Choke Point

“What are we supposed to do once we find them?” Blancanales asked.

“Yeah, do we get to terminate with extreme prejudice, too?”

“Be careful what you wish for,” Brognola said. “Your mission is to run this group to ground, closing the pipeline from this end while Phoenix Force handles the Moroccan angle. A two-headed spear is what we’re shooting for.”

“And we’re not concerned so much about the drug trafficking into Europe,” Price said. “That’s of a secondary concern. The first is to cut the pipeline off at the knees, which will have the effect of not only securing the safety of the American public, but also of removing a major source of funding for Khalidi’s organization. Any questions?”

The men shook their heads nearly in unison.

“Then let’s get it done,” Brognola said.

As the group broke up, the members of the team saying their respective goodbyes or taking a minute to engage each other in lighter conversation, Lyons took the opportunity to grab McCarter, who had stepped outside for a smoke.

“I know exactly what you’re going to say,” McCarter said to his friend. “You wish you were going with us.”

“That’s not exactly what I was going to say, although the sentiment’s implied,” the Able Team leader replied. “I just wanted to ask a favor.”

“Shoot.”

“If you get close enough to Khalidi, I mean really close, take him apart with your bare hands. Not for me—for these kids.”

The fox-faced Briton favored Lyons with a genuine smile of glee. “You can bloody well count on it, mate.”

CHAPTER FIVE

Daytona Beach, Florida

Although the light breeze blew across the sweat that furrowed Carl Lyons’s brow, it didn’t do much to cool him off.

July was one of the hottest and most humid months of the year in Florida, and even being from Los Angeles hadn’t given Lyons any more reason to like the humidity. Blancanales, on the other hand, loved this kind of weather.

“Miserable and muggy,” Lyons muttered as they stepped out of the air-conditioned airport and waited at the curb for their vehicle.

“I love it,” Blancanales replied.

“Did either of you guys consider the fact we were here just a few weeks ago?” Schwarz asked.

“That’s right,” Blancanales said. “I’d completely forgotten.”

“I’m still trying to forget,” Lyons said.

None of the three men had completely shaken off their experiences in Tehran. Lyons had gone on record to say he’d thought their mission in the heart of Iran’s capital had been one of the toughest Able Team had ever undertaken. The Islamic Republican Guard Corps, in concert with Muslim clerics of the Pasdaran, had attempted to overthrow members within their own government while secretly planning to launch attacks against American soil using a Hezbollah unit they were training in the jungles of South America. While Phoenix Force had been occupied trying to find the Hezbollah-IRGC contingent training camp where hostages of the U.S. Peace Corps were being held, Stony Man had elected, been forced really, to send Able Team to Tehran to extract an Iranian intelligence asset claiming to have information about the plot. It had turned into nothing short of a nightmare, resulting in the deaths of two CIA agents and a twenty-four-hour nightmare for Able Team as IRGC and police units hounded their every step.

Lyons shook it away just thinking about how close they’d really come on that one and said, “Let’s leave that behind and talk about the current operation.”

His two friends agreed with solemn nods just as their vehicle, a late-model SUV rental, rolled up.

As Schwarz tossed their shoulder bags into the rear compartment, Blancanales climbed behind the wheel with Lyons on shotgun. This tended to be their modus operandi on most missions, born more from habit than much else.

“I miss Black Betty,” Blancanales said as he put the SUV in gear and eased from the curb.

“Me, too,” Schwarz said.

“Well, unfortunately there wasn’t enough time so we’re just going to have to make do,” Lyons said.

Their remembrance of Able Team’s customized van, a vehicle out of which they normally operated, left each man nostalgic for that home away from home. Painted midnight-black with tinted bullet-resistant windows, Black Betty was an armored tactical and communications center that boasted a comprehensive armory and the latest in surveillance-countersurveillance equipment. Unfortunately, it wasn’t practical to ship to every location within the U.S. Able Team might operate, and Stony Man therefore reserved it only for unique occasions or at the team’s specific request.

“Where to first?” Blancanales asked.

“I’m guessing we need to start with Mrs. Acres,” Lyons said. “She’s going to be our first, best source of information.”

