Capital Offensive (Stony Man) Read online

  At the very last second, Lyons desperately veered sharply to the right, grinding along the sandstone bank, as the canister exploded on their left. A hellish spray of fire filled the depression, orange tendrils of flame extending into the van through every bullet hole. Then they were through the fireball, but the flames suck to the chassis, burning fiercely and sending out volumes of black smoke.

  “Napalm!” Blancanales shouted, withdrawing inside and closing the window. “Smart bastards.” On a regular vehicle the napalm would have cooked the men inside, but the van was armored against such standard tactics, and aside from removing the paint, the charge of jellied gasoline did scant damage.

  “Our turn,” Schwarz countered, leaning between the two men in front and shoving the barrel of the M-16 through a hole in the windshield.

  As his partner fired, Blancanales ducked from the arching brass raining down everywhere. Stoically, Lyons kept driving, steadily edging closer to the terrorists. Just a little bit more….

  The lead rider was hit several times by the chattering barrage, and his left arm went limp, blood spraying from a direct hit. But that was when the ancient riverbanks flattened out and the four vehicles were racing across the flat bottom of a huge lake, a leftover from when Mexican glaciers retreated through America on their way to Canada about ten million years ago.

  Instantly, the three bike riders separated into different directions. Tightening his grip on the steering wheel, it took Lyons only a single heartbeat to make a decision.

  “Take ’em!” he commanded, stomping on the accelerator and shifting gear to head straight for the rider ahead of them. If these boys were paramilitary, or the real deal, this would be their commander.

  Dropping BZ rounds from the M-203 grenade launchers, Blancanales and Schwarz slammed in AP rounds, leveled their weapons and fired.

  The double thumps seemed to fill the speeding van, and seconds later the two departing bikes stridently exploded, men and machines annihilated by the high-explosive rounds.

  The remaining rider turned his head at the noise, his body language registering shock at the sight. Then, twisting the handlebar throttle, he urged the BMW motorcycle on to greater speed and faced forward one split second before driving through a large stand of fat cacti.

  The windshield shattered and the rider screamed as he plowed through the thorny plants. Arching around the copse, Lyons saw the bike come out the other side, the gloved hands of the rider covered with the barbed quills. Weaving erratically, the biker hit a lump of rock on the lake bottom, completely losing control. The front wheel turned sharply, the bike jackknifed and the man went flying to land yards away, limbs flailing.

  Throwing off a hail of bright sparks, the bike scraped along the rough stone. Moving in the opposite direction, the rider tumbled along, his leather jacket shredding on the rough material until he began to leave a crimson trail across the field of prehistoric sandpaper.

  Jamming the van to a halt, Lyons and the others burst from the vehicle before it stopped rocking back and forth. They needed the biker alive!

  But before they could reach the supine man, two more black BMW motorcycles charged over a swell in the vista. Dropping fast, the Stony Man commandos dived for cover among the low rocks and stubby cacti.

  The silent bikes raced past the fallen man, the riders ruthlessly putting rounds into the still form with their assault rifles. Then they opened fire at Able Team.

  Moving constantly, Lyons answered with the Neostad, trying for a capture. Again the stun bags did nothing. Then he grunted from a hit, but his own NATO body armor easily stopping the 5.56 mm rounds.

  Popping up into view, Blancanales and Schwarz laid down suppressing fire, while Lyons switched magazines with a flick of a finger and cut loose with a thundering AP cartridge.

  The targeted biker seemed to literally fly apart from the hellstorm of stainless steel fléchettes. Then the fuel tank of the destroyed machine loudly detonated. Covered with flames, the tattered human corpse tumbled off the bike to land facedown, the spare ammo for the assault rifle in the pockets of his leather jacket beginning to crackle like popcorn as the live rounds cooked off from the intense heat of the blaze. Jerking and twitching with every explosion, the burning corpse was torn into grisly pieces in a fusillade of internal gunfire.

