Unconventional Warfare

ABLE TEAM’S PLAN WAS simple.

They would come in on a commercial flight and make it through customs clean. Following that, they would pick up a vehicle and make their way to a safehouse used by a joint CIA and Army Special Operations Intelligence Support Activity operation to establish a base before starting surveillance of the target.

Things began to go wrong immediately.

Carl Lyons pulled his carry-on bag down from the overhead compartment just after the Unfasten Seat Belts sign popped up on the TWA commercial flight. They were flying first-class as part of their administrative cover, and the team leader had watched, bemused, as Blancanales had seduced the Hispanic flight attendant with his gregarious charm.

Team funnyman Hermann Schwarz had cracked one stale joke after another as the silver-haired smooth-talker had reaffirmed his membership in the mile-high club thirty thousand feet over the Caribbean with a dark-eyed Nicaraguan beauty half his age.

In a more regulation-orientated unit such behavior as stand-up sex in an airplane restroom would have been a scandalous breach of operational security, one that a team leader like Lyons would have had to treat severely as a discipline issue.

Not so in the shadowy world in which Able Team operated. Now there wasn’t a person on the plane among the crew or passengers who didn’t think the three men were anything but what they claimed; middle-aged divorced tourists on a Central American vacation. Blancanales’s audacity was role-playing brilliance.

If there was anything bothering Lyons as he exited the plane after the flight attendant had slipped her cell number to Blancanales, it was that circumstances dictated they roll into the opening moves of the operation unarmed. Carl Lyons didn’t like taking a shower unarmed, let alone enter a potentially volatile nation without a weapon.

“Okay,” Schwarz murmured as they came into the big, air-conditioned terminal, “we can add a certain TWA flight attendant named Bonita to our roster of Stony Man local assets.”

“Oh, yeah,” Lyons replied. “I’m sure she’ll be a big help. We can just send David and his boys down here sometime and they can all crash at her hacienda. It’ll be like the Farm South.”

“You see how it is, Gadgets?” Blancanales said, voice weary. “You try to take one for the team and management doesn’t appreciate it. I try to show loyalty through service and all I get is cynical pessimism.”

“Oh, buddy,” Schwarz replied, voice dry as south Texas wind, “you just got a lot more on you than cynical pessimism.”

“Yes,” Blancanales replied seriously. “Yes, I did.”

“Can you gentlemen come this way?”

The voice interrupted their banter with the certainty of undisputed authority. Able Team turned their heads as one to take in the speaker. He was a tall Latino with jet-black hair, mustache and eyes and was wearing the crisp uniform of a Nicaraguan customs officer. There was a 9 mm automatic pistol in a polished holster on his hip but the flap was closed and secured.

However, a few paces behind him the assault rifles of the military security guards were right out and open as the soldiers stood with hands on pistol grips and fingers resting near triggers.

Lyons scowled. Schwarz gave the officer his best grin in reply to the summons. Then he turned his head slightly and whispered to Blancanales out of the side of his mouth, “Any chance you want to take one for the team now?”

Blancanales fixed an insincere grin of his own on his face. “Nope. This time we move right to cynical pessimism,” he replied. He turned to face the stern uniformed officer, face suddenly serious. “This isn’t about that flight attendant, is it?”

CHAPTER SEVEN

Nicaraguan customs separated the three men quickly, hustling them into separate rooms. There they sat, isolated, for two hours. Carl Lyons found himself sitting in front of a plain metal table on an uncomfortable folding chair while the customs officer pretended to read official-looking papers he’d taken from a blue folder with a government seal at the top.

Fluent in Spanish, Lyons easily read the pages he set on the tabletop and saw that they were merely quarterly flight maintenance reports being used as props. Warily, Lyons decided to relax a bit; this seemed a more random occurrence than he had first feared. The Farm had considerable resources, but the operation was minuscule compared to other government agencies and Stony Man operatives were often forced to rely on logistical support from larger bureaucratic entities. Whenever that happened, security became a prime concern, but for now this seemed a more typical customs roust than anything more threatening.

