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Manning and Encizo reached down and jerked the now stoned Abu Hafiza to his feet. McCarter spoke into his throat mike. “Akira, how we look?”
“Clock’s ticking. You got stubborn bad guys trying to dig their way through the burning barricade I made out of the first-wave vehicles. I’m still sitting on my last Hellfire.”
“Good copy,” McCarter said. “We’ll be rolling out the back door in about ten seconds. Why don’t you go ahead and blow me a hole out the back fence now?”
“One escape hatch coming up,” Tokaido replied.
“Phoenix,” McCarter said. “We are leaving.”
En route to Bolivia
IN THE BACK OF THE Cessna executive turbojet Able Team prepared for their mission briefing. Scrambled with their preassembled kits directed by Barbara Price, the Stony Man direct-action unit had been wheels up and flying south even before Hal Brognola had finished being fully briefed by the President.
Now, via sat link the big Fed and director of the Justice Department’s Sensitive Operations Group gave them a rundown on the situation.
“Currently FBI counterintelligence, counterterror and hostage-rescue units are scrambling to deal with a crisis. In Boliva, Juan Evo Morales holds power. A committed socialist and champion of the coca-leaf growers, he is a strong ally of the Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chavez, and no friend of the United States.
“A plane filled with U.S. citizens has been taken hostage in the eastern lowlands where thick tracts of Amazonian rainforest carpet the topography. Officially the Morales government is helping the U.S. with the situation. Behind the scenes the government is restricting the movement, investigation and resource deployment of the FBI field team in order to maintain ‘sovereign integrity.’
“NSA has managed to discover that covertly, the Bolivian special forces, the Polivalente, are running a joint operation with Venezuela’s DISIP, or Directorate of Intelligence and Prevention Services. Faced with this obstruction we need you to run a simultaneous black operation to locate and free the kidnapped hostages independent from the official FBI efforts. You must infiltrate the country, acquire intelligence, perform tactical reconnaissance and execute the rescue.” Brognola paused. “Tactical specifics will be given to you once you arrive in Bolivia.”
Schwarz cocked an eyebrow and turned toward Blancanales. “Is it me or does the old man seem to be getting even more blasé as we pull off one impossible stunt after the other?”
Blancanales shrugged. “What am I going to do at my age? Start over and teach school?”
Lyons leaned forward and addressed Brognola through the sat link system. “No worries. We’re on it.”
La Paz, Bolivia
THE TAXI took Lyons away from the more affluent area and into the poorer neighborhoods, far from the Hyatt hotel, American consular branch office and the giant grocery store. Here Colombian refugees formed a strong minority, completely dominating some neighborhoods stacked with poorly constructed tenements and scattered with small shops.
This fact was punctuated to Lyons by his driver, named Jose, who spoke serviceable if broken English. At one point he noted to Lyons that they had entered an area exclusive to Colombians, a tent city from 1978 that had grown up into a labyrinth of winding, narrow streets separating concrete apartment buildings and one-room shops of every description.
After fifteen minutes of travel, the taxi entered another Colombian enclave and stopped in front of a four-story apartment building. Standing on the street, waiting for him, was Hermann Schwarz in street clothes. The American had allowed his beard to grow in under his thick mustache.
Lyons paid the driver and got out of the cab. Schwarz was holding open a steel door and he nodded and smiled in greeting.
“Que pasa, jefe?” he said, letting Lyons through the gate into a small courtyard, then directing him into the building itself. Lyons nodded a greeting and began to ask the Able Team commando a question, but Schwarz shook his head and whispered, “Upstairs.”
Lyons followed Schwarz as they climbed four stories up a narrow, bare concrete staircase. At each landing there was a large square window open to the outside. On the fourth floor the two men entered a stark, poorly lit hallway. At the end of the hall Lyons saw a woman in a traditional dark dress duck into a doorway to avoid them.
Obviously waiting for them, Rosario Blancanales, stubble-faced and dressed identically to Schwarz in street clothes, opened the door to their apartment. Lyons entered the room, shaking Blancanales’s hand once he was inside. Schwarz shut the door behind them and flipped a series of dead bolts closed.
