Season of Harm

The security guard reached out, placing a hand on Lyons’s shoulder. “I said stop!”

Lyons butt-stroked him, lightly, slamming the Daewoo’s stock into the side of his head. He folded over with a grunt. “Told you,” Lyons said.

Schwarz had the 93-R in both hands and was covering the crowd. “Everyone out!” he said. “Proceed to the exits in an orderly fashion! We are federal agents!”

The casino’s patrons didn’t need to be told twice. They started hurrying toward the main exit, giving the Able Team commandos a wide berth. A couple of the uniformed guards looked as if they wanted to say something, but they were apparently unarmed and seemed to Lyons to be just what they were supposed to be—civilians hired to watch for pickpockets and roust the occasional drunk.

“Gadgets,” Lyons said, bringing the Daewoo up to his shoulder as they approached the corridor Blancanales had entered, “find me those other covert guards.”

“On it,” Schwarz said. He broke from Lyons and began sweeping the wing they had just passed.

As Lyons neared the hallway, he fought the urge to react as Blancanales came bursting through the fire door. Blancanales had his 92-F in his left hand and the captured 1911 .45 in his right. As the fire door slammed, bullets ricocheted from the opposite side. They did not go through.

“You all right?” Lyons asked calmly.

“Never better.” Blancanales smiled. “But we’ve got a nest of hornets down below.”

“Positions?”

“Bottom of the stairwell.” Blancanales jerked a thumb toward the fire door.

“Good,” Lyons said, hefting the Daewoo. “Get ready on the door.”

Blancanales stowed the 1911 and transferred the 92-F to his right hand. “You sure?”

“Yes,” Lyons said. He grinned. It was not a pleasant smile.

Somewhere behind and to the left, they heard a shotgun blast, followed by the chatter of Schwarz’s 93-R.

“That’ll be Gadgets ferreting out our friends,” Lyons said. “Back him up after I go.”

“Will do,” Blancanales said. “Triangle operatives, you figure?”

“Doesn’t matter,” Lyons said. “Triangle or not, they’ve got a heroin distribution center in the basement.”

“Could have been baking powder.”

“More power to them if it was,” Lyons said. “Okay, in three.”

Pol nodded and gripped the fire door’s handle.

“Three…two…one…now.”

Blancanales ripped open the fire door and triggered several shots down the stairwell. Lyons dived through, flat on his belly with the Daewoo in front of him. He threw himself with such force that he slid down the steps, holding the trigger of the Daewoo back as he did so. The buckshot rounds ripped up the doors at the bottom of the stairwell, tearing through the gunmen who waited in front of them.

The gunners screamed and died horribly. Lyons was up and charging as soon as he hit the bottom of the stairs. He slammed a combat-booted foot against the double doors, mowing down a gunman with an Uzi pistol who was waiting in the anteroom. He dropped the now-empty drum magazine in his USAS-12 and swapped in a 10-round box.

Another kick parted the doors separating him from the basement area. He dived through the doors, narrowly avoiding the answering fusillade. The workers were running and ducking for cover, but the gunmen guarding them and the product on the tables were cutting loose with everything they had. Full-automatic weapons fire converged on Lyons’s position. He surged to his feet and, in a half crouch, carved through the ranks of the enemy gunmen like a shark swimming through a school of fish.

Bullets raked the table to his left, shredding plastic bags of heroin before shattering a set of electronic scales. Lyons triggered a blast that knocked the gunmen down and out forever.

Moving heel-to-toe in a combat glide, Lyons kept up his pace, staying calm and deadly in the middle of the fire-storm. Each time his shotgun blasts found an enemy, the remaining shooters were that much more demoralized, firing that much more wildly. Finally, as the second to last man fell with a load of double-aught buck in his face, the last of the guards cut and ran for the doors.

“Oh, no, you don’t, you little scumbag.” Lyons let the USAS-12 drop, since it was empty, and drew the Colt Python from his shoulder holster and leveled it at the fleeing man. “Stop! Federal agent!”

The running man paused, spun and brought up a snubnose revolver. Lyons double-actioned a .357 Magnum round through his chest. The dead man never got off a shot.

“Lyons clear. Basement secure,” Lyons announced.

“Gadgets clear,” Schwarz said.

“Blancanales clear,” Blancanales reported. “Two down up here, Carl. We weren’t able to take them alive, unfortunately.”

“Understood,” Lyons said. He surveyed the drugs scattered around the room, and the dead men among the living. “Everyone over there,” Lyons directed, pointing with the barrel of the Python. “Against the wall.”

One of the workers looked at him, wide-eyed, and said something in rapid-fire Spanish.

“Pol, did you hear that?” he asked. “I’ve got several prisoners down there. They look to be noncombatants.”

“Just barely,” Blancanales said. “He says…Well, he says a lot, but it boils down to, ‘we just work here.’”

“Yeah,” Lyons said. He herded the workers. “Come on, people. Go.”

“I’m on my way down,” Blancanales reported over the transceiver link.

“Good,” Lyons said. “I could use a translator.”

“I’ll stay up here and mind the store,” Schwarz said. “It looks like the Justice Department identification Hal gave us is going to get a workout.” The sirens were barely audible over the transceiver link.

“All right,” Lyons said. “Run interference with the Atlantic City PD for us. Pol and I will work our way through these jokers, see if there’s anything to be found.”

“Any computers down there?” Schwarz asked.

Lyons double-checked, scanning the room carefully. He retrieved his Daewoo as he did so, holstering the Python and swapping box magazines in the shotgun. “Doesn’t look like it,” he said. “We’ve got a pile of drugs, some dead guards and not much else.”

Blancanales entered the room, stepping over the dead body near the doors. He took out his secure satellite phone, part of the standard kit issued by the Farm, and took a digital photograph of the dead man. He would do the same for the others; it was standard procedure. The photos would be transmitted to the Farm for analysis, run through international crime databases using facial-recognition software. Identifying the gunmen might give them some connection to the Triangle’s operation.

“Dead end?” Blancanales asked.

“Dead men,” Lyons corrected. He jacked a round into the chamber of the USAS-12. “But us? We’re just getting started.”

CHAPTER FOUR

Thailand

Jack Grimaldi whistled “Flight of the Valkyries” to himself as the Cobra gunship came in low and slow over the landscape, moving up on the isolated poppy field that was Phoenix Force’s first target. As Grimaldi flew, he listened to the radio chatter over his earbud transceiver. The little device linked him via relay from the chopper’s electronics to the rest of the team on the ground. Phoenix Force was moving into position to attack the camp located at the east end of the poppy field. From the satellite surveillance imagery provided by NSA security satellites as well as NetScythe, it was apparent the camp included a full processing facility. Hitting the field and the processing plant would deal the Triangle a significant blow, sending a clear message.

Insertion of the team, including acquiring the Cobra gunship and making sure it was in position, had been relatively easy. While there was no way to count on the support of the government, especially given the covert nature of the operation, the Farm had plenty of discretionary funds to throw around at times like these. The Stony Man team had bribed their way over the Thai border and easily past Customs. The chopper had been more difficult, but even that had not proved much of an obstacle. While old, the machine was in great shape, and the armament it carried was in top condition. Grimaldi had checked it out at the airfield himself. Then he’d made his way by air in support of Phoenix Force’s ground insertion that was utilizing hired commercial trucks. If anyone had noticed him, by eye or by radar, nobody had challenged him. No doubt everyone and his uncle who could in any way be bought off had been paid well enough to look the other way.