Ramrod Intercept

The one called Lemmon wasn’t the kind to tap dance or dream of losing. “Here it is, Colonel,” the big guy said, with a contemptuous note dropped on “Colonel.” “Three of your buzz-cut Dirty Harrys were eighty-sixed. They tend to want to shoot people on sight to make their day. They tend to seem to not care if they’re civilian or like us, with the Justice Department, which already dumps you in a world of feces. This is what we know, and this is what we’re going to do. We know you’re running a scam to unload high-tech weapons and technology overseas somewhere. We know you were using your executives and think tankers to draw out the wolves, my guess is so they could be scapegoats when you left Dodge. You’ve gone for broke, and you lost. Now we have two of your employees who want to turn songbird under our care and protection.”

Lake knew what had to be done. He steepled his fingers, rubbed his eyes and blew out a long breath.

“What? Am I boring you assholes?”

“Uh, Agent Lemmon, let me speak frankly, so we can get past all this macho posturing and palavering.”

LYONS SENSED the whole mood change around him. It was as if a dark veil had dropped over Mr. Chuckles, some rage clamped down on before then, churning over now, building heat, the pot of his black soul simmering. Van Gogh and Buzz-cut Issue had to have been clued in to the sudden shift in Lake’s demeanor, and Lyons read the squaring of the shoulders for what it meant.

It was set to blow, loud and hot. It was going to get messy, and the mere fact Lake was prepared to go for it told Lyons the guy had backup somewhere, ready to bolt town to pick up the pace on whatever his dark agenda.

“Well, Agent Lemmon, I guess there’s not much left to say, except I can’t recall the last time I saw a G-man walking around in rubber-soled combat boots. I didn’t know government issues, the official kind, trooped around with compact submachine guns in special swivel rigging beneath oversize windbreakers. To answer your suspicions, yes, I have a deal, a major deal in the works that could change the entire destiny of the world. Yes, my employees were nothing more than human chess pieces to be moved around at my wish, to take the fall, as you put it, while I fly off into the sunset. You know what my problem is—”

“I’m not your shrink, Colonel. I didn’t come here to listen to how you were an abused child and all you need is a little love.”

The big chuckle again. “My problem is I don’t like wrinkles in my plans, large or small. My problem is, when I don’t get my way or what I want, I become extremely agitated.”

And Lyons was already searching out some immediate cover, aware he and Pol were caught in the coming cross fire. It was something in Lake’s look and voice, a new darkness sinking to still lower depths, that warned Lyons to make a scramble to save his skin.

The Able Team leader was in the air, flying over a couch as the Uzi appeared, like some sorcerer’s trick, in Lake’s hands.

CHAPTER SIX

The Uzi subgun was out and flaming 9 mm parabellum rounds before either Blancanales or Lyons could free his own hardware. Lake beat them to the punch. Instead of standing his ground in some grandstand suicide play, pulling iron and blasting back at the face of death where he stood his ground, he opted to take a running dive over the conference table. The sprint and flight stole him a few precious moments. Only pistols were barking now, chiming in the deafening symphony of weapons fire, hot lead scorching the air, seeking out his scalp like angry hornets.

“You’re fucking with the wrong air commandos, ladies!”

Lake, bellowing like some fire-and-brimstone preacher hungover on Sunday morning, the long-haired crazy man pounding out the lead, marking his turf behind the desk, defying to be shot. Blancanales skidded off the table, hot slipstreams of lead tearing past his scalp, tugging at his shoulders. On the way down he unleathered both the Beretta 92-F and the stubby Ingram machine pistol, and got busy dishing it back before all was lost. A shaved head with goatee came shooting around the corner of the table when Blancanales cut loose with a double burst. The Van Gogh shooter was capping off rounds from his own Beretta when Blancanales was rewarded by a scream of pain. Van Gogh lurched back, out of sight, grabbing at the red smear on his upper thigh, cursing up a storm.

“If you’re Feds, I’m the prince of darkness!”

The way the madman was pumping out the lead, screaming in berserker fury, Blancanales didn’t find the statement a stretch.

Lake was stone-cold insane.

A swivel chair was absorbing a flurry of 9 mm rounds when he popped up, and let it once more rip with twin lead barrages. It was luck, more than skill, winging the rounds out when he tagged the buzz-cut gunner, sent him crashing down on Lake’s desk, bleeding and flopping all over polished teakwood surface like some giant gutted salmon.