  Snarling something in a foreign language, the second driver braked to a fast halt with a squeal of brakes, grabbed the FN-2000 with both hands and fired a 40 mm grenade. But the Stony Man commandos were already separating, and the shell only hit the copse of broken cacti. A writhing fireball of white phosphorous engulfed the plants, the needles sizzling like fuses, the circular trunks splitting open wide, the damp spongy interior oozing outward like warm blood.

  Seared by the wave of heat, Blancanales and Schwarz fired back, taking refuge behind the smashed motorcycle. Lurching into action, the rider answered with the assault rifle, arching behind the burning cactus to disappear for a split second, then coming back again firing nonstop. Obviously, he was reloading where Able Team couldn’t get a bead.

  Charging the last bike rider, Lyons fired the Neostad, flopped to his belly and fired again, then started rolling and shooting. The rider was battered, but undamaged. However, the windshield of safety glass shattered into a million tiny green cubes.

  The rider flinched from the explosion and nearly went into the burning plants. Dropping the FN-2000, he grabbed the handlebars with both hands and steered away from the growing conflagration.

  Suddenly Schwarz stood directly in front of the rider. Revving the big engine, the terrorist charged, and Blancanales fired his M-203 from the side, the high-explosive shell hitting the man in the ribs. But the distance had been too short for the warhead to arm and the man was sent flying sideways off the motorcycle. He rolled back to his feet in a martial arts move, a 9 mm Bersa automatic pistol brandished in each gloved fist. Darting among the rocks, the terrorist banged away with both weapons, not hitting much of anything.

  Instantly, Lyons fired his .357 Colt Python, the big-bore rounds hitting the terrorist in the chest. The Magnum rounds failed to penetrate the body armor, but the savage beating made it impossible for the fellow to accurately aim.

  Leveling his .380 Colt with both hands, Blancanales inhaled, paused and stroked the trigger. The black Talon rounds punched through the leather jacket and the body armor underneath, coming came out the man’s shoulder in a gush of red blood and white bones.

  “Give it up!” Lyons shouted in his best cop voice, honed from years of working on the L.A.P.D. “Be smart and live!”

  Dropping a smoking Bersa, the terrorist continued firing the other gun, then stopped as if making a decision. Turning to face the sky, the man shoved the barrel of the Bersa under his jaw and yanked the trigger. The muffled report blew the helmet off his head in a grisly eruption of bones, brains and blood.

  Caught by surprise, the Stony Man operatives could only watch as the gushing corpse teetered, then collapsed, spilling warm life onto the cold desert stones.

  “Son of a bitch,” Lyons said in disgust, reloading the Neostad. “These people are goddamn fanatics.”

  “They’re trying to start a nuclear war,” Schwarz added, working the arming bolt of his M-16 to clear a jam. The dented brass went spinning away to land with a musical tingling on the ground. “What the hell else would you expect?”

  Blancanales shouldered his weapon. “All right,” he growled. “Let’s find out who these assholes are. Damn!”

  Plumes of black smoke were rising from the burning motorcycles, and softly in the distance they heard the wailing siren of a police car. The Stony Man operatives knew that the sound would carry for miles in the flat desert, but time was short. Moving fast, the three men began the odious task of checking the mutilated corpses.

  “Grab and git,” Lyons directed. “We can do the analysis back on board the Hercules.”

  Getting bags and latex gloves from the van, the other men nodded agreement and went to work. Schwarz took
their fingerprints, while Blancanales washed their faces with moist towelettes from the field kit and took pictures of the least damaged features. With no compunction, Lyons went through their bloody pockets.

  “Their prints are gone,” Schwarz announced glumly, proffering a sheet of paper. “I’d say burned off with acid.”

  “Expected as much.” Blancanales snorted, pocketing the digital camera and going to the least damaged motorcycle. “I’ll check the VIN on the bikes.”

  “They’ll be listed as stolen, of course,” Lyons said, busy at his grisly task.

  Kneeling at a smashed motorcycle, Blancanales shrugged. “Most likely, but mistakes have been known to happen.”

