'No chance? Then what happened to the two Feds? One day they get the assignment, the next day they're dead. I want to know this: Who knows Blancanales is down there? And who knows about us?'
'No one knows. All of your team's operations are 'Top Secret.''
Lyons looked over to Gadgets, held up a stack of forms. Each form had the photo and biographical details of an agent. Each form was stamped TOP SECRET. And at the bottom of every form, in red ink, were the notations: 'Disappeared, presumed dead.'
Passing the commercial airline terminals, the jet continued to the end of La Paz International's landing field. There, the military jet came to a stop among the parked aircraft of the Bolivian government and the official jets of the diplomatic community. As American Embassy personnel unloaded pouches and airfreight, Gadgets and Lyons, in military technicians' coveralls, slipped from the jet. Neither of them, bespectacled Gadgets least of all, looked like a soldier of Mack Bolan in such guise.
They carried their overnight bags into a hangar. Brognola followed a minute later in a pilot's uniform.
An airline-catering van took them from the airport. The local CIA station had prepared civilian clothes for them, including Kevlar bulletproof vests.
'What's the point with the vests?' Lyons protested. 'Anyone serious will have an assault rifle or an Uzi.'
'Part of the uniform,' Brognola informed them. 'Down here, all the businessmen and all their bodyguards wear them. Besides it gets cold at night.'
'Which are we?' Gadgets asked. 'Businessmen or...'
Brognola smiled. He handed them briefcases. Each contained an Uzi and several thirty-round magazines. 'There's also a plate of Hotspur steel in the briefcases...'
Lyons tapped each of his Uzi mags to seat the cartridges. 'A plate of what?'
'Hotspur steel plate. Konzaki called ahead and insisted on it. It'll stop all pistols, all fragmentation, and all standard auto-rifle rounds.'
'Like this?' Gadgets held up the briefcase like a shield.
Lyons laughed. 'Yeah, if you see a bullet coming, just quick fast block it. Uh-huh.'
Brognola laughed, too. 'You have something of Striker's sense of humor, Mr. Lyons.'
The van lurched to a stop. The driver's voice announced: 'Taxi waiting.'
'Go, gentlemen. Straight out the back doors. I'll follow in another taxi.'
'Where's Blancanales?' Lyons asked as he swung open the doors.
'He's there. Now go! No time for talk.'
As they stepped from the van the brilliant afternoon sun blinded them. Blinking for a moment, Lyons looked around. They stood in the gutter of a narrow street. A few steps away, a taxi idled. At the corner of the block, two Indian women squatted against a pastel blue wall. A cast-iron pot boiled on a charcoal fire.
'Those Indians,' Lyons marvelled. 'They're wearing derby hats!'
Schwarz pulled Lyons to the taxi. 'You heard the boss. Got no time to play tourist. Time to join up with the Political Man and get to work.'
'But can you believe it? Derbies?'
Avoiding the city's boulevards, the taxi driver wove through the back streets of La Paz, slowing for buses and trucks, accelerating over cobblestones and potholes to race other taxis through the intersections. Soldiers marched on these streets.
Tires screeching, the taxi stopped.
'Adios,' Gadgets said to the elderly Latin driver as they got out.
'And a good journey to you, men,' the driver replied in bizarre Scottish-accented English. He pointed to an open shop door. 'There be your address.'
Then they stood alone in the street. The taxi screeched around the corner, disappeared into traffic. 'Derbies and Scots,' Gadgets laughed. 'Bolivia's weird.'
Stepping through the doorway, Lyons smelled the foul-sweet odor of excrement and blood and cordite. Death. He reached back to caution Gadgets, felt the muzzle of his companion's Uzi. Lyons slid the Colt Python from his shoulder holster, continued forward.
Past an entryway was a hallway. A skylight cast a soft yellow light on the polished linoleum. Lyons saw the doors to several rooms. All were closed, but a pattern of light marked one door and the hallway floor. Silent in his soft-soled shoes, Lyons moved closer.
He pointed to himself, pointed at the door. Gadgets nodded. Kicking the door open, Lyons threw himself against the wall, waited. He and Gadgets watched the other doors. Finally, Lyons peeked into the room.
Rosario Blancanales lay on the floor, his face bluish gray, his chest and gut ripped open by point-blank shotgun blasts.
2
The dim hallway spun around Carl Lyons. He staggered back, fell against the wall. He gripped his Colt, steadying himself as his mind screamed: The Politician's dead, he's dead. My friend's dead.
Gadgets leaned over the corpse, staring intently at Rosario Blancanales' face. He squatted down and turned the dead man's head to study the profile. He had to push hard to make the neck of the stiffening corpse turn.
'Schwarz!' Lyons was aghast.
'I don't know about this...' Gadgets answered.
'All I want to know is who did it.' Lyons went to the corpse. A vast pool of dried, coagulated blood crusted the floor. Lyons looked down at the blood of his friend.
There was laughter behind him, gentle yet full-throated. And it was a laugh that he recognized. But it was the laugh of the person whose body lay blast-mangled on the floor. Lyons shook his head against the grief that twisted his thoughts. Then he saw Gadgets look up from the profile of the dead man. Lyons spun around.
'Nobody did it,' Blancanales told him. 'At least, nobody did me.'
'You son of a bitch,' Lyons hissed. He jammed his Colt into his shoulder holster, set down the briefcase he held.
'Sorry, bad joke, but we needed to test...'
Lyons drove a full-power karate kick into his friend's solar plexus. Blancanales side-stepped, simultaneously deflecting the kick and catching the punch Lyons threw. Blancanales clamped an arm around Lyons' throat, stopped the blond man's breathing.
'Really, we had to know if I could pass for him. Looks like I can.'
Hal Brognola added: 'Sorry, Lyons. Gadgets. We had to see what your first reactions were.'
'You fooled me,' Lyons gasped. 'I thought it was you.'
Blancanales smiled amiably. 'It's good to know I'd be grieved for.' His choke hold on Lyons became an abrazo, the strong hug of macho friendship Latin males share with one another. 'Are you crying? Crying for me? Tough guy,' Blancanales laughed. In his combat fatigues he looked casual, his confident maturity paradoxically youthful.
'Who's the dead one?' Gadgets asked. 'And what's he got to do with us?'
'Pete Marchardo,' Brognola said. 'A violent life, in and out of scrapes since he was twelve. Rape, assault with a deadly weapon, armed robbery before he was eighteen. To escape the law he joined the marines, fought a few months in Vietnam before getting caught dealing drugs. He shot an M.P. He did time for that. After parole he passed himself off as a mercenary, specializing in international armed robbery. Then he drifted into the Caribbean drug world. He did a bit of work on the side last night, needed the money. He did an old routine on some new friends — that is, waving a pistol and taking the money. But it didn't work out. And those people don't call the police, they don't believe in due process.'
'Guess not,' Gadgets commented, looking down at the remains of Pete Marchardo. Three point-blank shotgun blasts had ended his life. One had taken away his left arm above the elbow, the second had torn away a section of ribs. The third was a ragged two-inch-wide hole precisely through his heart: the coup de grace.
