Tower of Terror

illegal substances — they won't be back for ten to fifteen years. I'll be parked right here in case you need the secure phone. Anything else you need, I don't want to know about it.'

'What do you mean by that?' Lyons demanded. The agent started away. Lyons grabbed his arm, jerked him around to face Lyons again.

'You do what you have to do in there,' the agent told him. 'But it's not on my conscience. I volunteered for this case. But I didn't volunteer for what you're doing.'

'You think we're a death squad? You think we're going to take those three boys in there and torture them?'

'Why did you ask for this place? That's exactly what I think.'

'Let's hope that's what they think, too.'

Lyons went to the steel door, dragged it open. Blancanales drove the Cadillac in. Lyons secured the door, walked through the warehouse's dim, reeking interior, checking the side doors. All chained and padlocked.

In the office, he found the tools and electronic devices he had requested. There were pliers, tin snips, hammers, and a butane hand torch. Also several coils of wire. For a moment, Lyons marveled at Gadget's micro- electronic wizardry, then he took wire and pliers and returned to the prisoners.

Blancanales dragged the three young men out of the Cadillac. He dropped them on the concrete. Lyons looped baling wire around their wrists and ankles.

Their wallets told them the youths' names. Bernardo, whom Blancanales had choked and thrown down the stairs. Manuel, whose face was now a mask of clotted blood from his broken nose. And Carlos, barely conscious, who bled from a long, shallow cut on the side of his head.

Lyons paced around the three boys, his hands in his pockets. He grinned like a devil. 'Now boys, we talk. What did you want with my friend?'

Blancanales sat on the Cadillac's hood, watching the three boys.

'We tell you nothing!' Bernardo shouted. 'Do what you want with us!'

'That's right, Bernardo.' Lyons laughed. 'We'll do what we want. And it will be you first.'

They dragged Bernardo to the warehouse office, shut the door behind them. Blancanales wired the youth to a chair while Lyons fitted together the components of the butane torch.

'I'm ready to die for Puerto Rico,' Bernardo declared.

Lyons turned on the torch, lit it. He twisted the knob until the flame became a tiny blue point.

Bernardo watched Lyons and the flame, the young man's eyes looking from the tall hardman to the point of intense blue fire hissing from the nozzle of the torch. Bernardo drew a shuddering breath, closed his eyes. He forced his breathing to calm. But he began to shake, as if from extreme cold, first his thighs, then his jaw. He tensed his shivering legs, clamped his jaw.

Lyons waved the flame past the young man's shoulder, the acetate of his shirt shrivelling. Bernardo flinched, his eyes opened wide for an instant. He closed his eyes again, ground his teeth.

'Wait.' Blancanales pushed the torch away.

'What?'

'Perhaps we can reason with the boy.'

'Forget it. Don't have time.'

'Just wait.' Blancanales turned back to the youth. 'Who sent you out to take me?'

Bernardo didn't answer.

'Why did they send you to take me? Wouldn't it have been easier to shoot me? You could have shot me. But they told you to take me alive. Why?'

'I do as my leaders tell me.'

'You're a good soldier, you do as you're told. Now you're in real trouble, you know that?'

'Keep your talk! I'm no fool! I will tell you nothing! Burn me, kill me! I am only one soldier, millions fight for Puerto Rico. Viva Puerto Rico libre!'

'Enough of this talk,' Lyons interrupted, playing the heavy. 'It's time to get this barbecue in motion.'

'No!' Blancanales pushed Lyons back. 'Boy, this is the truth. I want to talk to your commander. You take me to him, and you live. Your friends live.'

'I will not betray...'

'No one's asking you to betray...'

'None of this!' Lyons stepped between Blancanales and the youth. 'No deals! We'll get the information out of him. We'll cook him alive. He'll talk!'

Blancanales shoved Lyons aside. 'You and me, kid, we go to your commander. Look at me, you can trust me. No betrayal. You blindfold me, lock me in a trunk, whatever is necessary to protect your commander. Your friends stay here. When I come back, your friends go free. No jail, no prison, no torture.'

'And what if my commander tells me to kill you?' Bernardo asked.

Lyons laughed, sneered at Blancanales. 'What do you say to that, nice guy?'

Taking the young man's possessions from his pocket, Blancanales found Bernardo's wallet and opened it. Inside there were photos of the boy's family, girl friends. Blancanales held up a photo of Bernardo standing with his mother, father, younger sisters and brothers.

'If I don't come back...' he pointed to Lyons, '...first he kills your friends, then he kills your family.'

Lyons grinned, wickedly.

Bernardo looked from Blancanales to Lyons, then back. 'Can I talk with Manuel and Carlos?'

Blancanales snipped the wires binding Bernardo to the chair, then the wires around his ankles. 'Go talk with your friends. We'll wait here.'

From the office, they watched Bernardo squat beside his friends on the floor, talking with them. Lyons twisted the butane valve, watched the flame shrink to nothing.

'Acting like that gives me the creeps,' he whispered to Blancanales. 'Next time, you're the sadist.'

'But you're so Aryan, such a monster!' Rosario joked. 'I thought you'd actually fry the kid if I didn't work something out. But a softhearted old Latin like me... he knows too well!'

Lyons looked at his watch. Thirty-eight hours, twenty minutes. He glanced out at Bernardo. 'If he won't take you to meet his commander, then we have to get the man's name from him. Whatever it takes. Whatever has to happen.'

In the silence of the warehouse, the three boys' Spanish echoed. Finally, Bernardo returned to them. He nodded.

They went to the steel door, shoved it open. As Bernardo followed Blancanales out, Lyons stopped him. He put his fist against the boy's chest.

'My friend comes back. You understand? Do you understand me?'

'Entiendo.'

He snipped the wire from the boy's wrists. Lyons waited until they walked around the corner, then sprinted to the waiting taxi, abandoning the securely tied Manuel and Carlos.

'You saw them?'

'Following!' The cabbie whipped a turn, accelerated.

'No need to stay close, I've got D.F.'s and mini-mikes on my partner. And give me the phone.'

Lyons dialed for Gadgets, got him on the first ring. 'Hardman Two's out and running. The boy said he'll take him to his commander.'

'How's the signal?' Gadgets asked.

'Checking.' Lyons held the phone hand-set under his chin, pulled the directional finder out of his pocket, flicked the switch. A steady beep-beep-beep-beep sounded for a moment, then fell off, the intervals between pulses becoming longer.

'Up ahead,' the cabbie called back to Lyons. 'They just took off in a taxi. How much distance do you want me to hold?'

'Keep them in sight, but keep traffic between you and them. If they make a turn and we miss it, we can pick them up with the D.F.'

'What about the minimikes?' Gadgets asked.