Ramrod Intercept. Don Pendleton

bouncer wasted money. Just before hitting the far back door, Roswell thought he’d caught the sound of a falling body where the bouncer had stood guard.

      Whoever the big guy was, he had a look about him that warned Roswell they were being tracked by a mad dog who wouldn’t rest until the choice beef was in its mouth. And now he wasn’t only moving with more purpose, but he was also kicking ass and taking names.

      A quick scan of the wide alley, and Roswell nodded toward the garbage Dumpster behind, told Morton, “I’ll get his attention.”

      Roswell needed this nailed down, five seconds ago, then get on his way back to the colonel’s office. A long night of grilling two more of DYSAT’s loudmouths was going to prove a task grim enough. Much wailing and gnashing of teeth was on the menu, on hold for the moment, but the last thing Roswell needed was some armed bulldog chasing them all over Los Angeles, growling and biting at their heels.

      Enough. Time to make a stand.

      Roswell grabbed Caldwell by the scruff of his neck, then jammed the muzzle of his sound-suppressed Beretta against the base of Grogan’s skull. “Both of you. Slow. Turn around. Any squawking, any sudden cute moves, I just as soon shoot you both and leave you for the garbagemen in the morning.”

      THE STINK of sweat and stale sex in his nose, Lyons advanced down the long hallway, tuning out all the moaning and mewing from behind closed doors on the way. Moments ago, he’d spotted his quarry going out the back door. Colt Python leading the march, Lyons made the door, listened to the silence beyond. If they were gone, he could only hope Pol had a visual, Gadgets delivering the tracking presents. If they were waiting…

      Lyons shouldered his way out the door. Two steps beyond and into the alley, he heard, “Hey, over here!”

      It was too easy, and the old saying about something looking too good to be true saved his life. He was lurching back just as the first two or three rounds were barking his way. Lyons had the setup mentally gauged, as slugs tattooed the doorway in a flash of sparking steel. Tweedledee was using the DYSAT playboys as human armor, with Tweedledum down the alley, looking to wrap this up, no fuss.

      Screw it, Lyons thought, crouching, swinging around the big hand cannon. He was lining up Tweedledee’s leg when the howling of men in anguish raked the air. The Beretta was blown out of Tweedledee’s hand in a burst of crimson, then Lyons made out his back-door cavalry.

      Schwarz.

      Maybe it was the sight of watching his comrade in kidnapping going down as his head was cracked open by one well-placed round from Schwarz’s Beretta. But Tweedledum’s head popped over the edge of the garbage Dumpster, eyes bugged, and Lyons pulled the trigger, erasing the picture of confusion forever.

      The playboys were grabbing air, hopping around, snapping out the questions. Lyons was already on his radio, rounding up Blancanales. “Pol, get your ass in the alley.”

      Schwarz was sporting a wry grin, stepping up to the DYSAT executives. “Good thing I was thinking about you.”

      Lyons matched the look as Blancanales roared the van into the alley. “Something just told you your old pal would need a helping hand, huh?”

      “You know, Carl, you ever think about cutting back on the red meat?”

      “WHERE TO?” Blancanales asked as he headed the van west on Sunset.

      “Find Santa Monica Boulevard,” Lyons answered. “That will get us in the general vicinity of Century City. I think it’s time we paid their boss a visit. Assuming he keeps longer work hours than the hired help.”

      Lyons was scrunched up beside Gadgets, and their two songbirds were in back. The plastic cuffs had already been snapped on their wrists, and Lyons read the fear on their expressions as they sat on the floor.

      “Right, you two are in a world of hurt.”

      “Are you cops?”

      “Not exactly. Right now we’re the only thing that stands between a bunch of guys like the ones we left back there in the alley, and your permanent retirement from DYSAT.”

      “You want us to talk about what we know?”

      “You sound like a smart young man.”

      “What’s in it for us?”

      Lyons chuckled. “Now you’re sounding not so smart. All I’m telling you on a deal, is that it depends on what we hear. Bottom line, that’s not my call to make.”

      He was about to unleash the flurry of questions when the phone with its secured line beeped from its hookup on the console. Schwarz fielded the call. Lyons waited, heard Gadgets grunting.

      “Yeah…uh-huh…right…just a second…”

      “It’s Hal,” Schwarz said, his hand over the mouthpiece. “He said we have a green light—sort of.”

      “What the hell’s sort of?”

      “There’s conditions. What do you want me to tell him about our situation?”

      “The truth.”

      THE TRUTH SENT Brognola digging out the packet of antacid tablets. He washed three of them down with coffee, then moved deeper across the Computer Room. Akira Tokaido and Hunt Wethers stopped their cyber sleuthing on pertinent background data on the key DYSAT players long enough to catch the grim update on Able Team.

      “Carl says it was self-defense,” Brognola said. “Schwarz says his guy came in, likewise blasting.”

      “The bad guys know they’re targeted,” Kurtzman said from his workstation. “Maybe that’s good. Now that the opening guns have sounded, the top dogs will get nervous, maybe try and pack up their toys, whatever the latest shipment, and bull ahead.”

      “Or pull up the drawbridge,” Price stated.

      “I don’t think it’s exactly what the President had in mind,” Tokaido put in, “when he alluded to turning up the heat a notch. But we all know Carl can get a little antsy.”

      “Well, antsy or whatever, the heat is on, people,” Brognola said. “The only question is who burns first.”

      “And the DYSAT lab facility in Idaho?” Wethers asked. “Is it still hands off?”

      “For now. Okay, where are we?”

      Brognola checked the large monitor that displayed a tract of the Indian Ocean where the minisub was taking Phoenix Force to the Madagascan shore. Tokaido commented on the visual capacity of the state-of-the-art high-energy X-ray laser tracking beam that was monitoring the minisub and anything else moving in the water from space. Just like an X-ray it outlined the sub, twenty feet below the surface in a hazy gray frame.

      “Two more minutes and they’re out the hatch,” Price announced. “They’re right on schedule.”

      “The problem is that damn Russian satellite,” Brognola groused. “We’re going to be blind soon, and we won’t have another satellite pass over until they’re wheels up in the Spectre.”

      “Five hours before it has to move on,” Kurtzman said. “And we still can’t get any answers from our side or any contacts we have in Moscow why a Russian satellite is up ONI-1’s rear. We’ll have to do this the old-fashioned way. Over the phone.”

      “Hal, I know I’m getting a little ahead of the program,” Wethers said, “but I’ve been poring over the sat imagery of the situation in the Strait of Hormuz. At some point I think we need to address it again. I mean, I have a clear and growing military buildup, far exceeding anything the Iranians have done to date. The key islands in the strait, Larak, Henqin, Sirri, Qeshm and the Greater Tunb Islands…well, they’ve moved in an additional sixteen pieces of antiaircraft hardware, including surface-to-air missiles. Now, one-third of the world’s oil supply is tankered through the Strait of Hormuz. I’m not pushing any panic buttons, but we’re looking at some connection between DYSAT, Sudan, the Iranians