  Rifling through the blood-smeared objects, Lyons found the new wallets were full of American money, five grand each, along with the mandatory driver’s license, insurance card, registration—just enough ID to get them past a cursory check by the highway police. Any deeper examination would probably get the curious law officer a bullet in the back of the head. As expected, there were no personal items at all; photographs of family or friends, movie stubs, lock of hair from a girlfriend, business card from the local dry cleaner…not even a credit card or ATM card. The riders were all men and wore no jewelry, not even a wedding ring. The wristwatches were good, but mass-produced models, nothing special, and there were no personalized engravings on the backs.

  “Find anything useful?” Lyons asked, tucking the items into a nylon bag for later analysis. These men were starting to resemble a CIA incursion team more than a group of terrorists. Military ghosts. Men who never officially existed.

  “Not a damn thing,” Blancanales stated ruefully, rising from a crashed motorcycle with a cell phone in his hand. “These bikes have vehicle-identification numbers registered for members of a motorcycle club in Houston, none of which have been reported stolen.”

  “Aha!” Schwarz beamed in delight.

  “In fact,” Blancanales continued, unabated, “one of them just got a ticket this afternoon in downtown Houston.”

  “A thousand miles away,” Schwarz muttered.

  The man nodded. “Yep, duplicate numbers of legitimate bikes. The license plates haven’t come through yet, but I’m expecting they match the Houston bike club.”

  “Seems to be the same with the guns,” Schwarz said slowly. “The serial numbers have been rubbed off with a file.”

  “What about the ammo?”

  The man grinned. “They seem to have forgotten about that.”

  “Probably also listed to the Houston bike club,” Lyons retorted. “But as the man said, mistakes have been known to happen.” Spent shell casings were a detail that few people ever considered. The base of every bullet carried the logo of the manufacturer, along with an ID number showing when and where it was made. Stony Man ammunition was an exception. It was smooth and featureless on the base, with nothing that could give anybody the slightest hint which nation had dispatched the teams. The CIA did the same thing for their field agents, as did the British SAS, the Israeli Mossad, and quite a few other secret government agencies around the world.

  “Well, even if the casings are also blanks, the guns themselves tell us something,” Lyons said, hefting one of the recovered pistols. All of the men had the exact same sidearm, a compact 9 mm Bersa Thunder. “These are made in Argentina, and aren’t well-known outside of South America.”

  “Yeah,” Blancanales said, “it’s an odd handgun to issue to your people. Why not steal something more commonplace like a Beretta or a Glock? Those sell internationally.”

  “Unless these are the specific weapons the men had been trained with to fight,” Lyons said, working the slide to check inside the automatic pistol. This weapon hadn’t been fired in the fight and was spotlessly clean. Oiled and ready for combat.

  “These guys are beginning to sound like regular military,” Schwarz said, furrowing his brow. “And to the best of my knowledge no country in the world issues Bersa handguns as a sidearm to their army except Argentina. And they certainly do not issue FN-2000 assault rifles to their troops.”

  “Unless these are Special Forces,” Blancanales countered. “Or a rogue unit. Which would mean—”

  A loud crack of thunder interrupted the man, the noise coming from the distant sand dunes. Pivoting fast, the Stony Man operatives turned to see a roiling mushroom cloud of dark smoke majestically ascend toward the heavens.

  “Anybody care to bet that was the bolthole those last two bikes came from?” Lyons asked, holstering his Colt Python. The Bersa had been dropped to the ground, his own gun drawn without conscious thought. Slowly, he holstered the Colt at his hip. “The riders had stopped reporting, so the high command decided to destroy their base camp to remove any possible trace to the headquarters.”

  “Time to go,” Blancanales suggested, slinging the M-16 combo over a shoulder. “We’ll find nothing useful in those ruins. Any blast that generated a cloud that big must have blown their camp off the map.”

  Stroking his mustache, Schwarz started to agree, then frowned. “Map,” he repeated. “Blew it off the map, you said.”

  “Yeah. So what?”

