LITMIR.BIZ

      T HE BLACK S UBURBAN’S engine roared as Gadgets Schwarz directed the big vehicle through the traffic of suburban Chicago. In the passenger seat, Carl Lyons was on his secure satellite phone, connected to Stony Man Farm.

      “That’s right, Barb,” Lyons was saying. “Mogray Estates, a housing development in suburban Chicago.” He rattled off the address Schwarz had pulled from the phone book in Pinter’s apartment. “We need you to scramble fire and local police out there. Not sure how many we may be dealing with. Could be two or three kids, could be something else. But this Pinter character says it’s happening today, now. Seems he chickened out of the party.” He paused again. “All right, Barb. We’re in transit now. ETA in…Gadgets?”

      “Five minutes,” Schwarz said.

      “Five minutes,” Lyons repeated. “Will do.”

      “What did she say?” Blancanales asked from the rear seat. Behind him, in the cargo area, Pinter was trussed up in plastic riot cuffs, blindfolded and gagged, with ear plugs in his ears. The plugs were held in place by a long strip of silver duct tape that was wound around his head and secured his blindfold. For his part, Pinter had not resisted and seemed resigned to his fate. No doubt he feared he was headed to someplace like Guantanamo. There had been no time to transfer him into appropriate custody for further questioning, so Able Team had simply bundled him up and taken him with them.

      “She said to be careful,” Lyons said as he closed the phone.

      “We going to be careful?” Blancanales asked.

      “Of course not.” Lyons shook his head.

      The entrance to the housing development reminded the big ex-cop of a gated community, except that there was no gate. It was an elaborate arch bearing the name of the development and boasting twin lion statues, their finishes painted to simulate verdigris. Why anyone would believe the statues and the development had been here long enough for the lions to look weathered was a mystery to the Able Team leader, given that the place was so new the lawns were still just dirt. He supposed those types of touches meant something to someone.

      “Pulling up a satellite map of the complex now,” Blancanales said, reading the scrambled feed from Stony Man Farm. “It should be transmitting to your phones, as well.”

      “What’s the play, Ironman?” Gadgets asked.

      “Take us in deeper, toward the center of the complex,” Lyons said, watching the houses and parked minivans speed by. “We’ll split up, head for three points roughly equidistant, then start sweeping clockwise from the perimeter. Sooner or later we’ll find Pinter’s little buddies.”

      “Let’s hope for sooner,” Blancanales said.

      “That’s right.” Lyons nodded. “Otherwise it may be too late. Let’s move.”

      Leaving Pinter trussed up in the SUV, the three Able Team commandos moved out. It was Schwarz who first called in over the earbud transceiver link.

      “Ironman, Pol, I’ve got something,” he said. He relayed the street address, which his teammates could check on the browsers on their secure phones. “Looks like one man, in an attached garage. I can smell gasoline from here.”

      “Move,” Lyons instructed him.

      “Moving,” Schwarz responded. Lyons continued on it. He vaulted a low picket fence and rounded the corner of one of the many very similar houses. Parked out front was a panel van and emerging from it was a scruffy-looking, college-age youth with a gas can in one hand and some kind of electronic device in the other.

      “Oh, shit,” he said.

      “Drop it!” Lyons ordered. The Daewoo USAS-12 came up, its stubby barrel no doubt looking like the mouth of Hell from where the youth stood.

      “Oh, God, man, don’t shoot, don’t shoot—”

      Something, perhaps combat instinct, told Lyons to duck. As he did so, he could almost hear the bullet that burned through the air where his head had been.

      The guy with the gas can never had a chance. His body rebounded against the panel van, leaving a red streak as he slid to the manicured lawn. Lyons was already turning, the Daewoo churning double-aught buck on full auto. The barrage stuck a man dressed in black BDUs and wearing a red bandanna over his face. His knees were chopped out from under him and he dropped his pistol.

      “Don’t move! Don’t move!” Lyons shouted. Over the earbud transceiver, he could hear other gunshots, muffled through the automatic volume cutout the little units incorporated. There was no time to wonder what Schwarz and Pol had gotten into now.

      The gunner was trembling, trying to remove something from inside the pocket of his BDUs. Lyons, ready to shoot again if the man’s hand came out with a weapon, checked his fire when he saw the Seever unit. The man on the ground, broken from the buckshot and clearly in shock as he bled out, did not even seem to notice him. He brought the Seever device to his bandanna-covered face, coughed once, and died. The Seever slipped from his fingers onto the grass.

      Lyons checked the man’s pulse to make sure he was dead, then he went to the kid, finding no sign of life. The gas can was, well, a gas can. The other item was an electronic detonator with a stubby, rubberized wireless antenna. Lyons frowned. He and the rest of the commandos from the Farm were all too familiar with this kind of technology. Such a detonator could be used to set off a bomb by wireless phone, a tactic that had been used extensively with roadside bombs during the U.S. occupation of Iraq. He looked back at the dead, masked gunner, clearly much older than the young man he’d shot—accidentally or intentionally. A few kids with gas cans looking to burn down a housing development was one thing. It was ecoterror, yes, but it did not speak to some greater design. But high-tech wireless detonators, and additional personnel…now that was something else again. Lyons didn’t like it, not one bit, and it was looking more and more like there was no fooling Brognola’s gut.

      “Pol! Gadgets!” Lyons said. “Report!”

      “Two down,” Schwarz reported. “I have firebombs and detonator gear here. If these guys are friends of Pinter’s, there’s an age gap.”

      “Meaning?” Lyons said.

      “Meaning I’m willing to bet the Farm has dossiers on these two,” Schwarz said. “They’re way too old to be idealistic greens out for a night of arson.”

      “I’ve got another youngster here,” Blancanales said. “DOA. I heard the shot, followed it in. Looks like his partner, another of our youth-challenged ecoterrorists, removed him from the equation. I engaged and he’s out of the picture. I have a firebomb here wired to go, and another of those Seever units.”

      “Ditto here,” Lyons said.

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