl Lyons’s flank and stepped into Schwarz’s line of fire. The man raised a Browning Hi-Power pistol and triggered a round into the Able Team leader’s back that was soaked up by his Kevlar body armor.

Lyons staggered under the impact as Schwarz put the man down. The Able Team leader triggered his assault shotgun, and suddenly the warehouse echoed with the sound of the full automatic 12-gauge weapon.

Bodies spun and were flung like rag dolls from the impact of .440 stainless-steel fléchettes that ripped through flesh and shredded internal organs. Blood and brain and bits of bone struck the corrugated walls of the old warehouse, and the metal structure rang as rounds punched through it.

Then there was silence.

From his position at the window Schwarz shifted his Steyr AUG, scanning the area. Nothing moved. He snapped the barrel to a different vector and found all still.

Carl Lyons stood at the point of the unit’s triangle formation, his smoking shotgun pointed downward, his ears ringing from the booming of his own weapon.

For a second he couldn’t understand Schwarz’s frantic shouting, then his hearing returned well enough for him to make out what his teammate was hollering. Lyons spun, searching the floor for Blancanales.

He saw the unconscious Latino sprawled out, one hand still clutching his weapon, the other resting on an ugly mess of a wound leaking blood across his lap. Schwarz burst through the door and began checking Zetas bodies as Lyons made his way through the carnage toward his downed friend.

Blancanales’s breathing was shallow and forced, his color obviously bad, even in the uncertain light. Blancanales himself often served as Able Team’s field medic, so it was from his kit that Carl Lyons stripped the first-aid equipment.

He set down his shotgun and brought a soft, OD green plastic package to his teeth and ripped it open. He moved Blancanales’s hand to the side and spilled the contents of the packet on his open wound. Instantly the coagulation powder went to work, clotting the blood around the puncture wounds.

Since Blancanales’s breathing was uncompromised, if laborious, and there was no other obvious wound, Lyons dedicated his attention to that injury first. Behind him Schwarz kept his weapon in one hand and used his other to call in the team’s helicopter.

“Help us,” moaned one of the hanging prisoners.

“Shut up,” Lyons snapped.

He finished securing a second pressure dressing over Blancanales’s wound. The Latino’s eyes fluttered open, glazed with pain, and Lyons could see the man struggle toward coherency through the force of sheer willpower.

“We good?” Blancanales asked.

“Yeah,” Lyons answered softly. “Jack’s coming. We’ll have you medevaced in no time. I hear the chopper now.”