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Authors: Don Pendleton,Dick Stivers

Tags: #Action & Adventure, #Fiction, #General, #det_action, #Men's Adventure

Texas Showdown (7 page)

BOOK: Texas Showdown
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"What's with you, Morgan?" Blancanales stepped into the darkness. "What..."

Even in the shadows, Blancanales saw the panic in Lyons' eyes. Blancanales pushed Lyons farther back into total darkness.

"What's wrong?" Blancanales whispered.

Lyons forced his voice to be calm. "I want you to denounce me. Tell Pardee I said something, I did something. Tell him I wanted you to get a message out to the Feds. Anything."

"What're you talking about? They'll take you apart, you'll die."

"Do it fast and you can save yourself and Gadgets. The officer next to Pardee, that's Robert Furst. Last time I saw him was in court. I helped put him away for five years, armed robbery. I tell you, I'm dead."

8

Mercenaries stood to attention as Furst and Pardee strode into the barracks. Men abandoned magazines and checkerboards, stood beside their bunks. Wearing towels, pressed fatigues, or embroidered Afghan smoking robes, they saluted as their officers passed.

"Luther Schwarz!" Pardee shouted.

Sprawled on his upper bunk, Gadgets looked toward the loud voice as his hand went to the razor-sharp bayonet under his pillow. But he noted that Pardee and the other officer had no armed soldiers with them. Gadgets slid off the bunk and saluted.

"This is Commander Furst," Pardee announced. "I told him you are an electronics technician. What is your specialty?"

"Tricks."

"What kind of tricks?" Pardee demanded.

"Electronic tricks."

"That doesn't tell us much," Furst broke in. "How about giving us a briefing on what you've done for other people?"

Gadgets glanced around to the crowd of mercenaries in the barrack room. He nodded toward the door. "Let's talk out there."

On the way out, they met Blancanales. "And here's the man who speaks Mexican," Pardee told Furst.

"Join us," Furst said to Blancanales. "We might have an op for you tomorrow night."

Outside, Pardee leaned against the jeep. "So what can you do for us?"

"You said there's going to be an operation," Gadgets started. "Give me an idea of what your operation is, and I'll tell you how I can help."

"Where's Morgan?" Pardee asked Blancanales.

"He went to the movies. You need him?"

Pardee looked to Furst. Furst said, "I'll talk to him later. Here's what we're doing tomorrow night. At sunset, Captain Pardee is taking four troopships south. There's a doper base in the mountains down there. It has an airfield, thousands of gallons of fuel in tanks, good buildings, a defensible road. We need to take it intact. We need to take it quickly, so quickly that they can't get a message out on their radio. If your friend Morgan is familiar with a Starlite scope, we can use him. And you, Marchardo, we can use you and your Spanish. But I'm not sure how electronics could play a role."

"You're going south," Gadgets said. "Then the helicopters come back?"

Furst nodded.

"That means you'll be flying through American radar twice. Means you'll be in Mexico all night. That's two air forces that'll be looking to give you trouble. If you're flying treetop low, maybe they won't spot you. But what happens if they've got a plane with downward-looking radar? What if a dope patrol locks on you? You're going to have to get back here without it following you. And what happens if your doper target has radar? They can afford it."

"We plan to drop the men on the far side of mountain," Furst told him. "Then march over the top."

"Okay, but you can't have your soldiers walk all the way back here. So I could put together an assortment of anti-radar devices — I can't make the Hueys disappear, but I can confuse anyone who's chasing you."

"With what?"

"You have an electronics shop here, for your radios and things," Gadgets said. Furst nodded. "Then take me there. I'll see what I can put together."

Furst turned to Pardee. "Get a Starlite rifle from the armory, take Morgan out to the firing range, see how he does. I'll walk this man over to the electronics shop."

"Come on, Marchardo," Pardee ordered Blancanales as he climbed into the jeep. "Looks like Morgan misses the movie."

