LITMIR.BIZ

      R OSARIO B LANCANALES flashed the Justice shield. “Justice Department,” he said. As he informed Albert that the man was under arrest, threatening search and seizure of the computers in the office, he watched the man carefully for his reaction. This was the moment of truth. If he was innocent of any wrongdoing, or perhaps simply a white-collar criminal looking to finance his party with extralegal funds, he would plead ignorance or try to cut a deal. If the World Workers United Party was dirty, however—

      Faster than Blancanales would have thought possible, the slim, well-dressed, middle-aged Albert wrenched open a desk drawer and yanked out a Smith & Wesson .38 snub-nose revolver. Blancanales threw himself backward behind a chair without thinking. The first shot punched a hole in the wall of the office, directly behind the spot where he’d been standing.

      As he fell, Blancanales ripped his Beretta 92-F from its leather shoulder holster. Without aiming, he hosed the front of the desk and the air above it with withering gunfire. He didn’t expect to hit Albert; he only needed to drive the man back to foul any follow-up shots that might be coming.

      A door slammed. Blancanales surged to his feet, the Beretta in a two-handed grip. Albert had fled through a second door in the rear of his office. Before the Able Team commando could give chase, however, he heard gunshots from the outer office, where he’d been kept waiting. These were answered by the boom of what could only be Lyons’s Python, something he’d heard countless times before. Too experienced to freeze up with indecision, Blancanales rushed forward, trusting his teammates to take care of their part of the operation. He pushed through the rear door, going low and fast, waiting for more gunshots. They did not come. His earbud was producing noises, but he ignored it for a moment, focusing on the immediate threat that Albert presented.

      A fire door slammed. Blancanales hustled down the narrow corridor in which he found himself, the Beretta leading the way. He hit the crash bar on the fire door and plunged through.

      “Pol!” Lyons voice came in his ear again. “Come in, damn it!”

      “Albert has gone out the back,” he responded. “I’m in pursuit.”

      “Two down in at the front door,” Lyons barked. “The secretary’s screaming her head off, but she’s not hit and she’s not a hostile.”

      “Understood,” Blancanales said. He rounded the corner at the rear of the building, taking it wide, “cutting the pie” to give him an angle for a return shot if Albert was waiting. A car door slammed and an engine churned to life. Blancanales stuck his head out of the alleyway and saw Albert starting a late-model Taurus.

      “Ironman!” he said. “He’s coming your way, out the front! Maroon Taurus!”

      “On it!” Lyons responded.

      Blancanales took aim and pumped the remainder of his Beretta’s clip into the rear of the Taurus. The car was already putting distance between them; his 9 mm rounds having no noticeable effect. Then the black Suburban bearing Lyons and Schwarz was roaring up to him, barely stopping. Blancanales threw himself into the back of the vehicle, narrowly avoiding catching his leg in the door as momentum slammed it shut.

      Schwarz was already on his wireless phone, calling the Farm to arrange for a clean-up team to run interference with local authorities—and see to the bodies. Lyons drove with a white-knuckled grip, pursuing the Taurus through heavy traffic. The reinforced truck howled on its extra-heavy-duty tires. Blancanales imagined he could hear the overpowered engine sucking in gasoline as the armored SUV roared in response to Lyons’s foot on the accelerator. Schwarz was forced to hang on to the overhead handle to keep from sliding back and forth in his seat as the Suburban weaved and dodged. Blancanales smiled grimly and held on to the back seat.

      “What happened in there?” Lyons asked, his eyes never leaving the traffic in front of them.

      “You heard him,” Blancanales said. “I played the Justice card and he froze. When I talked about seizing and searching his computers, he went for the hardware. Who were the other two?”

      “Security, I guess,” Lyons grunted. “Moved on us the second your boy opened fire. Must have made our stakeout. They were too quick to come at us, otherwise.”

      “So they were already waiting for trouble,” Schwarz mused.

      “But why would they just open fire? What’s to be gained?” Lyons asked. “The second we show up they start popping caps. Why?”

      “Whatever the reason, this means Hal’s suspicions were well-grounded,” Blancanales replied.

      “And a big, black Suburban parked on the street isn’t as subtle as we thought it was,” Schwarz said wryly.

      “Gadgets, the clean-up team,” Lyons said, whipping the steering wheel hard left, then right. “They know to secure the computers?”

      “Yes,” Schwarz said. “They’ll search the network and pull the drives for us. That’s if nobody activated some sort of sweep-and-clear doomsday program. We might come back to find their drives have eaten themselves.”

      “Let’s hope not,” Lyons said. He came to a clear stretch of road and tromped the pedal to the floor. The Suburban growled and shot forward with renewed speed. “Got him now,” Lyons said.

      Blancanales craned his neck, looking forward out the windshield from where he sat. The Suburban slowed for a moment and the distance between the two vehicles increased.

      “Carl—” Schwarz said.

      “Ironman, wait—” Blancanales protested.

      Lyons slammed the pedal to the floor again. The Suburban rocketed forward like a battering ram. The bull bars mounted in front of the grille smashed into the rear of the Taurus, crumpling the trunk as the smaller vehicle shuddered beneath the impact. Lyons never let up, maneuvering the nose of the Suburban until it was scraping the rear quarter of the Taurus.

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