Tower of Terror (6 page)

In the sealed back of the van, Blancanales had lost all sense of direction and distance as the boy wove through the streets of the city. But he knew the D.F. unit and minimike would help his partners follow him; as long as he had those micro-electronic units, he was not alone.

The van skidded through a high-speed right turn, swerved wide, then whipped right again. The speed threw Blancanales against the side of the van. His hands mashed flowers as he braced himself for the next turn. But the van accelerated, hit a driveway ramp at more than forty miles an hour and went airborne. Blancanales hit the roof of the van, then the floor, hard.

Skidding threw him forward. He hit the back of the driver's seat. Before he could right himself, the side door slammed open. Two men wearing black ski masks grabbed him, pulled him from the van.

He went from the dark interior of the van to the dark interior of a garage. A third man in a ski mask threw the van door closed, then dragged down a heavy steel door as the van screeched away. The exchange took less than ten seconds.

One holding each arm, the ski-masked FALN soldiers hurried Blancanales through the dark garage reeking of oil and gasoline. He could see cars and trucks with the hoods up. The third FALN soldier ran past them and leaned into a car.

Headlights blinded Blancanales. He felt hands pat him down, slip into his pockets. Hands took his Browning double-action, then his wallet, his keys, pocket change. They found the minimike, took it.

Handcuffs locked his wrists together. The soldiers searched him again. They jerked his suitcoat back and down. Ripping open his shirt, they slid their hands over his dark-skinned chest, both shoulders, his back.

They found the D.F. antenna. Pinned to his shirt collar, the hair-fine wire ran down his body to the plastic-cased transmitter clipped to the elastic of his underwear. They tore the antenna and D.F. unit from him.

One of the FALN soldiers motioned, and the light died: Blancanales felt a hood slip over his head.

Whipping in behind the yellow cab, Gadgets ran from his supercharged Volkswagen and jumped into the cab's back seat. He carried his khaki canvas satchel. But Lyons wasn't in the taxi.

"Where's my partner?" Gadgets asked the cabbie-agent.

"Which one?"

"HardmanOne."

"He went in." The cabbie-agent glanced to the block of tenements.

"What!"

"He took a hand-radio, checked his pistol, told me to wait here, told me to tell you that things had changed. Here's the other radio, if you want to quiz him."

"I got one." Gadgets pulled a hand-radio from his satchel, but didn't key it. He checked the other units first. He clicked on his D.F. and minimike receivers. The D.F. signal gave a steady beeping. The minimike receiver was silent.

"Hmmmmm." Gadgets took another unit from his bag. He twisted a dial, waited. Silence.

"Problems?" Taximan asked.

Gadgets held up the unit. "This is a super minimike receiver. If that minimike was still on our man, we would be getting a heartbeat. But if we aren't..."

"Trouble, huh?"

"Well, if he's in bad trouble, it's too late to help. But more likely they gave him a skin search. Stripped him and checked him for electronics. Those people aren't dumb. However, they're not as sharp as Able Team."

The hand-radio buzzed. "Taxi! Hardman Three there yet?"

"I'm here. Where are you?"

"Watching two friends watch you. You bring anything interesting with you?"

"All kinds of tricks."

"Sit tight for a minute. Give the hand-radio to the cab driver. I'm pulling a one-man ambush, and I might need some help..."

Lyons whispered the instructions to the cabbie-agent, then waited. A hundred feet across the tarred tin roof of the tenement, two Latins leaned over the edge, watching the street five floors below. One of the men spoke into a walkie-talkie.

That was Lyons' signal. He crawled from his cover behind a crumbling roll of roofing paper. Thirty feet away, near a fan housing, there was an ice chest that the men must have parked there. A few cola cans lay around it. He crossed the thirty feet and took cover behind the fan housing. He crouched, waiting, his .357 in his hand.

Slow, even footsteps crossed the roof. Lyons heard someone remove the ice chest lid, pop the top of a can. Then the man came into view as he went to the edge of the roof. He glanced down into the alley. He jerked back, called out, "Juan! The taxi!"

The other man ran across the roof, and he too looked down. Lyons waited until both men's backs were to him; then he made his move. He came up behind the first man and smashed him in the head with the magnum. The man fell limp, landing on his back.

As the neighboring man turned, Lyons threw a low round-house kick into his knees, grabbed him by the collar, and crushed his nose in with his elbow. Lyons threw the man down on top of the first.

Lyons looped plastic handcuffs around the wrists of the top man, threw him to the side. The other man twisted, suddenly pushing Lyons back. As the man reached to his waist for a pistol, Lyons pinned him with a knee, leaning all his weight on the man's arm, and simultaneously hammering him on the top of the head with the four-inch barrel of his magnum.