* * *

Staring at the screen without seeing the images, Lyons waited. The film's story followed the recruitment of a mercenary force to attack an African nation. After corporate executives struck an agreeable deal with the nation's leaders, the executives abandoned the soldiers of fortune to the mercy of thousands of Cuban-led Simba cutthroats. The scenes of death, dismemberment and heroism brought bursts of laughter from the real-life mercenaries in the audience. Soldiers guzzled their rations of beer, then threw the cans at the screen. Storms of popcorn flew in the air. Soldiers ad-libbed, shouting advice to the actors. Other soldiers argued with the advice.

Chaos and noise, so no one noticed Blancanales slip into the seat beside Lyons. "How's the flick?"

"No one's started shooting yet," Lyons replied.

Bursts of machine-gun fire, mortar blasts and screaming came from the screen. Blancanales pointed. "Then what's that?"

"I mean in here." Lyons indicated the audience of mercenaries around them. Both of them laughed briefly. Lyons asked: "What's going on?"

"Your shooting impressed Pardee, so you've got a chance. They want you and me to go on an operation tomorrow night. Furst went over to the electronics shop to see what Gadgets can do. Pardee's waiting outside. We're supposed to go out to the firing range and check you out on a Starlite. You sure Furst would recognize you?"

Lyons grinned. "You bet your life. And Gadgets' life too."

"Furst won't be out at the firing range. I think we should risk it, it'll be dark soon. You got a chance."

"What about tomorrow?"

"Tomorrow's another day."

They left the seats and wove through the shouting, beer-drinking, popcorn-heaving mercenaries. At the exit, Lyons stopped Blancanales: "The way we have our stories worked out, I'm the newcomer. You and Gadgets can deny it all. Turn me in, and you've got a chance." Blancanales shook his head, no.

* * *

Searching through racks of components, Gadgets made a list. A plastic bucket containing discarded solid-state circuit boards toppled from the top of the rack and crashed to the floor. Gadgets glanced at the spilled circuit boards. He picked one up and scratched a component from the list.

Televisions filled the workshop. Remote-controlled pan/tilt/zoom units lined one wall. A technician cleaned a mass of gears with a fine brush as he talked with Furst:

"It's the sand. We can't keep it out of the housings. We have two or three units a day go down. And then we get sun-flares burned into the videcon tubes. We put on filters, we can't use the cameras at night. Without the filters, the cameras burn. I tell you, Texas is a rough place for this equipment..."

Furst ignored the technician. He called out to Gadgets: "You find what you need?"

Gadgets left the racks. "Here's what I can do for you."

* * *

Scanning the darkness of the firing range and the rocky foothills beyond, all of it green through the optics of the Starlite scope, Lyons found the bottles. He paused to fix each in the cross hairs, then popped each with a single round from the M-16.

"That's six," Pardee told him.

"Just a second..." Lyons saw a shape scurry through the rocks. He waited. When it moved again, he fired.

"What was that?" Blancanales asked.

"A rat."

"A head shot, I suppose," Pardee joked.

"Nah, nothing fancy," Lyons replied. "I shot him through the heart."

"Okay, you're going south. Rest your feet tomorrow. In twenty-four hours, you got a twenty-mile hike, then target practice on Mexican dopers."

Slipping out the magazine and clearing the chamber, Lyons handed the rifle to Pardee. "I don't want to knock the equipment, but how about getting that scope on an M-14? Mattel's swell, but..."

"Heavy rifle. You willing to carry it?"

"Dopers need the heavy stuff. Might not notice a five-five-six."

Pardee laughed and slapped Lyons on the back. "That's the attitude! You have to meet Colonel Furst, he'd like you."

Headlights flashed on the road from camp. In the quiet of the rolling desert, the whine of an engine came to them.

"Well, there, Morgan. Looks like you meet the man immediately. Here." Pardee returned the M-16 to Lyons. "I think you'll be doing some more shooting."

As Pardee walked downslope to the parking area, Lyons snapped the magazine into the receiver and eased back the action to chamber a round. He looked at Blancanales and muttered: "Maybe so."

