Shadow War

“The girl?”

“She’s out, buddy. You’re lucky you’re still spry for such an old fart.”

“Screw you,” Blancanales said. His teeth were gritted through the pain. “Help me stand.”

“Negative,” Lyons said. “You’re bleeding internally. You try to walk, and you’ll rip your guts open.”

The big ex-cop put a heavy hand on Blancanales’s chest, keeping the stubborn man down. As he did so, he noticed the man’s abdomen pushing out and becoming rigid right before his eyes. The internal bleeding was bad, Lyons realized, rapidly filling the spaces between his internal organs inside his torso. The clock was ticking on the wounded man.

Blancanales winced as he sank back down and Lyons pulled a loaded morphine syringe from Blancanales’s medic kit. As he prepped the needle, he called over his shoulder at the third member of the team. Outside he could hear the sound of Jack Grimaldi’s chopper.

“How we doing?” Lyons asked.

“Good,” Schwarz answered. Having made sure all the hostile personnel were down, he walked over to the hanging men. One of them was a dripping corpse. Brains clung to the dead man’s shirt and blood spilled freely down his body from the gaping hole in his head, creating a growing puddle at his feet.

“Who knows Hart?” Schwarz asked the remaining two prisoners, using the CIA case officer’s pseudonym. “Come on, who knows Hart? I hope to Christ it wasn’t this guy.” The Able Team commando gestured toward the corpse.

Gonzales turned his head. “Bellicose Dawn,” he muttered. He felt exhausted, dried out like a piece of fruit turned to leather in the sun. “Hart wanted to know about Bellicose Dawn.”

“Let’s get you out of here,” Schwarz said.

While Lyons gave Blancanales a shot to help him manage the overwhelming pain, Schwarz began undoing the manacles locked around Gonzales’s wrists. The informant sagged onto his feet, fighting back tears of relief. He stripped off his sweat-and blood-soaked shirt and tucked it into his pants to cover himself. He felt a sudden urge to spit on the bodies of Lagos and the unconscious Marta, but restrained himself. A distracted part of his mind cataloged the vivid, ugly scar on Lagos’s throat.

“Don’t get bashful now,” Schwarz warned. “I got a hurt brother, and you’re coming out to help me get one of the stretcher benches attached to my chopper.”

“My family—” Gonzales began.

“Covered,” Schwarz cut him off. “Your boy Hart already arranged that. Now let’s move.”

“What about me!” the last prisoner demanded, his voice frantic.

“Don’t worry. You’ll only be hanging a few more minutes. We’ll call the locals and tell them they have a cleanup on aisle ten. You’ll be fine.”

“You can’t leave me hanging here!” the man cried.

“People judge you by the company you keep, asshole,” Schwarz snapped. “Now shut up or I’ll leave you like your friend. At least he’s quiet.”

The bluff worked and the man fell silent.

In minutes the wounded Blancanales was loaded onto the stretcher and then the Little Bird as Carl Lyons coordinated with Stony Man control on local response and emergency medical treatment for the wounded Able Team operator.

Gonzales was loaded onto the helicopter, and the Little Bird lifted off as the first units of the NOPD were making their way to the scene. The incident would remain an official mystery with its own PR story for the press.

The lid was off Bellicose Dawn.

CHAPTER SIX

Gary Manning used his key card override on the door. The electronic indicator light flashed red, then amber, then green. The automatic lock snapped back with an audible click, and he turned the lever handle. The door swung open under his touch then stopped as the chain caught.

Manning growled like a bear and put his shoulder to the door. The chain popped loose with a sharp sound and the door flew open. Hawkins rushed in, his silenced pistol up and ready.

He used the weight of his body to keep the door to the hotel room open as Encizo rushed into the room hard on his heels. Manning followed.

Phoenix Force stopped and stared.

Her rubber dress pushed up above her thighs, Bellucci straddled the nude al-Shalaan like a cowgirl on her pony. In one hand she held the end of a corded rope fashioned into a choker around the Arab powerbroker’s neck. With her other she used a riding crop to urge the hopping man into continued motion. From the welts and livid red marks on the man’s buttocks the dominatrix had not been shy about using the whip.

With each buck Bellucci hopped, causing her augmented breasts to bounce wildly. Al-Shalaan was barking something as the woman struck him. Phoenix Force’s dynamic entry caused the pair to snap their heads around in shock.

Bellucci screamed as she saw the men rush in. Al-Shalaan threw himself straight to the floor, squeezing his eyes shut against the vision of four sound suppressors bearing down on him.

Manning blinked, stunned by the incredulous imagery before him, then training took over and put his conscious mind in the passenger seat.

“Freeze!” he shouted in French. Then added, “Secure the room.”

Hawkins and Encizo immediately stood and pushed deeper into the suite, methodically clearing the room as James rushed toward the intertwined sex partners under the unwavering cover of Manning’s pistol.

“Don’t shoot!” the woman shrieked in terror, using French as Manning had.

“Stay down!” James snapped, and shoved her clear of al-Shalaan.

The featherweight woman tumbled off her partner’s back and slid across the marble tile of the floor. Her riding crop went spinning away. She curled into a terrified ball. James slid his pistol back into its shoulder holster and reached down with his free hand to snatch the loose end of the rope wound around al-Shalaan’s neck.

He jerked the man to his feet, pulled the auto-injector clear and jabbed it into the side of the terrorist facilitator’s neck. A second dose went straight into the man’s bloodstream. James shoved the man against the wall and let him slide to the ground.

“You want to dose the woman?” he asked Manning.

“Clear!” Encizo and Hawkins called in French from deeper inside the room.

“Yeah,” Manning answered.

The Canadian holstered his pistol as Encizo and Hawkins came back into the entranceway. Drawing his auto-injector, he moved toward the cowering prostitute. She tried to scramble away from him, but he was too quick and too strong for her. He pinned her against the bar. Her arm swung desperately, knocking a tumbler of ice and gin to the ground where it exploded into glass shards with a pop like a gunshot.

“I’m sorry, this won’t hurt,” Manning said in French, finding manhandling the woman a distasteful task.

Mission first.

He leaned his weight against her body and applied the auto-injector into the soft, smooth flesh of her neck. The woman’s heart was racing in terror, and the drug affected her almost instantaneously. He lowered her to the floor, avoiding the spilled liquor and broken glass.

Manning rose and surveyed the scene. James was using a tactical folding knife to cut the ropes from around the neck of the unconscious al-Shalaan. Hawkins was quickly shoving the Saudi prince’s attaché case, cell phone and laptop into a black nylon gym bag. Coming across the man’s suit jacket lying on the floor, the Southerner lifted the man’s leather wallet from the inside pocket and threw that in, as well.

Encizo was at the open door, scanning the hallway for witnesses and bystanders while covering the slumped bodies of the guards. He had collected guns from every man and dropped them inside a waist-high ceramic vase set beside the entrance to the room. Manning was satisfied that the operation was unfolding as smoothly as could be expected.

“We’ve picked up our uncle and we’re coming home,” he said into his throat mike.

“Copy,” McCarter and Price echoed.

“Get the wheelchair,” Manning said to Encizo.