“Nice shot, son!”

And Lake seemed to slap home a fresh clip in a nanosecond, not missing a beat.

“You want the best, you’ve got the best! The hottest Colonel in the land. Jim Lake!”

THE GUY WAS hung out there but good, off in some land of insanity that even caused Lyons to balk for a full second or two. He was shooting up his own office, which told Lyons he didn’t plan on coming back here. Whatever Lake’s personal vision of greener pastures, Lyons didn’t intend to let it become reality.

Not on his watch.

Not this night.

The mini-Uzi and Colt Python out, Lyons skirted on a hunch away from the tracking line of autofire that was eating up the couch, a storm of insatiable lead locusts buzzing in his ears. He came up, just in time to find Blancanales nailing the buzz-cut gunner and cut free with hand cannon and subgun to give his friend a much needed helping hand. The mini-Uzi hosed the desk, but Lake was already ducking, the curtained window behind him, drawn to block out some bird’s eye view of the city skyline, taking a few hits. It fluttered a little as holes were punched through the window to let some traffic noise filter in from far below.

On his two o’clock Lyons found Van Gogh was shooting on the move for the wet bar when he assisted Blancanales in waxing the guy off his feet. Four converging points of fire turned Van Gogh into a bursting sieve, painting him crimson from the neck down to his crotch. He was airborne next, snarling out the pain and rage, before he sailed over the wet bar and brought down the top-shelf booze.

Lake jumped back into the game, back on the trigger, screaming out something about abortion pills marking the end of civilization, how civilians were all too willing to serve bastards and whores.

What the hell? Lyons thought.

The Able Team leader was going down behind the couch when the ex-colonel fired another long burst his way, then shifted his aim and drove Blancanales down behind the conference table.

Then a shadow with a massive autoshotgun whirled around the corner where some slat appeared in the wall near Lake’s desk.

The cavalry, riding onto the scene, out of nowhere.

The curse was choked off in Lyons’s throat as he flung himself away from the couch on the peal of thunder. Lake’s subgun spray came back and helped chase Lyons to cover behind a wooden cabinet, the expensive teak scarred as tracking rounds began eating up the facing. A roaring boom and half of the cabinet vanished in Ironman’s face in razoring wood splinters.

“See you around, ladies!”

The dark hole swallowed up Lake and Mr. Autoshotgun as Lyons broke cover. The slat was closing and Lyons, jacked up on adrenaline, hit the area with a .357 round and a half-dozen 9 mm projectiles from his mini-Uzi.

Wasted effort and ammo.

Lake was gone.

Lyons was feeling the wall for some button or latch that would open the slat. Nothing. There was no space either where he could dig his fingers in to force the slat open.

“Time to boogie, Ironman. Something tells me the cavalry’s going to be waiting when we hit the hall.”

Lyons grabbed up his handheld radio and patched through to Schwarz.

“WHAT MORE CAN we tell you? We’ve given you directions to where Godwin is holed up. I put the call through, like you asked. You know he’s there, and he has the package you want.”

They were sweating out the unknown, worried about little more than saving whatever might be left of their dicey futures, wanting nothing else but for their party to go on. Schwarz didn’t have the time or the inclination to put their fears to rest, nor did he much care about their desire to keep the good times rolling. The more they found out about DYSAT and the goons who ran it, the more he felt the killing heat was only just getting turned up.

And DYSAT needed to go down the toilet.

“Hey, come on, mister. Cut us some slack here. We’re cooperating. We didn’t know what we’re getting involved in. Hey, we came to you people. That should count for something.”

Schwarz was watching the lot through the windshield and the monitor. He heard Lyons coming on his handheld radio, as gruff as usual, but now there was a definite edge of urgency in his voice.

“Gadgets!”

“Yeah.”

“Round two’s just started. Lake tried to turn me and Pol into human sushi with an Uzi he had stashed under his desktop. Two more of his shooters are down for the count. Lake and another goon with a SPAS-12 are probably headed your way. Maybe he’ll pick up reinforcements on the way down. We’re on the way. Look alive.”

“I copy.”

And Lyons was gone off the air, in pursuit.