* * *

Schwarz rode in the passenger seat. Despite the darkness and the slipwind of the open jeep, Gadgets was sketching a design in a notebook. He finished a detail, held the drawing up for Furst as he drove, a shaky flashlight beaming onto the drawing.

"That's what it would look like," Gadgets told him. "I can put that together from the materials in the shop."

* * *

On the range, Lyons looked down to the jeep, gripped the top-heavy M-16. Blancanales stepped close to him: "We'll wait for him up here. If he recognizes..."

"
When
he recognizes me."

"Okay, when he recognizes you..."

"Bang, bang."

* * *

In the jeep, a beeping cut off Gadget's tech talk. Furst touched a pager on his belt. He braked as he pulled up to Pardee and the other jeep.

"Urgent call," Furst told Pardee as Gadgets stepped out of the jeep. "Take Schwarz back to the base. I'm going up the hill."

Pardee guffawed, slapped the side of the jeep as it pulled away. He watched the taillights streak in the direction of the Monroe mansion. He laughed again. "Urgent!"

* * *

Wearing a white silk kimono splashed with patterns of red waves, Availa Monroe stood in the road. She raised her arms to stop the jeep, the headlights making the red and white silk blaze against the night. The soft desert wind flagged the silk. As he braked, Furst stared: in the wind and headlight glare, the woman looked like a saint seen in a dream... a beautiful girl writhing in flames, or flags, or the bloody rags of a shroud.

"Here, I want you here." She clutched at him, tried to pull him from the seat of the jeep. "Stop now. Get out and take me."

"Wait! Just..." He idled the vehicle off the asphalt a few car lengths and parked it against rocks. He jumped out, the sand soft under his feet.

Availa rushed to him, her kimono a pale fluttering around her. There were no embraces or kisses. She clawed her red lacquered nails into his fatigue shirt, dragged him down onto her. She tore the silk of the kimono aside and threw her body against him.

The sand was warm beneath them. She took him with her violent passion. In their few weeks as lovers, she had wanted more of him every time she called him. Now, her lust demanded every ounce of his force. She clutched, implored, commanded. She sneered when he tired. It drove him to anger. He beat her with his body, slamming into her as if to murder her. He did not slacken his pace or violence until she gripped him with her legs, spasmed and thrashed.

He slowed. She dug her nails into his back, hissed into his face: "Again. Again!"

Cursing her, he gave her two more climaxes before he collapsed, truly spent. He was too exhausted to look at her. The wind cooled the sweat on him as he lay in the sand. He felt raw and bloody.

Availa sat up, pulling the kimono closed. She drew a cigarette and lighter from a pocket. It wasn't tobacco. She smoked marijuana laced with cocaine base. She took several long drags and stared up at the star-strewn night sky.

Finally, he sat up. Less than a quarter mile above them, the lights of the mansion blazed against the shadowy mountains, lightspill from the windows and patios illuminating the jagged, convoluted mountainsides and cliffs in patterns of red rock and black. Far below them, the base lights formed a pattern of brilliant points on the desert plateau. In silence broken only by the soft rush of the warm evening wind, she asked: "Do you love me?"

Furst didn't answer. She looked at him for a moment. "Good," she said. "Now I don't have to pretend."

She leaned to him, kissed him, her mouth open, hot and fluid, scented with narcotic. "Next time bring more men."

He startled back. "What?"

"Or I will confess our love to my husband. Bring the other men, or you will know the wrath and revenge of Monroe."

9

Through the side door's Plexiglas, Lyons watched the western horizon fade from red to violet. The Huey bucked and shuddered as the pilots maintained an altitude of fifty feet over the desert gorges and plateaus. Every thermal updraft and crosswind threw Lyons against the men on each side of him, or else back against the bulkhead. Lyons gripped the nylon and foam case for the M-14, and tried to keep the equipment of the other mercenaries from bumping the Starlite scope.

A man touched a lighter flame to a cigarette. Pardee's shout tore through the engine's roar:
"Put that out before I shoot at it!"

The smoker threw the cigarette down, ground it out. Pardee leaned to Lyons, spoke with his head touching Lyons'.

