turbo or supercharges. Price tag? Well north of a cool million, my man.”
“Who the hell would drop that kind of money on such a classic supercar and then drive it into this mess?” Blancanales asked.
Schwarz shook his head as the metallic-silver supercar pulled in next to the SUVs and the bat-wing doors rose like something out of a science-fiction movie. “Anyone who’d do this is a bad, bad person. I think we’ll have to kill them all.”
“Suits me,” Lyons answered. “I freakin’ hate Zetas.”
Schwarz let out a low whistle. “Does she look like any Zetas you’ve ever seen?”
A tiny, delicate foot in a wraparound stiletto heel emerged from the darkness of the McLaren F1 and came to rest on the damp gravel. The leg attached to the thousand-dollar shoe seemed to go on for miles. Even in the poor light and across the distance, Able Team could see it was a million-dollar leg.
The young woman emerged from the McLaren F1. A sheer white blouse was knotted below her full breasts just above her red plaid miniskirt. Her hair was raven-wing black and hung in long, loose curls over a heart-shaped face.
“Oh. That’s very Britney Spears,” Schwarz breathed. “Very ‘I’m Not So Innocent.’”
“Please,” Lyons said. “It’s ‘Oops…I Did It Again’ and it’s so 2001 it makes me laugh.”
Blancanales’s head snapped around to stare at the Able Team leader. Schwarz removed his eye from the sniper scope, his mouth hanging open in shock.
“Um, you into pop princesses?” he asked.
“Shut up. She’s been all over the news, that’s all,” Lyons snapped.
Schwarz turned his head toward Blancanales. He could see the stocky Latino preparing a sarcastic riposte and felt his own laughter bubbling up in his throat.
Then the screaming began.
G ONZALES BEGAN to shiver in fear.
Lagos moved between the men hanging from the ceiling like slabs of meat at a slaughterhouse. He lit a cigarette. Beyond the lights the hulking figures of his men were reduced to nondescript shadows.
The man hanging on Gonzales’s left started to mumble a prayer to the Virgin Mary in rapid Spanish. There was the sudden sharp, acrid smell of urine as one of the men let his bladder go. Lagos chuckled and blew out a blue cloud of cigarette smoke.
“The people,” Lagos said, “they don’t understand that what we do is hard work. They think moving product is like being a rock star. You bang models and party all the time. Sometime you have to be like, uh, the Tony Soprano and use your gun. Right?”
Lagos moved around to stand in front of Gonzales. He regarded the hanging prisoner like some insect he’d found crushed on the sole of his shoe. He blew smoke into Gonzales’s face, then reached up with one hand and snatched the informant by the chin. Lagos locked eyes with his prey.
“But we know the truth, don’t we?” Lagos gritted. “We know it is hard goddamn work making our money. And the ladies aren’t the only things we bang, eh?”
From behind Lagos his men chuckled. To the terrified Gonzales it sounded like hyenas regarding a wounded gazelle. He was close enough to Lagos to see the black clogged pores of the man’s nose. There was a tiny residue of white powder around the edge of one of his cavernous nostrils. The man’s eyes blazed as bloodshot as a rabid dog’s. Gonzales squeezed his own eyes shut and tried to turn away. Lagos’s fingers were like steel bands on his face, and they burned his flesh with his intense body heat.
“One of you bitches knows about Bellicose Dawn.” Lagos released Gonzales’s face and stepped back. “None of you should know about my Bellicose Dawn. Before I am finished, the one who knows will tell me what he knows. But since I will kill that person, I don’t expect anyone to volunteer the information. So we were talking about hard work again, right? Getting the one of you to confess will be hard work. Just as keeping my woman happy can be hard work.”
Lagos turned his back on the hanging men and walked past the halogen lamp setup. With his back to the men, his voice rolled across the warehouse away from them, echoed off the thin metal walls then bounced back, ringing evilly in their ears.
“So I…What do the gringos say? Yes. I can kill…I can kill two birds with one bush. Or get two stones in my palm. Something. Fuck it. My woman, she likes to hurt people who’ve disappointed me. For her it is not such hard work.”
Lagos turned and faced the men, now a faceless shadow behind the lights that blinded them.
“It gets her very worked up, if you understand what I mean.” On cue, his thugs laughed. “So I win. I don’t have to do the work. I get my information. My lady is happy. Then she makes me happy. See? Everybody wins, yes?” Lagos paused and his dry chuckle trailed off. “Well, I am guessing not everyone. Not you, eh, bitches?”
From behind Gonzales one of the other two men began to scream.
“L ET’S MOVE IN ,” Lyons said.
He rose off his knee and swept up the 12-gauge shotgun. Behind him Blancanales and Schwarz stood in smooth unison, their weapons sweeping up and tracking toward the danger zone.
In well-practiced motions the team approached its objective. Lyons raced forward several yards, then took cover behind some debris. He brought his drum-fed shotgun up, providing cover as his teammates jogged quickly past him. Twenty yards up, they dropped to their knees behind solid piles of junk and covered Lyon’s bunny-hop motion. Able Team repeated the maneuver three more times before coming to the last bit of cover—an overturned and waterlogged Ford Taurus.
Lyons scanned the area around the building and saw no sentries. He made a V out of his index and middle fingers and gestured toward his eyes, then pointed toward a window on the side of the building.
Immediately, Schwarz rose, Steyr AUG up, and ghosted across the muddy gravel toward the four-pane window. He crouched beneath the opening, then slowly straightened until he was peeking inside. He remained motionless for nearly a minute, soaking in every detail.
From inside, there was the sound of a little gas-powered engine and the screams had turned to shrieks.
“Jesus,” Blancanales muttered. He lifted a finger to the cell attachment in his ear. “Stony Base, Able is about to make entry.”
“Copy,” Price answered, her voice still cool. “Jack, go ahead and bring the Little Bird in over site.”
“Roger,” Grimaldi answered.
From out over the swamp Able Team could suddenly pick up the whir and hum of the Little Bird helicopter. It formed a rhythmic droning punctuated by the shrieks of the torture victims.
From the window Schwarz turned back toward his unit. He held up his hand and spread the fingers. Five. He closed his hand into a fist, then opened it again. Five more. He closed his hand once more then held up three fingers. Thirteen total.
Lyons nodded once, his head moving sharply.
“Let’s roll,” he said.