Stunned, the man went slack long enough for Lyons to flip him over, slip plastic handcuffs around his wrists and jerk the plastic loop tight.

Searching them quickly, he found two .38 pistols, a sheath knife, a walkie-talkie. Neither man carried identification. Lyons looked over the edge of the roof; within seconds he saw the taxi cruising through the alley. He buzzed them on his hand-radio.

"Hardman Three up, please."

One of his prisoners, blood streaming from his nose, struggled to his feet and tried to run. Lyons kicked his feet out from under him, put a foot on the back of the man's neck, pressed his face into the tar roof. Lyons took two plastic handcuffs from his pocket, then dropped down on the struggling man's legs and looped his ankles together.

The other man was not yet conscious. He bled from several cuts under his hair where Lyons had pistol-whipped him. Lyons cuffed that man's ankles together also. Then he returned to the conscious prisoner.

He flipped him over and put the six-inch blade of the sheath knife against the man's throat:

"Where are the others?" Lyons shouted at him.

The prisoner put his head back and yelled: "
Viva Puerto Rico libre
."

"What're you
talking
about? All day long I've been meeting Puerto Ricans who are trying to die for Puerto Rico. What's the point of a free Puerto Rico if you're dead?"

The man spat at him. Behind Lyons, someone clapped. He spun, pointing the knife. Gadgets stood there grinning, his satchel hanging from one shoulder.

"Do you want to continue your political discussion, or can we get to work?"

"Yeah, yeah. These jerks. So — you get anything?"

Gadgets nodded, took a few steps away from the prisoners, motioned for Lyons to come over.

"Sure did. The D.F. is across the alley there, somewhere on the first floor. I got a narrow-beam scanner that works like a flashlight — except in reverse, see."

"Don't tell me about it. Let's get going. You think you can get any information out of these two?"

Gadgets shook his head. He slipped a unit out of the canvas bag and went over to the edge of the roof. He pointed it down to the alley, moving it slowly from side to side. The unit beeped. Gadgets sighted down the unit like a pistol, then turned to Lyons and called him over.

"There, right there." Gadgets pointed. "Looks like thirty or forty feet from that steel door, straight into the building. That's where the D.F. is. But that doesn't necessarily mean anything."

Gadgets glanced to the walkie-talkie Lyons had taken from the FALN sentries. He grinned, told Lyons: "I got a plan."

Lyons went down the stairs two at a time, the bulging pockets of his light suit coat knocking against his hips with every step. After Gadgets had detailed his plan, Lyons took both of the captured .38 pistols, extra plastic handcuffs, the sheath knife, and his hand-radio. If he could get into the building across the alley before the FALN soldiers inside checked with the sentries he had just immobilized, then he had a chance of taking them by surprise over there. But he had to move fast. The extra fifteen pounds in his pockets didn't help.

He walked swiftly through the lobby, alert for FALN soldiers. They could be anywhere. On the street he hurried through the late-afternoon strollers and shoppers. Anyone around him could be a sentry. Any of them might have a pistol and instructions to shoot, then warn the group. If they spotted Lyons as a law officer, he had no defense. He wouldn't see the bullet coming.

Around the corner, he glanced into the alley. The steel door was the third entry from him. He continued along the avenue. The third business from the corner was an auto repair shop.

The first business was a cafe. Above the cafe were apartments. No one at the lunch counter looked at him as he passed. The next business was a wholesale auto parts distributor. The door was closed, the windows barred.

At the auto repair shop, he glanced at the steel roll-away door. Padlocked.

He saw wet tire tracks crossing the driveway. The tracks started at the trickle of filthy water in the gutter, continued to the steel door. The car had driven from the street, into the garage. Lyons glanced to the street's asphalt. There were no streaks from wet tires leaving the driveway.

Above the garage, the windows on the second and third floors were bricked in. But the fourth and fifth floors had windows. One window had an iron railing interwoven with flowering vines. A fire escape zigzagged down the face of the building. The lowest rung of the steel ladder was more than ten feet above Lyons.

He noted all this in three seconds as he walked past. Then he backed up and stared at the fire escape.

The ladder hung only three and a half or four feet above his reach. He climbed onto the iron security grill of a shop's back window and reached up for the ladder. He couldn't quite make it. He braced himself, jumped for it.

He missed the grip, fell hard to the asphalt. Getting up before he could feel the hurt, he grabbed the iron grill again, swung up one foot.

A pistol jammed against his head. He hung there, both hands on the ironwork, one foot on the window's brick edging, waiting for the bullet to crash through his skull. There were footsteps behind him.

"Don't resist, officer," a quiet, melodic voice cautioned him. "Step down from the window. You're coming with us."