  The man grinned. “Tell you in a sec.” Sprinting over to a smashed motorcycle, Schwarz checked the cargo compartments on the rear fender for booby traps, then warily opened the lid. Inside was the usual effluvia of the desert: high-energy snack bars, salt pills, bottles of water, some MRE food packs, spare ammo, snake bite kit and a road map atlas of America. Tucking the atlas into his nylon evidence bag, Schwarz checked the other wrecks and recovered another two more of the spiral-bound books. The rest were too badly burned or covered with gasoline to be of any use.

  “Those aren’t going to tell us anything,” Lyons said. “If they’re smart enough to remove their fingerprints with acid, then there’s no chance these men jotted down the location of their headquarters in a margin.”

  “Ah, but there’s a big difference between smart and clever,” Schwarz replied, patting the bag. “You forgot to consider—”

  The wailing sirens came again, definitely louder.

  Moving fast, the members of Able Team returned to their battered van and clambered inside. Lyons needed two tries before the engine finally caught, and he raced away from the combat zone, heading off at a tangent to the riverbed and the rising mushroom cloud. Once he got them behind a couple of sand dunes, the locals would never be able to find them again.

  Just in case, Blancanales gathered the weapons and hid them in disguise compartments around the vehicle, then started throwing the spent shell casings from the floor out the windows. There was nothing he could do about the bullet holes or burn marks. But they would abandon the van near the airport, and set the self-destruct charges before walking back to Grimaldi and the waiting Hercules. Fifteen pounds of strategically placed thermite in the chassis of the van would reduce the armored vehicle to a glowing puddle of steel in about sixty seconds.

  Assisting his friend with the cleaning, Schwarz then sat at his workbench and pulled out the four road atlases, laying them down side by side on the smooth counter. “Here we go,” the man said, reaching under the bench to extract a plastic spray bottle.

  Warming the liquid ninhydrin in his hands, Schwarz began to carefully spray the front covers of the books. Not much, just a light spray. He knew this was a total shot in the dark, but his wild gambles had paid off before. And if the ammunition proved to be stolen like the motorcycles, this might be their only clue to the location of the headquarters of the terrorists.

  Nothing was happening, so he added another treatment. Of course, if the paper had gotten too hot, or too damp, since it was last used, this wasn’t going to work. His preference would have been to use an argon laser, but the delicate devices had the bad habit of constantly breaking down in the field, or worse, losing focus and setting the target paper on fire. Hermann Schwarz was an electronics expert, but the man wisely acquiesced to the tried-and-true method of bringing out latent prints from paper. The n
inhydrin reacted to the amino acids present in human sweat and nine times out of ten…

  A slow smile grew as purple splotches began to appear along the edge of the covers. The splotches were totally useless for the purpose of identification, but that wasn’t his goal. Using a knife blade, Schwarz began to turn the pages and treated each atlas individually. As expected, most of the state maps were blank, or with just a few random dots here and there—although New York, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C., had been circled. Ominous. But a few pages showed streaks along major interstate highways where sweaty fingers had traced travel routes: Kansas…Nebraska…South Dakota…and that was all.

  “Any luck?” Lyons asked, glancing curiously into the rearview mirror. It was cracked slightly from a ricochet, but still serviceable.

  “Tell you in a few minutes.” Dutifully, Schwarz finished the rest of the books, even checking the indexes, but there was no more.

  Two of the books had highways marked in the middle of the country, the third only a few dots here and there and the fourth was blank. Probably the atlas of the leader. Kansas, Nebraska and South Dakota. The three states had nothing really in common, but when placed in order, the stained highways created a path that went from the border of Texas. A terrorist, or spy, would know better than to touch the location of a strike, or a hidden base, on a map that might fall into the hands of the FBI. But a combat soldier wouldn’t. There were very few forensic labs on the battlefield. Even then, the bike riders hadn’t touched anything inside of the map of Texas. But if the trail ended there, then it had to have begun at—

  “North Dakota,” Schwarz announced, looking up in triumph from his work. “They have a base in North Dakota.”

  CHAPTER NINE