The officer, whose name tag read Garcia, picked up Lyons’s passport with his free hand and opened it. “Mr. Johnson?” His English was accented but clipped and neat.

Lyons nodded. “That’s me.”

Garcia regarded him over the top of the little blue folder. “What brings you to Nicaragua?”

“Sunny weather, beautiful women, the beaches. All the usual. Is there a problem with my passport?”

The customs agent carefully put the blue folder down. He ignored the question and tapped the passport with one long, blunt-tipped finger. “There are many countries in Central America with beautiful beaches and women.”

“But only one San Hector Del Sur—it’s world famous,” Lyons replied in flawless Spanish, referencing Nicaragua’s most popular tourist destination.

Garcia’s eyes flicked upward sharply at the linguistic display. His eyes looked past Lyons and toward the large reflective glass Lyons knew from his own experience as a police officer was where the customs officer’s superiors were watching the interrogation. Garcia let his gaze settle back on Lyons. He offered a wan smile.

“I’m sure this is just an administrative error,” the officer said. “My people will have it sorted out in no time.” Garcia rose to his feet. “Please be patient.”

“Okay.” Lyons nodded agreeably. “But, man, am I getting thirsty.”

GARCIA LEFT LYONS and walked toward the interrogation room containing Hermann Schwarz. As he moved down the hallway he saw the tall, cadaverous figure in a dark suit standing off behind his commanding officer. The man met Garcia’s gaze with cold, dead eyes, and the Nicaraguan customs officer felt a chill at the base of his spine. What was he doing here? Garcia wondered. He stifled the thought quickly—it didn’t pay to ask too many questions about the internal security organization, even to yourself.

As he entered the room he saw a burly sergeant had Schwarz pinned up against the wall, one beefy forearm across the American’s throat. The officer was scowling in fury as Schwarz, going by the name Miller, smirked.

Schwarz looked over at Garcia as the man entered and grinned. “Hey, Pedro,” he called. “You know why this guy’s wife never farted as a little girl? ’Cause she didn’t have an asshole till she got married!”

The sergeant rotated and dipped the shoulder of his free hand. His fist came up from the hip and buried itself in Schwarz’s stomach. The Stony Man operative absorbed the blow passively and let himself crumple at the man’s feet. He looked up from the floor, gasping for breath.

Schwarz looked at Garcia. “You know what this pendejo’s most confusing day is? Yep—Father’s Day.”

His cackling was cut off as the sergeant kicked him in the ribs. Garcia snapped an order and reluctantly the man backed off. “Leave us!” he repeated, and the officer left the room scowling.

Garcia moved forward and dropped Schwarz’s passport on the table. He looked down as the American fought his way back up to his feet. Garcia watched dispassionately as the man climbed into his chair.

“This is a hell of a country you got here, pal,” Schwarz said. “Tell a few jokes and get the shit kicked out of you. I should get a lawyer and sue your ass.”

“You’ll find Nicaraguan courts unsympathetic to ugly Americans, Mr. Miller.”

“Yeah, well, your momma’s so fat when she walks her butt claps.”

“Why have you come to Nicaragua, Mr. Miller?”

“I heard a guy could get a drink. I think it was a lie. Seriously, I’m here with some buddies to check out the sites, maybe see the senoritas on San Hector Del Sur, but instead I get this?”

“Perhaps you shouldn’t insult my officers?”

“Perhaps you shouldn’t lock an innocent turista up for two hours in a room with a trained monkey like that asshole.”

Garcia sighed heavily, a weary man with an odious task. “I’m sure this is just an administrative error. We’ll have it sorted out shortly.”

“You’re damn well right you will,” Schwarz snapped, playing his role to the hilt.

“In the meantime perhaps you could refrain from antagonizing my officers? Yes?”

“Hey, Pedro—is that your stomach or did you just swallow a beach ball?”

Officer Garcia turned and walked out of the room, studiously ignoring the thin man standing outside in the hall next to the doorway.

“Hey, who do ya have to screw to get a drink around here?” Schwarz demanded as the door swung closed.