The other two men agreed, reliant on the expertise of Lyons’s former law-enforcement experience as an LAPD tactical sergeant. It was his position as a cop that had first brought Carl Lyons together with Mack Bolan, aka the Executioner, although at that time they had technically been on opposite sides of the law. Bolan’s war against la Cosa Nostra had just begun and Lyons had been just one of the many cops with mixed feelings about the game. On one hand, he’d secretly enjoyed watching Bolan mix it up with the criminal empire of Julian DiGeorge and the Giordano family; on the other, he’d sworn an oath to uphold the law against anyone choosing to break it.

Only because of Bolan’s first taking action to save the life of Lyons’s family, and later opting to give Lyons his life back when he could well have snuffed it out in a moment of pitched battle, did Carl Lyons gain a high respect for the man called Mack Bolan. When he’d been offered a permanent position with Able Team as an urban commando against crime and terrorism on the streets of America, Lyons jumped at the opportunity to do something effective, where he could operate outside the official restrictions on law enforcement. Able Team worked because they could operate outside those restrictions while ensuring they didn’t risk the safety of good, law-abiding American citizens.

In fact, they were there to protect the American way of life, and they had become legendary in that regard.

Mrs. Annette Acres lived in a two-story brownstone just off the coastline. While it had a very traditional, almost Georgetown look to it, the decorative side of the heavy metal plates designed to protect the home from hurricanes and the inclement weather of Florida coastal living wasn’t wholly indiscreet. Reinforced plating lined the waist-high walls topped with wrought iron and decorative lighting that ran the length of the property line.

Lyons could feel the additional plating beneath the wood steps ascending the massive front porch with vast columns that supported a second-floor balcony, which probably branched off the master bedroom. The death of Thomas Acres had been kept quiet through the vast connections of Stony Man, so the arrival of the trio at their home—carrying forged credentials identifying them as agents with the FBI—signaled not only their initial interrogation, but also the gruesome duty of making a death notification.

Lyons had done it before; hell, they all had at one time or another. That didn’t make it any easier and he’d never really become used to it. Frankly, he’d never understood how those in the military could do such a job, their whole existence predicated on traveling around specific regions in the country to deliver the news to some family that their beloved soldier had been killed in action. Now that job would suck.

Lyons pressed the doorbell and the singsong chimes echoed from within.

Nearly a minute passed before a short Hispanic woman in a pastel dress with an apron answered. “May I help you?”

Lyons nodded as all three men produced their credentials, immediately getting into their respective roles. They had donned suits before leaving the airport and now stood there with stony expressions behind sunglasses.

“Yes, ma’am,” Lyons said. “Agent Irons, Federal Bureau of Investigation. We’d like to speak with Annette Acres.”

The young lady looked immediately distressed. “Um, well, of course...is she expecting you?”

“No.”

“So you don’t have an appointment,” she said.

“I just said that,” Lyons replied.

Blancanales stepped in at that point, reliably assured his friend’s patience wouldn’t hold out if the conversation took a worse turn. “Ma’am, we do need to speak with Mrs. Acres on an urgent matter and it’s not one we’d like to discuss out in the open. Please let us in.”

Blancanales offered a smile that most found utterly irresistible, and the maid returned the smile as she stepped aside to admit them. She closed the door and then led them to a broad, comfortable sitting room decorated in light woods and expensive works of metal. She waved them toward some chairs in the middle of the room and then went to retrieve the mistress of the house, but none of them helped themselves to a seat. They wouldn’t be here long.

Annette Acres entered the room with all of the elegance and grace one might have expected of a congressman’s wife. She had long blond hair and a petite figure. Her eyes were crystal-blue and while most might have called her expression “pinched,” she possessed an obvious cultured beauty within the high cheekbones and thin lips that bore just a hint of lipstick. A pair of tight slacks and an elegant white blouse completed the ensemble.

“Good morning, gentlemen,” she said as she entered, and all three Able Team men inclined their heads in recognition. “Please have a seat.”

“Thank you, ma’am,” Lyons said as he gestured toward a love seat. “But please, after you.”