Immediately upon entering the apartment, Lyons saw that there was a short, alcove-style hall to the left leading to an open closet and the bathroom. A U.S. Claymore antipersonnel mine was set up in the entranceway, angled at the door so the back blast would be funneled into the alcove. The ignition cord trailed down the hall, taped to the ground to avoid tripping anyone, and leading around a corner.
“What’s up?” Lyons asked. “Didn’t want anyone hearing us speak English?”
“I want to avoid it as much as possible.” Schwarz nodded. “Blancanales and I might fit in better than McCarter or Hawkins would, but nobody around here’s really fooled. English is pretty common here but it shouts ‘outsider’ in a way that makes me nervous in these Colombian ’hoods.”
“It’s like in my old neighborhood when I was growing up,” Rosario Blancanales added. “Everybody knows who belongs in the ’hood. Cops try to send in a plain-clothes and he was always spotted. The gangs know if a guy comes from three streets over, let alone from out of town. We look like the Bolivian version of lost tourists come to the big city as long as we don’t open our mouths.”
“It’s only going to get worse once we make our final approaches,” Lyons observed.
Blancanales shrugged. “Like I said, Gadgets and I are better than McCarter or Hawkins and in crowded markets or just out and about we’ll move easier. We knew it was going to be tough. You look like the giant gringo you are, my friend.”
They led Lyons deeper into the cramped four-room apartment. The walls and floor were of the same bare concrete as the staircase. Lyons realized there would be no insulation, though the windows at least had glass in them.
“Plumbing okay?” he asked.
“Toilet and shower are weak but working. Don’t drink the water,” Blancanales answered.
“How’s it going?” Lyons asked, meaning the surveillance operation.
Blancanales led him to the large common area at the rear of the apartment. Lyons saw a battered old futon next to a kerosene stove and several battery-operated lanterns. Schwarz and Blancanales had put down foam mattresses and sleeping bags on the concrete, with an additional one meant for Lyons.
A Soviet Dragunov 7.62 mm sniper rifle with the standard PSO-1 scope mount was set up on a bipod in the middle of the room. Against the wall were three AK-104 Kalashnikov carbines. On a card table near the couch and stacked weapons sat a VINCENT sat-com unit, a laptop, two Nikon cameras—one digital and one 35 mm—as well as a satellite phone.
“The Bureau set us up good,” Blancanales said. “Your wish list for weapons and equipment was waiting for us when we got here. They got us Jordanian pistols instead of the more generic Makarovs, but since they’re used by the Bolivian army I didn’t bitch.”
Lyons grunted. The Viper JAWS—Jordanian Arms & Weapon System—had a great reputation for a 9 mm pistol, especially when compared to the older Soviet Makarov and Tokarev, and was the product of a joint American-Jordanian effort. He supposed that with the weapons going into service with the Royal Jordanian Army it was feasible that some would have made it out onto the black market. The fact that the Bolivian military services had all been outfitted with them only helped matters.
“Good enough. What about our good Juan Hernandez?” Lyons asked.
“Take a look for yourself,” Schwarz said, and indicated where the Dragunov had been set up.
The designated infantry support weapon was set up on the ground on a foam shooter’s pad. It was pointed out of a sliding-glass door that opened up on a railing around a patio that extended about six inches out. The glass door opened up on a narrow alley, and Blancanales and Schwarz had hung drapes, keeping them only open a few inches, to avoid being seen by anyone across the way.
Lyons settled into position. The PSO-1 scope was angled through the wide-set wrought-iron bars of the balcony and out toward the mouth of the alley, which opened up on a busy avenue. The crosshairs of the sniper rifle were focused on a balcony across that street, the fifth one up from the bottom and two over from the left edge of the target building. The balcony there was as narrow and unadorned as the one attached to Able Team’s own safehouse.
Inside the apartment Lyons could clearly distinguish the front door through his sniper scope. A battered old television with a rabbit-ears antenna played what Lyons took to be a local soap opera. He had a clear image of the back of a large, balding head facing away from the open balcony.
“Looks like our guy,” Lyons said. “I guess. The FBI triangulated the communications of the Bolivian army commander in charge of the rescue to here?”
“Yep exactly. Akira did a computer enhancement match on photos we took. It came up on an NSA data file. The guy is a communications officer for Colombian intelligence. He’s working as a scramble relay for Caracas.”
“Ugly bastard,” Lyons grunted.
