LITMIR.BIZ

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When he placed his life on the line across dozens of missions with Phoenix Force, it wasn’t just for the sake of one skin or one state over another.

      Like Schwarz, he’d taken a few hits off the pot he’d been given. He’d actually imbibed more than Schwarz had, if only because Hawkins knew that there was far less likelihood of negative health effects off marijuana than methamphetamine. The little that Schwarz had smoked showed on the Able Team genius’s features, the bags under his eyes, the half step slower in his stride, even the sounds of his words. A minor taste of the meth, and staying up all night duplicating the activities of a tweaker, had left Schwarz looking as though he’d been run over by a truck.

      Still, a half step slower for Schwarz was a sight quicker than most other men. Hawkins himself felt a bit more tired, but he was glad he didn’t have a background in meth. Munchies and a lowering of his energy this morning was much better than inhaling a neurotoxin and muscle stimulant.

      He knocked back some coffee, then checked his watch. According to the agenda, there was going to be a sample mall for this convention of crazies. Tables would be stacked with the smaller, man-portable goods and there would be videos for larger items.

      The mall would open in an hour.

      In the meantime, Hawkins, like the other members of his undercover team, had been keeping his eyes peeled for what security was around the place. They could never break character, not certain if there were any spaces not covered by security cameras or hidden microphones. Even if Schwarz could use his electronic skills, there was a good chance that interfering with these observations would only draw far more attention. And so, Lyons continued to act like a grouch.

      Hawkins stayed on script. He had a job to do, and they could wait until this mission was over to mentally and emotionally unwind. In the meantime, he kept his eyes peeled and ears tuned. Finding electronics was one thing. Sizing up the security and their competition was something very different. Hawkins could already tell that plenty of the guards were professionals of various stripes. The guy who came through and had hung out at Lyons’s door, for example, was a Samoan who Hawkins estimated at six foot two inches and 325 pounds. A lot of it looked like fat, but the man moved as if he were easily half that size, with canny, sharp eyes that paid attention like an eagle scanning for prey on a prairie.

      Hawkins observed him through the peephole, having spent more than enough time looking through such fish lenses to have a good sense of what was going on even with the curved distortion of the glass aperture. Measuring the Samoan against Lyons provided a good scale to work with.

      Hawkins announced that he was leaving the hotel room, going to see what was up and about. It might not have been the best of ideas to wander away alone. Sitting and waiting was fine under the auspices of being immobile and observing enemies, but sitting in a hotel room was something completely different. At least outside, he could observe. He could fill his anxious nerves with input.

      Hawkins didn’t intend to engage an opponent, though he did have a pair of small Smith & Wesson M&P 360 revolvers, both in .357 Magnum and loaded with 125-grain semijacketed hollowpoints. Out of the stubby 1.9-inch barrels of the lightweight pistols, the high-velocity slugs reached over 1160 feet per second, bringing 375 foot-pounds of energy on a target. Hawkins didn’t intend to pull out both revolvers at once, just use one as a swift reload for the other. The 360s were made of an alloy stronger than titanium, making the weapons exceedingly light. That lack of weight meant they would recoil even harder against his hand. He’d tried utilizing one of the little revolvers with its as-issued grips, but the gun had smashed into the web of his hand and the ball of his thumb like a torturer’s hammer. Fortunately, changing the grip profile of a revolver was as simple as using a screwdriver.

      The little lightweight twins had Pachmeyer Compacs, which had a vital quarter inch of cushioning, recoil-spreading rubber around the back strap of the revolver. Now it was a blunt thump, not a claw-hammer chop. He could burn off five rapid shots into a target, even with the heaviest loaded rounds. With the stubby .357 Magnums, he could more than defend himself if things came to a head in a conflict, but by their very nature, the revolvers were meant for close, nasty work, though he had trained beside Lyons and Manning to be able to hit a man-size target all the way out to 100 yards. It wasn’t easy, so that was why Hawkins trained hard and often.

      Hawkins returned his attention to the guard force. The Samoan was likely drawn from local resources. The man showed canny situational awareness, as had every other guard on hand. The security force themselves were well equipped.

      Those who carried long arms wore body armor, eye protection and had hearing protection on lanyards dangling from behind their neck. The choice in big guns was between AK-12 assault rifles—some of the newest variants on the classic and proved Kalashnikov line—and Benelli M-4 Super-90 shotguns. Considering that current Russian military issue was still the AN-94, since 1997 in fact, the AKs were not military surplus or “fallen off the truck” to fill the wallets of Russian officers. The Benelli was also standard military issue from the Los Angeles Police Department to the United States military under the classification M-1014.

      Judging by the shape of the magazines, the AK-12s were either 7.62 mm or the 5.45 mm replacement. The guards had their spare magazines in pouches on their body armor, and the pouches were kept shut. Either way, these rifles could lay down long streams of lead at 600 rounds per minute, or put out concentrated tri-bursts at 1000 rounds per minute per pull of the trigger. The Benelli M-4s were equally devastating, chambered for 12-gauge and could hold seven plus one in the chamber. That kind of firepower was meant for keeping the various factions at this auction in line.

      No one in their right mind would want to face down either a blast of buckshot or a swarm of 5.45 mm slugs. Hawkins had been on both ends of these particular weapons, and knew they were both quite reliable and devastating in trained hands.

      The hard men with the body armor also had sidearms on their hips. From the smooth lines of the grips, Hawkins wasn’t quite sure, but they might have been armed with Caracal F service pistols, which were top of the line and current service weapons of the United Arab Emirates and four other Middle Eastern nations. Again, Hawkins could only make out the model, not the caliber, but since he hadn’t seen many in .40 or .357 calibers, he assumed 9 mm, which gave the guards nineteen shots before reloading. In the heavier calibers, there’d still be a full 17 rounds.

      Hawkins looked over the gear of one of the men with a Benelli shotgun. He put on his full-on drawl and approached. “Good mornin’, hoss.”

      The man, a white, looked the undercover Phoenix over. “American?”

      Those words came with a Slavic accent. Hawkins smirked. “Ayup. Texas.”

      “Ah. Cowboy. Pew-pew,” the Russian said. He had a beard, but it was kept trimmed, and split to reveal a bright white smile.

      Hawkins chuckled. “I don’t ride no horse unless it’s made o’ iron.”

      The Russian nodded, looking at the tattoos that sleeved his arms down to the wrist. Instead of being repulsed by the lightning-bolt-shaped SSs that represented the Reich Low Riders of California, the Russian actually smiled even more broadly. He tugged up the cuff of his uniform sleeve and showed off his own neo-Nazi insignia. “Brothers in arm. Literally.”

      Hawkins fought the urge to scowl, instead allowing himself a laugh to echo his newfound friend’s. In the Russian Federation, the horrors inflicted by Nazi Germany had long been forgotten. With the country receiving huge influxes of immigrants, stealing jobs in an already tight employment market, neo-Nazism had surged. This man was one of them, and suddenly found a comrade. Though the biodegradable ink would fade within a few weeks, Hawkins never wanted to hide his bare arms so much before, as if he were displaying diseased flesh.

      “Slap me and call me a groundhog!” Hawkins spoke with a pride and fellowship he didn’t feel in his gut. At least he had a means of sparking a conversation with this guy, and now he could see just what local security was like.

      He noted that the security force was using 9 mm autoloaders and 5.45 mm rifles. He watched Yuri’s eyes widen at the sight of a “high-tech” American Magnum as small as a Makarov. Hawkins

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