"A night op, so what do they do? They smoke! Two months I've nursed these losers. I should have recruited Girl Scouts."

Time went slowly. As the sky darkened to night, the terrain below them became black. The pilot took the helicopter higher. Now the swerves and lurches came infrequently. Twinkling lights appeared to the east, then the dark form of a mountain obscured the town. The monotonous vibration and night landscape lulled Lyons almost to sleep.

He had not slept since he'd seen Robert Furst, ex-army officer, ex-movie actor, ex-bank robber. After the gut-twisting near confrontation on the rifle range, Lyons and Pardee had returned to camp. They fitted the Starlite scope and a bipod onto an M-14, then Pardee made an unauthorized entry into the PX and carried out two six-packs of beer. Out in the hills, they drank the beer, then shot the cans to zero the rifle. Finally back in the barrack, Lyons had lain awake until dawn, figuring angles. How long could he avoid Furst? Could he risk Furst "disappearing"? Where did Furst sleep? How could Lyons get the body past the sentries?

If Lyons wanted to live, if he wanted Blancanales and Gadgets to live, Furst had to meet with a fatal accident. But how? After brooding all night, Lyons knew he could do nothing, the guarantees were too slender. Therefore he had to avoid Furst until an opportunity for elimination arose later.

The men participating in the raid had had no duties during the day. At dawn, Lyons borrowed a set of high-powered binoculars. Telling the sentries he wanted to practice, he took the binoculars and the M-14 into the rocky hills overlooking the base. Until assembly time, he studied the camp, watching the sentries, noting the frequency of their patrols and when the shifts changed. He watched the camp operations. He watched jeeps and trucks shuttle between the airfield and the base.

At four in the afternoon, he returned to the barracks and gathered his equipment. Only the crowding and the confusion in the trucks and helicopters saved him from discovery. Furst and Monroe watched from a limousine as Pardee and the squad leaders checked details and counted soldiers. Lyons had hoped Furst would accompany the strike force... Furst would not have returned. But the man had stayed in the limousine, and waved as the helicopters lifted away.

For a moment after the helicopter touched down and the pilot killed the engine, there was silence and stillness. The rotor-throb of the other helicopters came and faded too. Pardee left his seat beside Lyons and squatted with his back to the closed side door.

"Listen up. There's no going back, you men. We're two hours into Mexico, and the helicopters have fifteen minutes of fuel left. Either we win, or we die, or we go to Mexican prisons. Right now we're going to take a walk. No talking, no noise, no smoking, no slack. When we get there, everything dies. Men, women, babies, pet lizards. You hear me?"

The squad mumbled its answer. Pardee threw open the side door and stepped smartly out. Red-lensed lights flashed from the three other helicopters. As the soldiers filed out of the Huey, cool desert air displaced the odors of fuel and sweat and face-blacking with the fragrance of chaparral and wild spices.

Lyons followed the others out. To the east, the silhouette of a mountain cut into the dome of stars. There was a very faint glow of light behind one ridge.

The glow came from the lights of the phony oil exploration airfield that concealed the doper base.

The squads formed into four lines. Then they moved. One squad took positions around the helicopters, the other three squads started the five-hour march over the mountain.

After a half-hour of stumbling through the dark, the soldier behind him jabbing Lyons every few minutes with the flash suppressor of his M-16, Lyons decided to volunteer to walk point. He jogged forward to find Pardee in the point squad.

"Do us all a favor," he grunted. "Let me and Marchardo take point."

"The dopers might have heard the helicopters-there could be an ambush up there."

"I think it'd be safer up front. Besides, if there is an ambush or there are guards up there, Marchardo and I have got a better chance than the rest of your stumblebums..."

Pardee chuckled. "They're not my soldiers. Furst hired them."

"Is it too late to trade them in on Boy Scouts?"

"Give your rifle to someone to carry. Here." Pardee pressed a weapon and bandoleer of magazines into Lyons' hands.

