Cold Snap. Don Pendleton

capable of hammering out bursts of heavy slugs that could knock down a target with authority out to 150 yards, much like the old Tommy guns and M-3 Grease guns of World War II, except in a lighter, more concealable package.

      Out of sight, but not far from reach, was the main weapon Blancanales would employ if things went wrong. It was similar to the M-16 he’d utilized as a Ranger, but the official U.S. Army designation was the Squad Designated Marksman Rifle—SDM-R for short. It was not a compact weapon, complete with the full 20-inch barrel that originally rode on the M-16, which gave Blancanales confidence in its 5.56 mm rifle round. That length gave it an effective range of 660 yards, which the ACOG—advanced combat optical gunsight—on top could easily handle using its 1.5-6x magnification.

      Having reached their destination, Blancanales hung back in the van, this firepower on hand, keeping overwatch for his partners, Hermann Schwarz and Carl Lyons, as they approached the small clubhouse. The two men were Caucasian, Schwarz with tousled brown hair and a thick mustache, Lyons tall, blond and blue-eyed. Even with his skin burned to a deep tan, Lyons was an Aryan’s dream.

      However the men in the clubhouse were members of the Heathens Motorcycle Club, an all-white outlaw gang that stretched from Maryland to New York with more than five hundred members. Blancanales had learned all the facts about the Heathens thanks to Lyons’s nearly obsessive need to study up on their potential opposition.

      The Heathens had formed ties with the White Family, another East Coast gang started within the prison system of Maryland. White Family members released from prison could always find a safe haven at a Heathens clubhouse if they couldn’t reach an appropriate Arrangement compound. The Arrangement was the name chosen by the Maryland “alumnus” of the federal prison system, and where they recruited young, disenfranchised white men and women to the cause of a “strong, free society.”

      That wouldn’t have been a reason to hate them, but the Arrangement wanted a society where all Hispanics were treated as if they weren’t American-born citizens, like Blancanales’s younger siblings or other naturalized citizens such as himself. Yes, he and his family had come to America on a rubber raft, braving a rough, terrible ocean, but they’d immediately gone to the effort of achieving citizenship.

      The Heathens were in a serious conflict with the Khan’s Hispanic biker gang from down the coast, so their allegiance with the Arrangement was their ticket toward armed conflict. The Arrangement benefited, as they were able to cook tons of meth that the Heathens readily distributed. The Heathens also were able to bring in the kind of weaponry the Arrangement could utilize in its war for national “purity.”

      Lyons and Schwarz were each adorned with motion-picture-quality tattoo appliqués on their arms and necks, identifying them as part of the RLR West Coast gang Lyons had blown through on a prior mission—the Reich Low Riders. It was a risky proposition, but the two of them were rough and tumble, and had gone through this ruse before. The presence of the adhesive, skinlike swatches that made them look all inked up, would help. Few in law enforcement would actually attempt to wear prison tats.

      And if things didn’t work out, well, Blancanales was Able Team’s designated marksman and well-equipped for the task.

      But Able Team was there for information, not a body count.

      * * *

      ON POINT, CARL LYONS stank of sweat and gasoline. He was clad in dingy, dirt-ground jeans, scuffed boots and a hole-riddled T-shirt underneath the denim vest that sported his colors and Los Angeles “rocker.”

      Hermann Schwarz had gone for a leather jacket rather than the denim vest. He also had spurs clamped to the heel of one of his boots. The stirrup that connected the spur to the boot was solid steel, as was the bar surrounding the multi-tined star on its axle.

      Lyons knew men who wore spurs. A spin kick with one of those would slice a face in two or rend someone ear to ear. It was the perfect accessory for a biker thug, and Schwarz was adept with kicks. Even as they walked in, more than one set of eyes dropped to the jingling metal on Schwarz’s right boot. Cold recognition flared in their faces.

      One man spoke up as the two Able Team undercover operatives entered. “RLRs? You’re far from home.”

      “Would have thought this a safe harbor,” Lyons returned. He sized up the speaker, well more than six feet in height, with a reddish-blond beard and a scalp that was cleanly shaved, not even stubble on top. Lyons himself was a big man, but this guy had between twenty-five and forty pounds on him, depending on what he was like under his riding gear. Like Lyons, his arms were bare, displaying not only ink that told tales of his life as a biker and in prison, but muscles like knotted oak branches. Leather straps surrounded the man’s wrists and his green eyes glared with suspicion and hatred.

      “Our berths are full, California,” the Heathens leader said. “But you can sit for a drink if you behave.”

      Lyons sneered, looking the bald man over. “Behave?”

      “No crippling, maiming or killing. You’ll get it back proper for every punch in the face,” the biker told him.

      “You guys are no damn fun,” Lyons grumbled.

      The leader laughed. “I’m Crunch.”

      “Irons,” Lyons returned, holding out his hand. The two met halfway, tugging each other close with knuckle-cracking grasps and slapping each other on the shoulder. Conversations and music rose from the tension. “This is Geek.”

      Crunch looked Schwarz over. “Why ‘Geek’?”

      “Take your pick. I like chicken heads and I like radios,” Schwarz answered. “Why do your prospects look so squirrelly?”

      Crunch rolled his eyes. “There’s heat coming down all around this part of the state since that shoot-up in D.C. An’ for some reason, the pigs think one of us might have been involved.”

      “Heat over a buncha seal-humpin’ hippies?” Schwarz asked in his Geek guise.

      Crunch shrugged. “I’d take a piece of that pussy action myself, but cops got smoked, too. Them’s the ones which got the bacon sizzling.”

      Lyons shook his head, as if in agreement with the disgust over such a fuss over the protesters. Of course, being a lawman for most of his adult life left him with a queasy disdain for this smelly asshole Crunch and his slurs against fallen lawmen, especially those who had been gunned down in the performance of their duties.

      Still, he was thankful to Crunch for reminding him that the men around them, despite their “welcoming” demeanor, were nothing less than thugs who had no regard for law or civilization.

      “What brings you two here?” Crunch asked.

      “We’re feeling too naked,” Schwarz answered. “Hoping for something more than pistols. A friend said this is a good place to go.”

      Crunch narrowed his eyes toward Geek. “A friend?”

      “Bones,” Lyons returned. “Heard of him?”

      “He got pinched a while back,” Crunch said. “But he’s got some cred here in the east.”

      Of course Bones has cred here, Lyons thought. I went over his rap sheet specifically in case I needed to infiltrate you animals ever again.

      “How do you know him?” Crunch added as a question.

      “I prospected under him,” Lyons said. “He jumped me in, too.”

      Crunch nodded.

      Lyons had done his homework on this particular thug, having placed him from the files he’d studied in preparation for this infiltration. Crunch had been born Alphonse MacCafferty. The Irish was evident in his beard and the few splotches of freckles that showed through the sleeves of tattoos up and down his arms. Crunch had plenty of tags for assault, but he’d managed to beat drug and arms traffic raps, thanks to Arrangement-supplied lawyers. He’d also been a person of interest in at least four murders, but nothing had stuck to the bald biker.

      The