Smoke obscured Avalon. The afternoon winds, sweeping down from the canyons, fanned the burning homes. Even from where Able Team watched on the Divide Road, two miles from Avalon Bay, the flames could be seen, from time to time lighting the underside of the smoke clouds or leaping up high, the tongues of flame for an instant defeating the afternoon brilliance.
Sharing the binoculars and the Mannlicher's scope, Blancanales, Gadgets and Lyons studied the burning neighborhood. Though trees and smoke allowed them only snatches of vision, they saw the Outlaws pacing the block, cruising around the block on their motorcycles. Only one group of houses burned. And it was those that the Outlaws circled.
The voices on the Outlaws' walkie-talkie, recorded by Schwarz, explained what Able Team watched: 'We were standing in front of the house. It burned. They couldn't have got out.'
'Hey, tell that to Zapata. While you're watching the fire, he walked into them and they blew his head off. Clean off. Had to look at his boots to figure out who he was.'
'They must've got away before we burned that one house. Now they're dead, because we burned them all. The whole block's gone. Nothing but crispy critters in there now.'
'Want to bet they weren't even in those houses? Bet they split long time...'
'This is Horse. Shut up! Has anyone out there seen the Monk? His patrol went to help the Chief. Has anyone seen him? Anyone heard a radio call from him?'
'This is Stonewall. I'll go out and find the Chief and the Monk and all their men. Give me the word, Horse, I'll be on...'
'No! Stonewall, everyone else — no one leaves the town. No one! Like the Chief said, the locals out there know the territory. We're not losing one more brother to those crazies. Come tonight, we're rich men. We'll be in another country living like kings! So everyone hang tight. We hold the town. Twenty million in gold, remember that.'
'Forget your plan, you low-life,' Lyons muttered. 'Tonight you die.'
Blancanales glanced at his watch, looked at the sun. 'We've got four hours until dusk. We need to circle around the town, check out the Outlaws' perimeter, find their outposts and sentries...'
'These bikers are such losers,' Lyons said. 'If they've even got outposts around the town, I'll be surprised.'
Gadgets grinned. He wore colored spectacles to diffuse the bright coastal daylight. 'Surprised? Like that biker with the M-60 surprised you? We meet up with two or three of him at an outpost, Stony Man will be running want ads for another Able Team.'
Lyons touched the wound across his ribs. 'Ooo ah... I am self-criticized!'
'Hurt much?' Blancanales asked.
'Yeah.'
'The numbing from shock is wearing off. That rib isn't broken but I'd say all the cartilage between your ribs on that side is separated. Like shatter lines in glass. But you played football — it'll feel like a blind-side elbow attack, except ten times worse. I have some painkillers.'
'Forget the dope.'
'Carl, you're going to hurt.'
'I'll get through it. What good will I be if I'm doped up? The pain will motivate me to close down this horror show. Let's go find those outposts.'
Descending the mountain's firebreaks and trails on their captured motorcycles, Lyons fell back, unable to keep up with Blancanales and Gadgets. Every bump, every lurch of the handlebars made his face go tight with pain. A few hundred yards short of the highway, Gadgets pulled behind a screen of manzanita and sage where they could not possibly be seen. He raised his hand to stop the others.
'Change in plans. If Lyons can't keep up on a motorcycle, how's he going to do it when we're running and jumping and crawling?'
'I can do it,' Lyons insisted, his face tight. Despite the exertion of the motocrossing, he tried to hold his upper body motionless, taking shallow breaths.
'Lyons, you are hard core. But you're also walking wounded. What do you two say we just ride our bikes down the highway and cruise through town? Make like bikers on patrol?'
Now Lyons was smiling. 'Taking a long chance, wizard.'
'Like you said, they're losers. A gang of psycho losers. I think we can slip in and slip out...'
'With luck,' Blancanales nodded. 'But we'll need helmets. I want to cover these, too.' He glanced down at the black nylon of his battle-suit's pants. He unfolded his map and pointed out the dotted line of a fire road. 'This becomes a paved road a mile out of town. It comes down to that block that's burning. In all the smoke, maybe we could get what we need. Without any trouble. Maybe...' Blancanales held his silenced Beretta to chamber a round.
They followed Stage Road only a quarter mile, then turned off onto the Indian Trail service road. The heavy motorcycles were able to follow the twisting trail, powerfully, and they climbed the steep hills with gusts of noisy energy.
At the Country Club, the fire road became a paved, gently graded asphalt lane lined by rows of eucalyptus trees. Bougainvillea and oleander bloomed on the roadside.
They switched off their engines and coasted through the cool afternoon shadows. Only the whirring of their spoked wheels would betray them.
Soon, smoke obscured the sky. Only a few hundred yards farther on, homes were burning. The sound of shotgun blasts stopped them. Pulling over, Biancanales and Gadgets hotfooted it around a turn in the road, leaving Lyons with the motorcycles.
Two Outlaws braced their weapons on the bricks of a low wall, firing at a man running across a horse pasture. Despite several blasts from a shotgun and a burst from an M-16, the man continued running. Only another hundred yards remained between him and the safety of the brush-covered hillsides. The Outlaw with the M-16 dropped out the magazine, fumbled to insert another. He saw Gadgets and Biancanales approaching. He wore aviator-style sunglasses.
'We flushed a Mexican out of the stables,' he grunted. 'Get with it and put out some firepower. That funky little beaner ain't gonna get away.'
Biancanales brought up the Beretta. 'Yes he is.'
14
As Roger Davis watched Crescent Street for Outlaws, Glen Shepard and Chris Davis wheeled the motorcycles of the recently deceased bikers into the hotel. They continued with the bikes through the hotel to the linen storage and sorting room. They hid the motorcycles under dirty towels and sheets, then went back to the lobby.
'You know how to ride one of those things?' Glen asked Chris.
'Oh, yeah. Roger has a Honda dirt-bike. You think we could just ride out to the hills? Hide out up there?'
'Only if you teach me how.'
'We could get a car.'
Glen called to Roger. The young man left the front door and followed Glen and his cousin up the stairs. 'You two want to go into the hills until this is over?'
'Whatever you think is safe, Mr. Shepard,' Roger answered.
'No, it's not what I think. It's what we think. You stay here, you're in danger. You try to make it to the hills, you're in danger. If you two got on those Harleys, you could be in the hills in two or three minutes. My wife and I, we'd have to get a car. And I don't think driving through town in a car would be smart.'
'You've done great so far,' Roger assured him.
'We've done great so far,' Glen corrected him. 'Without you two — in the attic and in that backyard — Ann