“Got him?” Blancanales asked. “Good. Now come here. I want to show you our little glitch.”
“Christ,” Lyons muttered as he stood. “There’s always a glitch.”
Blancanales led Lyons to the edge of the drapes covering all but two inches of their apartment balcony. Lyons stood at the edge of the curtain and looked out. He heard the sounds of the street, smelled exhaust fumes from the cars. In the distance he could hear a radio blaring latino music through cheap loudspeakers. Heavy carpets aired out over balconies. Clotheslines filled the space above the street between buildings, draped with laundry.
On the street women in traditional blouses and skirts hustled by on errands while men in dirty jeans and battered old sandals rode in threes and fours in the open backs of pickup down the narrow avenue. He saw street vendors selling vegetables and cutting meat from hanging carcasses.
The unemployed lounged in little clusters and argued and laughed with animated hand gestures. School-age children kicked grimy soccer balls in the gutter. Rebar struts stuck from the unfinished corners of old buildings.
“Look down, against the wall, across the alley. See him?”
Lyons looked down. He saw what appeared to be a vagrant dressed in filthy Western shirt and pants under a grimy poncho. His beard was patchy, almost mangy, and the man’s overall appearance was completely unkempt. Lyons narrowed his eyes. There were two empty bottles of the potent Bolivian beer called Orso lying empty beside the man who clutched a brown paper bag.
Lyons frowned. “A drunk? In the open?”
“Exactly. Here.” Blancanales handed Lyons a compact pair of Zeiss binoculars. “Check out his right ear under the ball cap.”
Lyons took the offered Zeiss binoculars and zeroed in on the lounging man. A small earpiece was fitted into the man’s ear. Lyons grunted at the wireless communications tech. “Pretty upscale for a gutter drunk. Our boy Juan is being watched. I’m guessing not by Bolivian security, either, considering how the observer’s screwing it up.”
“Probably it’s the Venezuleans doing overwatch on their boy. A secondary security operation,” Schwarz said.
“Hell,” Blancanales snorted. “Pretending to be a drunk, in Bolivia? I think that rules out any first-tier Western operators, as well.”
Lyons narrowed his focus on the glasses. He took in how the man’s hawk nose was more pronounced from having obviously been broken more than once. “You don’t think he’s on to us?” Lyons handed Blancanales back the Zeiss binoculars. “What happens when Juan leaves his apartment? That guy tail him?”
“No.” Schwarz smiled. “Another guy, taller and thinner, tails him in a white Celica. They’re definitely following our good Mr. Juan Hernandez. I followed him following Juan shopping one day. I could have sliced his throat at any time, he was positively asleep, real tunnel vision.” The ex-Green Beret mimed drawing a finger across his neck. “I took some photos instead. Besides, what’s the range on a wireless earpiece like that? Even with the receiver in the bag? We’re clean for bugs in here and he’d be set up differently if he was using a parabolic mic. They must already have a bug in Hernandez’s apartment.”
“I assume you got film on that jackass down there, as well?” Lyons asked.
“Yep.” Blancanales nodded. “Sent it off to Bear. He said he’ll get back to us.”
“We have to know who they are before we roll,” Lyons said. “The Bolivians could have tipped someone or Venezuela could have sent a team hoping to ambush anyone who checks Juan Hernandez out. Whoever they are they’ve just made number one on our list of priorities,” Lyons decided. “What happens at night?” he asked, pensive.
“Third man,” Schwarz answered. “Juan isn’t exactly a playboy. They keep the indigent in place until dark, then they have a nightshift guy, different than the daytime shadow, in a late-model Ford V-8 van. He parks in the alley crawls into the back and pulls the curtain. Must have a sibling transceiver to the one used by our Mr. Bum-by-day down there.”
“He goes first, then,” Lyons said.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Able Team settled in to wait.
Lyons took one of the 9 mm Viper JAWS pistols and kept it on him. He changed into street clothes and a poncho. With his darkly tanned complexion and two-day beard he didn’t stand out awfully, but he knew better than to think he could pull off any complicated subterfuge.
They made strong coffee and took turns behind the PSO-1 scope, watching Juan Hernandez’s apartment. The Venezuelan electronic intelligence specialist was a diligent man. The spook in the alley outside whiled away the time with a patience that Lyons had to admit was professional.
