Choke Point

“Carl, it’s Barb. Are you with the others?”

“Not at present. What’s up?”

“We just received an intelligence report compiled from several multijurisdictional investigations conducted into the death of New Hampshire Senator Charlie Maser.”

“And?”

“We’re sending a chopper to get all three of you now,” Price replied. “I’m afraid R and R is canceled.”

“That doesn’t sound good.”

“It’s not,” Brognola’s voice boomed in Lyons’s ears. “We’ll be able to better brief you on the details once you get here.”

“We’re coming to the Farm?”

“Yes, although it’s entirely too lengthy and difficult to explain now,” Price said. “Just get here as soon as you can.”

“We’re on our way,” Lyons said and signed off with the standard catchphrase, “out here.”

Lyons returned the phone to his belt, took a deep breath and sighed. He’d hoped for another couple of days to recuperate but he could tell just from the tension in the voices of Price and Brognola that something had gone very wrong. Lyons couldn’t even recall having heard the name Charlie Maser before, not that he kept a running tally on every elected official in Wonderland. For sure, there were some who were much more visible than others and needed to get some attention from Stony Man Farm, in Lyons’s humble opinion. But it wasn’t really in his job description to make those kinds of determinations—he preferred to be pointed at the threat and let loose to deal with it.

The hit-and-git mentality defined the collective psyche of Able Team. They were America’s urban commandos, three berserkers trained to bring justice by fire to American streets and keep its citizens safe. This mode of operation was not only the one that Lyons preferred, but also the one in which he felt most comfortable. Lyons wondered if he’d ever live long enough to retire. What the hell would he do with his life when he didn’t have something desperate to pursue, some terrorist or crime lord to take down?

He’d only completed about a third of the distance to the camp before he heard the whip-whap of chopper blades, spotting the light from the setting sun reflecting in red-orange tints off the body of the helicopter before the whole shape came into view. The chopper dipped low and Lyons saw the familiar form of Blancanales as he reached out and gestured to some point nearby, probably a clearing beyond a copse of trees. Lyons waved his understanding and then broke into a jog so they wouldn’t have long to wait for him.

Within a few minutes he emerged from the line of evergreen trees to find the chopper waiting for him. It was the dead of summer but even the nighttime air was significantly cool. The rotor wash whipped at Lyons’s blond hair, which had started to become increasingly tinged with hints of gray over the years—probably a bit prematurely given the nature of his job—although not anywhere near the blanched white of Rosario Blancanales.

Blancanales, a husky man with muscular forearms and dark eyes, smiled at his friend and offered Lyons a hand. The Able Team leader nodded his thanks as he gripped his friend’s hand and hopped aboard a chopper belonging to the U.S. Forest Service. In a moment, the blades increased in pitch and the chopper lifted smoothly from the green-brown terrain of Jackson Hole Valley.

Seated on a bench with his back to the rear wall of the fuselage was the other Able Team member. Hermann Schwarz was not only the team’s resident electronics and computer expert, a talent that had earned him the “Gadgets” nickname, but he also possessed a wicked sense of humor. Schwarz was actually one of the most fearless men Lyons had ever met, not reticent to start cutting up even in the middle of a firefight. He was wiry but strong, not scrawny in the least, with wavy brown hair and a thick mustache.

“How was your stroll?” he asked Lyons over the thunderous noise of the chopper.

“I wasn’t strolling,” Lyons replied. “I was climbing.”

“You’re one of those mountaineering snobs, aren’t you?” Schwarz deadpanned.

“You should try it sometime. It’s good exercise.”

“I don’t mind fresh air. I just prefer the finer things in life.”

“Such as?” Blancanales asked, unable to resist bantering with his two friends.

“Swimming pools surrounded by beautiful women sunning themselves in bathing suits.”

Lyons shook his head and jerked a thumb at Schwarz. “You believe this guy? Surrounded by all of this natural beauty and he’s pining away for a Marriott.”

“It’s sad,” Blancanales said with a mock despondence. “He never wants to rough it.”

“Any hotel that doesn’t carry your bags in for you is roughing it,” Schwarz replied.

“Pathetic,” Carl Lyons said. “Simply pathetic.”

* * *

“WE’VE UNCOVERED a horrific situation,” Barbara Price announced.

“Barb’s correct,” Brognola said. “I don’t think we’ve ever seen anything quite this bad before. Not on our own turf.”

“What the hell’s going on?” Lyons asked.

“Senator Maser was being extorted for a ransom payment to free his daughter,” Price began. “Near as we can gather, his daughter had been kidnapped by parties unknown, who then contacted Maser and demanded a half-million dollars.”

Schwarz let go with a whistle. “Holy cripes. So he delivered the money and you think the kidnappers killed him.”

“It’s not clear what happened since there was really no evidence in the area where Maser’s body was found,” Brognola replied.

“Local police are convinced Maser was killed somewhere else and dumped in a shallow marsh site near one of the many coves in Chesapeake country,” Price continued. “Apparently, a duck hunter spotted his body and called police, who in turn called the FBI when they discovered the deceased was a U.S. senator.

“There isn’t much physical evidence but the police eventually found Senator Maser’s abandoned vehicle off a secondary road. There were tracks but nothing distinctive enough to allow them to make a positive identification. It’s believed the vehicle was a pickup truck and that’s where Maser had gone to make the exchange. Rain was apparently the chief culprit in dispersing any other hard physical evidence the police might have collected.”

“So what’s all the excitement?” Blancanales asked easily.

“We’ve discovered that Senator Maser isn’t the first one to have been the victim of this kind of thing,” Brognola said. “Although this is the first death that’s resulted from it.”

“You mean there have been other politicians whose kids got snapped?”

Price nodded with a frown. “Unfortunately, yes. But apparently authorities were never alerted because the kidnappers always returned the kids unharmed. The kid would get snatched, the kidnappers would call with a ransom, the official would cough up the money and the kid would make it home in one piece.”

“Exactly how many kids are we talking here?” Blancanales asked, shifting in his chair uneasily.

Price looked at Brognola, who nodded, and they could see her swallow hard before she exchanged glances in turn with each of them. Finally she replied, “Hundreds.”

CHAPTER THREE

“What?” Lyons stiffened in his chair. “How the hell could that be?”

“Easy, Ironman,” Blancanales said, putting a friendly but firm hand on his friend’s shoulder. “Let’s hear this out before we start jumping to conclusions.”

Lyons looked hard at Blancanales at first, but then his expression cooled some and he relaxed in his seat.

“Go on, Barb,” Blancanales urged.

“There’s no question this organization has been operating for some time,” Price said. “They’ve built a reputation as a secret society, dubbed by many of their victims as the Red Brood.”

“That’s a lovely name,” Schwarz said with a snort.

“Do we know any more than that?” Lyons asked.