The slender, white-haired Ramon and Rosario Blancanales were walking in the direction of the distant WorldFiCor Tower.

"I'm Ramon. I'm very glad you came to speak with us." He was looking at Blancanales with a calm strength. "Have no fear. If we wanted to kill you, we would have done so already. We sent the young men to bring you to us because we want to help you."

"How can you help me?"

"We can help each other," Ramon corrected. He seemed oblivious of his personal bodyguards patrolling about them as they walked. "You have those terrorists in the World Financial Corporation Tower..."

"What do you want? What are your demands?"

"We have no demands."

"Then why are your people in there?"

"But they are not our people."

Blancanales stopped and stared at this man Ramon.

"They are not our people," the Puerto Rican repeated. "It is not our operation. And what they are doing is not for the good of Puerto Rico. The FALN knows of the bombings that were not announced in the news. For the past few weeks we have tried to find these people who claim to be members of our organization. We failed. And we know from our sources that the police and the feds have failed to find them also. We cannot allow them to continue. We have decided to offer you all the information that
Las Fuerzas Armadas de Liberacion National
has. We represent all the people of Puerto Rican blood who seek liberty for their nation. Though we — our organization and our soldiers — are your enemy, we do not believe that the actions of this group claiming to represent Puerto Rico will help our struggle. We have limited our military actions to targets that are facilities of the United States Armed Forces or represent" the repressive forces of the Federal government."

"Not cafeterias and tourist buses?"

"We believed at first that those incidents were actions by the secret police to discredit our organization."

"What secret police? You mean the FBI?"

"Not the FBI.
You
. You are not in the FBI. You are not the police. Yet you receive the complete cooperation of the police and feds. Perhaps you will tell me what government service you represent?"

"No."

Ramon laughed. "Then please do not object when I refer to you as secret police."

"Call me anything you want. I call you terrorists. Now, what information do you have?"

"This." Ramon reached under his coat, took out a nine-by-twelve envelope, and gave it to Blancanales.

They were at the end of the alley. A taxi waiting at the curb rolled forward. Ramon pulled the door open, spoke quickly to the driver in Spanish, then turned to Blancanales. "This driver will take you back to where we left your weapon and possessions. In the envelope, there are instructions on how to contact us if you need us. Remember this, Mr. Secret Policeman. We are everywhere. Though today we help you, perhaps tomorrow we kill you. Especially considering your brutal treatment of Bernardo, Manuel, Carlos. You should take very great care.
Adios
."

When Ramon slammed the cab's door closed, Blancanales ripped open the envelope, skimmed over the pages and photographs. There were photos of 11 Latins, men and women. Their ages varied from 17 to 34 years old. All had joined the FALN volunteering to serve as soldiers. All of them, when assigned to surveillance, courier work, research, or the neighborhood cadres had, according to these typed reports, either refused to serve or shown no enthusiasm. Many of the 11 had protested to their officers that they had volunteered for weapon and explosive training, and had no interest in the routine work of a political organization.

At the end of all the recruits' probationary periods, their officers had clearly recommended against advancement or weapons training. The officers decided the recruits were possibly federal agents or psychopaths, stamped their files "Unreliable."

Anthony Zuniga
: 32, born in New York City, Vietnam veteran, trained in explosives, dishonorable discharge, one year in stockade while investigated for torture and murder of Viet Cong prisoners (evidence included severed body parts, snapshots of castrated prisoners). Served eight years in prison for armed robbery and mayhem. FALN sources discovered that Zuniga had worked as assassin for right-wing Cuban exiles. Has displayed charisma in attracting and influencing others.

Julio Torres
: 19, born in New York, junior high-school dropout, bragged of "making his first kill" at 13, no history of employment other than robbery and drug sales. Illiterate in English and Spanish,

Luisa Diaz
: 20, born in Los Angeles, high-school dropout, graduate of California Youth Authority, served four years for armed robbery, murder, and participation in gang rapes (gang paid her to lure victims into the gang's trap). Heavy PCP user. Threatened FALN officer with physical violence when he told her there was no place for drugs in a revolutionary organization.

Felipe Parra
: 21, high-school dropout, discharged from U.S. Army for striking an officer. Bragged of killing police officer in an ambush. Arrested for possession of sawed-off shotgun, jumped bail. Criticized organization, said: "If I could steal an atomic bomb, I'd give the gringos a choice between keeping Puerto Rico or losing New York."

Fernando Tur
: 19, arsonist. Joked that his favorite sport was soaking derelicts with gasoline and burning them alive.

Ana Commacho
: 23, five years in Youth Authority for murder of father when she was 13. One year in prison for ice-pick robbery of elderly. Bragged that she "never got caught again, because now I kill them."