By touch, Lyons identified the weapon as a MAC-10 with a suppressor. He slipped out the magazine, felt the first cartridge: .45-caliber hollow point. "This'll put the hurt on someone. But I'll carry the rifle too. It might get lost."

"Great. Get Marchardo, take the point." Pardee sent Lyons forward with a slap on the back.

Moving silently up the path, Lyons found Blancanales at the head of the column, already walking point with a map and a penlight. "Let's go, brother. You do the talking, I'll do the shooting."

They moved fast, advancing a few hundred yards, then one of them staying forward while the other backtracked to the column. Lyons enjoyed the time alone. As they gained altitude, the panorama of hills, plateaus, and light-sequined desert expanded. An evening wind, carrying the scents of brush and desert soil, cooled him. He became part of the night, the distinction of where his skin touched the darkness fading, his breathing only an eddy of wind within the wind, his movement on the mountainside a mere shifting of shadows.

Leaving the clankings and rustlings of the column far behind him, Lyons continued up the trail. A pale sliver of moon rose above the mountain. Grinning to himself, he suppressed an urge to whistle. He wanted to laugh, to sing, to shatter the night and silence with his joy.

Then he smelled something. The stale odor of many cigarettes. Freezing, he sniffed the wind, listened. He dropped to a squat and crept forward. A few yards ahead, the trail went over a rise, then crossed a gravel road. Crouching there, he noted the slope beneath him to the road and the steep hill on the other side.

A metallic clink broke the silence. Lyons heard water slosh in a canteen. Someone cleared his throat, then the clink came again.

Lyons eased back. He squat-walked back twenty yards, the MAC-10 pointed into the darkness. Then he moved fast, walking as quickly as he could without betraying himself. A hundred yards down the mountainside, Blancanales' hand stopped him.

"What's the rush?"

"Ambush up there."

They returned to the column, told Pardee.

"You sure?"

"Postive. We could go around it, but I say we go up with knives and silencers. If we can get a prisoner, we can rush the top. Otherwise, it's crawl along looking for booby traps and more ambushes."

"All right, Morgan. You volunteering?"

"Me and you and Marchardo could do it."

* * *

Leading the other two men up the mountain, Lyons left the trail a hundred yards from the gravel road. Crawling on their bellies along a rabbit track, they kept a rise between them and the ambush. They crept across the road. In the brush again, they searched for a trail or animal track paralleling the road. They could not find one. They crawled again, staying high on the mountainside.

Pardee stopped Lyons. Lyons stopped Blancanales. Below them, voices muttered in Spanish. A penlight flashed on a map. The sudden squawk of a walkie-talkie broke the silence. Blancanales crept down the slope. Pardee and Lyons waited.

They heard a grunt, then thrashing. Silence. A voice called out softly in Spanish. Another voice answered in Spanish. Silence returned.

A pebble hit Lyons' arm. "Hssst!" A second pebble bounced off Lyons. Lyons nudged Pardee. They went down the slope.

In dry grass and rocks, Blancanales lay next to a Mexican gunman, his knife at the gunman's throat and his hand over the man's mouth. Blancanales motioned them close, whispered: "This'll be my game. He's told me there's three more out there. Sit on him while I take them. If I throw a rock, it means I've got another prisoner and I want you to..."

"We've got one," Pardee interrupted. "No more. Use your Spanish, then kill them."

Blancanales hesitated. "Whatever." Then he slithered through the weeds.

Thumbing forward the MAC-10's safety, Lyons touched the bolt to make sure it was back, then kept his trigger finger alongside the guard.

Ten yards away there were whispers. A soft laugh. They heard only a quick gasp when the man died. Blancanales returned five long minutes later.

"Like he said," Blancanales muttered. He kept his voice low, but no longer whispered.

"We need to make time," Pardee told Blancanales. "Put the questions to him."

Blancanales spoke in quiet Spanish. The gunman answered questions without hesitation.

"They thought we were the Mexican Army, coming in to lean on the gang for another few hundred thousand. He says they've got two or three other ambushes on the mountain, plus booby traps. A total of ten or twelve men out here. Another twenty up at the airfield. He'll lead us up if we'll let him live."