While Schwarz took a watch behind the sniper scope the sat-phone on the card table next to the laptop buzzed. Blancanales picked it up. “Go,” he said.
He listened for a minute and Lyons heard the smile in his voice when he answered. “Nice, Bear, nice.”
While Lyons watched, Blancanales moved to the laptop and nudged the finger-mouse pad to disrupt the screensaver. A rectangle graph showing an incoming download appeared. Once the download was complete, Blancanales said, “Got it. We’ll call as we move forward. Out.”
He hung up the phone and clicked on the download icon. Instantly classified photos with accompanying text appeared on the screen. Lyons came in close and studied the screen.
“Got a match on DEA international files. Cross-hit in Interpol. These guys are cartel mob freelancers,” Lyons read.
“Venezuelans?” Blancanales mused. “We got cocaine cowboys pulling security on a Colombian intel op.”
“Blackmail,” Lyons grunted. “Maybe, anyway. But more likely there’s a power struggle in Chavez’s crews. The army doesn’t trust intel, or intel the army, or something. So one side called in outside players they could trust. They’re here because someone is afraid someone is running Juan Hernandez down. If they were a hit team they’d have taken him out by now.”
“Christo,” Schwarz agreed from behind the rifle. “They’re Colombian. They would have blown up the whole damn building or gone in and chewed him up with a chain saw in front of his family by now if they’d been paid to take him out.”
“So we take them out?” Blancanales asked Lyons.
“We can’t have them at our six o’clock when we go in after Juan,” Lyons said, thoughtful.
“We take them out, then whoever called in the shadow will know we’re in Bolivia and onto Juan,” Schwarz pointed out.
Lyons ticked off his points on his fingers, one by one. “This op is bloody wet already. Subterfuge will only take us so far. Speed and aggression is our key now, just like always. We hit them. We hit Juan. We hit the plane.”
Schwarz and Blancanales nodded.
“So we take ’em out before we interview Juan,” Blancanales stated.
“Yes,” Lyons replied. “But I want to make sure I get every last one of them possible. Not just the point men.”
“Find the nest?” Schwarz said.
“And clean it out,” Lyons finished. “The clock is ticking. We need to interview Juan. We can’t do it with that surveillance and I’m not predisposed to letting Colombian hitmen run around at will if I can have anything to do with it.”
“I heard that,” Schwarz said.
“I think we have an understanding,” Blancanales said. “We go in, shoot and loot. At best we get some paperwork, a hard drive and/or some cell phones. Otherwise we simply put some bad operators out of business. Once our six o’clock is clear, we start stage two immediately.”
“Win-win situation,” Lyons said.
“THEY’RE ON THE FIFTH floor,” Schwarz said. “Room 519. There’s at least three of them in there but I think more like twice that.”
“Building materials?” Blancanales asked.
“Reinforced concrete for load-bearing structural, but only Sheetrock covered by wood between rooms. The doors have a lock, a single dead bolt and a security chain.”
“Windows?”
“Commercial variety. Set in the wall with no balcony. They open inward with a metal-clasp locking mechanism. The glass is set into four even quadrants of windowpane around standard molding and wood frames. High quality but not security level.”
“Wall penetration will be a problem with our weapons. Even the nine millimeters,” Lyons said.
“C-2 breaching charges on the door and shotguns with buckshot or breach-shot for the takedown?” Blancanales suggested.
“What’s security like in the hotel?”
“They have a Bolivian police officer out front armed with a pistol and a submachine gun. He liaisons with hotel private security, who have a heavy presence in the lobby and restaurant area. They make hourly passes through the guestroom halls. They all carry 9 mm side arms,” Schwarz answered. “I think we could get in and do the takedown. It’s getting out without slugging through security forces I’m doubtful of.”
“Position to snipe on the window?” Blancanales asked.
“Negative. The Inca Mall is across the street. Seventy-five thousand square feet. No defilade and no angle other than up-trajectory. Lousy for shooting.”
“Yes, but does it have frozen yogurt? You know how I feel about my frozen yogurt.” Blancanales laughed.
“That kind of exposure rules out rappelling down the outside, even if we could get to the roof.” Lyons rubbed at his beard, thoughtful.
