Splintered Sky. Don Pendleton

and ground them to useless metal splinters under the cover’s ribbing.

      Lyons looked around for Paczesny and saw the balding, bloody-headed man holding his Smith & Wesson.

      â€œHad to go and fuck up everything didn’t you, Blondie?” Paczesny snarled, jabbing the pistol toward Lyons. The faux hostage took in a breath, but Lyons straightened his legs, using the bench he laid on as a launch pad, slamming into the gun-toting fake and knocking them both out the back of the sliding truck. The pair hit the ground, tumbling, MP-40 flying clear of stunned fingers as the second two-and-a-half-ton truck whirled past, missing them by inches.

      Paczesny’s fists rained on the Able Team leader’s neck and shoulders in a futile attempt to dislodge Lyons. Without leverage, the blows were merely annoying, and Lyons whipped his forehead forward, striking the balding man’s nose at the bridge, hard enough to make him see stars under the impact without doing any fatal damage. Lyons needed this man for information. Grabbing Paczesny’s wrist, Lyons twisted. The pop of joints was accompanied by a wail of pain.

      â€œAre there any hostages in the other truck?” Lyons bellowed.

      â€œPiss off!” Paczesny answered.

      Lyons twisted even harder, and he could see the knob of his prisoner’s ulna stretching the skin of his elbow. “Wrong answer. I’ll rip this fucking thing off and feed it to you if you don’t answer.”

      â€œNo. No. I was the only one with them,” Paczesny said.

      â€œHow’d you get the stock burn?” Lyons asked.

      â€œAir Force guard gave me a whack in the head when I pulled a gun on him. My partners burned him down,” Paczesny said.

      Confronted by the balding man’s betrayal, Lyons gave a hard final twist, then punched him in the temple. The blow rendered Paczesny unconscious, and Lyons secured his wrists and ankles with cable ties. “You two get that? No friendlies are on truck two. Free fire!”

      â€œWe’ve got it,” Schwarz answered. “Let me just take care of this.”

      Hundreds of yards away, Schwarz fed another magazine into his DSA-58 tactical carbine and hammered off another burst through a pursuing Suburban. Finally, despite the unstable platform of his own ride and the uneven road, he was able to score a direct hit with the autorifle. Schwarz’s burst struck the enemy driver in the head and exploded his brains. The shotgun rider lunged, grabbing the wheel, but the vehicle fell back without any pressure on the gas.

      Schwarz had an easier time aiming at the stilled SUV full of gunmen, burning off the rest of his 30-round magazine into the cab. One of the enemy raiders was leaning out the window, returning fire with his M-4 carbine, but his efforts were cut off by the Able Team genius’s slashing storm of high-velocity bullets. The vehicle was out of the play.

      â€œOkay, the last of the escorts are done,” Schwarz called. “Wish you were here for this.”

      â€œJust do it,” Lyons growled over the com link.

      Schwarz fed another HEDP round into the M-203’s breech and aimed at the second M36. He pulled the trigger and the 40 mm armor-piercing round hit the grille and detonated. A small gust of flaming gases appeared around the nose of the cargo truck, a display of the impact point as the real light show went on inside of the engine compartment. The shaped charge liquefied the interior cone of copper and turned it into a flaming bullet that shredded the engine block. The twelve-cylinder motor disintegrated into a wave of shrapnel that obliterated the bellies and legs of the driver and the passenger, killing them instantly.

      The vehicle skidded to a halt, kicking up dirt as it slid sideways. Blancanales hit the brakes, and the two Able Team commandos got out of the captured SUV using it as a shield.

      â€œI’ve got movement,” Blancanales announced. He opened fire at a fleeing shadow, but the enemy figure was just too fast. He disappeared into the rough, broken face of a cliff. “Ironman, try to cut him off.”

      â€œYou’re too far down, and I don’t have a shot,” Lyons replied. “More movement at the back of your truck…”

      Blancanales and Schwarz saw three black-clad marauders exit the rear of the truck, their weapons up and spitting fire, but the two Able Team operatives were ready for them. Their rifles vomited hot lead, dumping the hard men into the dirt.

      Blananales returned to looking for the mystery shadow, launching another parachute flare, but the uneven ground had too many shadows, nooks and crannies for a determined fleeing opponent. The fact that he hadn’t returned fire was indicative that their foe was not interested in a fight.

      â€œWe’ll find him,” Schwarz promised. “Whoever set this up has something planned.”

      Blancanales nodded as the parachute flare sputtered and burned out. In moments, it was as cold as the trail looked.

       CHAPTER THREE

       Yuma, Arizona

      The aftermath of the border battle wasn’t the end of Able Team’s business. First, they had to stash Paczesny away in their safehouse. Since Grimaldi had the use of a small airfield that saw only moderate use, Lyons decided to keep him in a broom closet in the hangar that Stony Man Farm had reserved for them. Paczesny glared daggers, his mouth stuffed with a rag that was duct-taped in place. Anchoring the rag partially inside and outside of his mouth would keep him from aspirating the cloth and choking to death on it.

      “We’ll talk to you when we’re rested,” Lyons said. He slapped pieces of duct tape across the prisoner’s eyes and set a pair of headphones on the man’s ears. The other end of the phones was plugged into an MP3 player that ran a twenty-minute loop of a digitally produced, low-pitched squeal. Completely blinded and deafened, the prisoner would be softened up by the time Able Team was ready to interrogate him.

      The trio reported in to the Farm, giving what they knew and learning of a full-court Homeland Security press on investigating the brutal raid.

      “We’ll put you on the roster to join in with the task force,” Barbara Price, Stony Man’s mission controller, told them. “You’ll be Justice Department agents.”

      “Good,” Lyons said. “I’d like to get a quick look at the crime scene.”

      “You’ll get as much as you want once daylight hits,” Price responded. “We’ll see what we’ve got on file about Leon Paczesny and do some forensic financial documentation on him. Whoever paid him to be the inside man at Burgundy Lake will have left a trail.”

      “While Aaron and the gang play CSI Grand Cayman, don’t forget to have them let us in on parallel rocketry developments in the works,” Lyons added.

      “You think this was a ploy to interrupt our ability to develop maneuvering thrusters that could compete with an enemy power?” Price asked.

      “Wouldn’t be the first time we were in on something like this,” Lyons replied. “Does HS have an investigation team going to the border?”

      “To pore over what’s left of the raider team that hit, yeah,” Price answered. “Fortunately, we do have the fingerprints and facials you sent us via digital camera.”

      “Keep working on that. I don’t mind interagency cooperation, but HS tends to trip over its own dick when it comes to actually putting clues together,” Lyons grumbled. “We can toss them a few hints when we’re on the way home from wrecking the perps.”

      “Trust me,” Price said. “You’ll be the first ones to know anything about this.”

      “Good,” Lyons replied. “I’m going to get cleaned up and get some food in me.