They saw silhouetted movements within the glass-walled controller's booth in the three-story tower.
'Three bikes outside,' Lyons told the others. He raised the Mannlicher slightly. 'Only two Outlaws in the tower.'
'Outlaw number three,' Gadgets said, 'is in the chair on the restaurant patio.'
Lyons scanned the parking lot, the restaurant, the control tower. 'I say we go straight through the front door.'
'Second the motion,' Blancanales agreed. He chambered a round in the Beretta.
Staying below the edge of the plateau, they followed the contour of the mountain until they were downslope from the parking lot. Staying flat as they crawled up, they peered through the decorative bushes and flowers of the landscaping. Unlike the mountainsides, the restaurant landscaping was watered and tended through all the seasons, and it stayed spring green. The lush growth provided cover.
The sentry, his walkie-talkie on the patio bricks beside him, sat only a hundred feet away. Lyons pointed to himself and Gadgets, then pointed to the airport buildings. He pointed to Blancanales, then pointed to the sentry and pulled an imaginary trigger. Blancanales nodded.
Holding the Beretta in both hands, Blancanales extended the pistol in front of him at arm's length, resting both his elbows and the butt of the pistol on the ground. He sighted on the biker's chest as Lyons and Gadgets pushed up into sprinter's starting stance.
A voice cracked from the walkie-talkie. As Blancanales fired, the sentry leaned down to pick up the hand- radio. The sub-sonic 9mm slug slapped into his jacket sleeve. Forgetting the radio, he looked at the small hole, watched blood run from his arm. Then he saw Lyons and Gadgets charging at him.
He reached through scorching pain for the pistol at his belt, then he jerked back in the chair, a three-round burst punching a pattern into his chest. But he still moved, half rising from the chair as he groped for his pistol with his left hand. A final silent bullet hit him in the forehead. He sat back, his face slack, his three eyes open. The radio squawked again:
'Hey, goofball. Answer the radio. This is Eagle.'
Lyons picked up the hand-radio and pressed the talk button. 'Yeah?'
Gadgets pressed himself against the restaurant's stucco wall, looked for Lyons, saw him listening to the hand-radio as he rearranged the dead biker's body. He was positioning the dead man to look like he had fallen asleep, his face resting on his shoulder.
'I want you down where you can watch that road, you hear me?' the radio voice continued. 'I don't want you in the restaurant drinking the beer, I don't want you wandering around smoking dope, I want you watching that road. Horse said...'
'Horse said shit,' Lyons sneered into the radio. He saw Gadgets watching wide-eyed. Lyons grinned. 'You don't tell me nothing.'
'What? What did you say? You want me to come down there and kick your ass right off this island?'
'Waiting for you.'
'You piece of...' The voice cut off.
Lyons left the radio in the dead man's hands, then ran over to the stucco wall. He stood on the other side of the restaurant's door from Gadgets. Gadgets grinned, shook his head. Lyons waved his arms to get Blancanales' attention, then pointed at the restaurant door. They waited.
Thirty seconds later, the plate glass door flew open, slamming into Lyons where he stood against the wall. His Ingram banged the glass.
Looking at the biker who stomped out, they knew why he was called Eagle. His nose stuck out two inches from his face, the bridge of it almost perpendicular to his forehead, the end hooking down. And like an eagle, people looked up to him. He stood six-foot-eight.
Hearing the metallic clang of Lyons' Ingram on the plate glass, he glanced behind the door. For a big man, he moved fast, whipping the door aside, then driving a kick at Lyons' groin.
Both hands braced on the small weapon, Lyons blocked the kick with his Ingram. The kick bounced him off the wall. Eagle lunged for him.
A slug zipped past Eagle and smashed the glass door. Lyons' throat in one hand, his fist drawn back to smash this blond stranger in an Outlaws jacket, Eagle saw Gadgets bringing up his Uzi.
Eagle bashed Gadgets with Lyons. Gadgets sprawled on the bricks, the Uzi flying from his hand. Still holding Lyons by the throat, Eagle whipped an eighteen-inch machete from his belt.
Jamming the Ingram's stubby barrel against the biker's gut, Lyons fired a burst, five 9mm Parabellum slugs ripping through the man. They exited from his back and side.
Eagle didn't let go of Lyons. He raised the heavy blade to hack away the ex-cop's head. Lyons fired again, then again, swinging the muzzle back and forth as if he fought with a chain saw. He emptied the Ingram through the biker. Thirty slugs cut huge red slashes through his gut and chest.
The machete slipped from his hand finally, as he toppled backward and died.
A pair of boots in panic ran across the roof of the restaurant. Lyons fell back against the wall, gasping. He dropped the magazine out of the Ingram. He struggled to fit in another. A dazed Gadgets snatched up his Uzi, aimed up. But he had no target.
'Eagle! What's that shooting?' a voice above them demanded. 'Hey, man! Move your ass! Someone's shooting...'
The G-3 boomed from the parking lot's flowering hedge. The body of a biker tumbled from the roof, fell to the bricks.
Lyons leaned against the restaurant wall, sucking breaths through his aching throat; Gadgets straightened his Outlaws jacket, checked his Uzi for damage. That all was close. It left them both really pissed off.
Following Forest Service roads and firebreaks, the three warriors on their Outlaw Harley 1200s weaved their way through the interior of the island. From time to time they could see the antennas of Radio Station KCAT on Mount Black Jack, where KCAT shared the peak with the Harbor Master's radar installation. A final bumpy motorcycle climb up a canyon's dry stream bed took them halfway up Mount Black Jack, to within a thousand feet of the station. They could go no farther on the bikes without risking observation.
Lyons sprinted to a ridge crest and watched the station through the scope of the Mannlicher. While the ex- cop was gone, Gadgets conferred with Blancanales:
'You know why that mess happened at the airport?'
Blancanales nodded.
Gadgets continued. 'We've got to come to an agreement with Lyons about improvising. He's taking a lot of long, long chances. He's going to run out of luck. You stand with me?'
'If he goes down, we lose a very good man.'
Lyons came toward them, returning from the ridge. 'One man on the roof with binoculars. He's smoking dope and throwing beer cans. Ready to go?'
'No,' Gadgets told him. 'I declare a 'Severe Self-Criticism Session.' You came within a second of dying back there at the airport. If super-creep had come out with a weapon in his hands, you'd be dead. From now on, we plan it, then we do it. No more improvising.'
Thinking only a moment, Lyons nodded. 'At the time it seemed the right thing to do, faking him out on the hand-radio. It wasn't. I'm sorry. I was grandstanding. I am self-criticized. Now we go?'
Able Team proceeded to the peak of Mount Black Jack along narrow slashes of erosion, the overfolding brush obscuring the sky and the possible observation of the sentry above them.
Creeping to the edge of the fire-clearing around the station, they saw the cinder block buildings with open balconies that housed the offices and transmitter of KCAT, and a few hundred yards farther along a dirt road there was a steel tower supporting the constantly rotating scanners of the Harbor Master's radar. Outside the door of the radio offices, a hundred-yards away, were two Honda Cross Country Cruisers.
'I don't want to try a hundred-yard shot with the Beretta,' Blancanales said. 'Next time the sentry wanders over to the other side, I'll sprint for the door. You guys cover me, then the three of us bust in. Agreed? Enough of a plan?'
The others nodded, smiling. Blancanales waited, then ran. At the door, he pressed against the wall. The door hung ajar. It had been shot open. Above him, he heard the crunch of motorcycle boots.