"Sure," Pardee replied. "Promise him anything."

* * *

At the end of a twenty-foot rope, the bound and gagged gunman led the column the last few miles to gang base. On a rise overlooking the landing strip, Pardee halted the column.

He cut the gunman's throat, then called his squad leaders together.

"Mr. Morgan is our sniper," Pardee said, pointing at Lyons. "He will shoot from this hill. Stockman..." Pardee gave his binoculars to a squad leader "...one of your men will stay to spot for our shooter. Marchardo and I and squad number one are going to improvise a little surprise. We're going in the front door. You others take your places. Everything as planned. Go."

As squads two and three crept down the hillside to their positions, Pardee briefed squad one. "Marchardo here's got real talent. He's going to take us through the front door. If things go right, we'll get most of the dopers before we need to use the grenades. But keep those things ready. Move fast and kill everything. Ready, Marchardo?"

Blancanales nodded. Pardee took up the MAC-10 that he had loaned Lyons. With a mock salute to Lyons and his spotter, Pardee led Blancanales and the squad toward the gang's buildings.

"I'm Carl Morgan," Lyons said, extending his hand to his spotter.

"Jimmy Lee Payne." A tall, square-shouldered black man no older than twenty-one or twenty-two, Payne pumped Lyons' hand like a long-lost friend. "You're tight with Captain Pardee, right? Never heard him call anyone Mister, not even old man Monroe."

"We get along." Lyons nodded downhill. "Put the glasses on those buildings down there. We got maybe ten minutes to get very familiar with our targets."

While Payne studied the doper installation through the binoculars, Lyons slipped the M-14 from its case, extended the bipod legs, and scanned the buildings through the Starlite scope.

The gravel airstrip ran north to south. Approximately midpoint on the east side of the strip, there was an old adobe and rock ranch house. A patio opened to the airstrip. At the north end, several prefab steel hangars, much like those at the Monroe mercenary base, obviously housed planes and trucks. Behind the hangars, there were fuel tanks. Lyons spotted a sentry pacing near one of the hangars, used the man's height to estimate the distance. Three hundred and fifty yards. Judging by the height of the patio doors, the ranch house was only two hundred and fifty yards away.

After the firing started, Lyons waited. Muzzle flashes lit the interior of the ranch house.

Men from the hangars started a dash across the landing strip. Bursts from squad two on the south end of the strip dropped the men.

Automatic weapons fired wild from the hangars, spraying the darkness. Through the Starlite, Lyons saw the soldiers of squad three creep up to the rear of the hangars. Several bursts inside the buildings ended all resistance there.

The sharp crack of grenades came from the ranch house. Windows exploded outward in a white light. Several gunmen ran from the house.

Two men threw open a car's doors, died on the front seat as Lyons squeezed off two rounds to kill them, two more to disable the car. Another man sprinted across the strip, automatic fire throwing up dust all around him. Lyons put a round through the man's chest. Even as he fell, other riflemen targeted on him, several bursts tossing the man into a death-spin.

"You got a man up against the patio wall," Payne told him. "Think he's trying to..."

Lyons fired. "He
was
trying to get to that car."

Brass showered Lyons as Payne sprayed a magazine from his M-16 into the night behind them. When the action locked back, Payne dropped the rifle, threw a grenade. Before the grenade exploded, he had a second grenade in his hand, the pin already pulled free. He let the lever fly. "One, two, three, four..."

An instant before the grenade exploded, Payne threw it. Bits of steel wire showered them. But the airburst had shredded the brush thirty yards behind them. They heard a low moaning. Payne grinned to Lyons: "Think I got 'em."

Below, the firing died away. Lyons' hand-radio buzzed. "All over down here. What was that shooting up there?"

"I don't know. Payne handled it. Blew them away. The man is qualified."

"Don't waste any time up there. I'm calling the helicopters right now," crackled Pardee.

"Time to go," Lyons told Payne. They gathered up their equipment and hurried down the hill.

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