smelled exhaust fumes from the cars. In the distance he could hear a radio blaring latino music through cheap loudspeakers. Heavy carpets aired out over balconies. Clotheslines filled the space above the street between buildings, draped with laundry.
On the street women in traditional blouses and skirts hustled by on errands while men in dirty jeans and battered old sandals rode in threes and fours in the open backs of pickup down the narrow avenue. He saw street vendors selling vegetables and cutting meat from hanging carcasses.
The unemployed lounged in little clusters and argued and laughed with animated hand gestures. School-age children kicked grimy soccer balls in the gutter. Rebar struts stuck from the unfinished corners of old buildings.
“Look down, against the wall, across the alley. See him?”
Lyons looked down. He saw what appeared to be a vagrant dressed in filthy Western shirt and pants under a grimy poncho. His beard was patchy, almost mangy, and the man’s overall appearance was completely unkempt. Lyons narrowed his eyes. There were two empty bottles of the potent Bolivian beer called Orso lying empty beside the man who clutched a brown paper bag.
Lyons frowned. “A drunk? In the open?”
“Exactly. Here.” Blancanales handed Lyons a compact pair of Zeiss binoculars. “Check out his right ear under the ball cap.”
Lyons took the offered Zeiss binoculars and zeroed in on the lounging man. A small earpiece was fitted into the man’s ear. Lyons grunted at the wireless communications tech. “Pretty upscale for a gutter drunk. Our boy Juan is being watched. I’m guessing not by Bolivian security, either, considering how the observer’s screwing it up.”
“Probably it’s the Venezuleans doing overwatch on their boy. A secondary security operation,” Schwarz said.
“Hell,” Blancanales snorted. “Pretending to be a drunk, in Bolivia? I think that rules out any first-tier Western operators, as well.”
Lyons narrowed his focus on the glasses. He took in how the man’s hawk nose was more pronounced from having obviously been broken more than once. “You don’t think he’s on to us?” Lyons handed Blancanales back the Zeiss binoculars. “What happens when Juan leaves his apartment? That guy tail him?”
“No.” Schwarz smiled. “Another guy, taller and thinner, tails him in a white Celica. They’re definitely following our good Mr. Juan Hernandez. I followed him following Juan shopping one day. I could have sliced his throat at any time, he was positively asleep, real tunnel vision.” The ex-Green Beret mimed drawing a finger across his neck. “I took some photos instead. Besides, what’s the range on a wireless earpiece like that? Even with the receiver in the bag? We’re clean for bugs in here and he’d be set up differently if he was using a parabolic mic. They must already have a bug in Hernandez’s apartment.”
“I assume you got film on that jackass down there, as well?” Lyons asked.
“Yep.” Blancanales nodded. “Sent it off to Bear. He said he’ll get back to us.”
“We have to know who they are before we roll,” Lyons said. “The Bolivians could have tipped someone or Venezuela could have sent a team hoping to ambush anyone who checks Juan Hernandez out. Whoever they are they’ve just made number one on our list of priorities,” Lyons decided. “What happens at night?” he asked, pensive.
“Third man,” Schwarz answered. “Juan isn’t exactly a playboy. They keep the indigent in place until dark, then they have a nightshift guy, different than the daytime shadow, in a late-model Ford V-8 van. He parks in the alley crawls into the back and pulls the curtain. Must have a sibling transceiver to the one used by our Mr. Bum-by-day down there.”
“He goes first, then,” Lyons said.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Able Team settled in to wait.
Lyons took one of the 9 mm Viper JAWS pistols and kept it on him. He changed into street clothes and a poncho. With his darkly tanned complexion and two-day beard he didn’t stand out awfully, but he knew better than to think he could pull off any complicated subterfuge.
They made strong coffee and took turns behind the PSO-1 scope, watching Juan Hernandez’s apartment. The Venezuelan electronic intelligence specialist was a diligent man. The spook in the alley outside whiled away the time with a patience that Lyons had to admit was professional.
While Schwarz took a watch behind the sniper scope the sat-phone on the card table next to the laptop buzzed. Blancanales picked it up. “Go,” he said.
He listened for a minute and Lyons heard the smile in his voice when he answered. “Nice, Bear, nice.”
While Lyons watched, Blancanales moved to the laptop and nudged the finger-mouse pad to disrupt the screensaver. A rectangle graph showing an incoming download appeared. Once the download was complete, Blancanales said, “Got it. We’ll call as we move forward. Out.”
He hung up the phone and clicked on the download icon. Instantly classified photos with accompanying text appeared on the screen. Lyons came in close and studied the screen.
“Got a match on DEA international files. Cross-hit in Interpol. These guys are cartel mob freelancers,” Lyons read.
“Venezuelans?” Blancanales mused. “We got cocaine cowboys pulling security on a Colombian intel op.”
“Blackmail,” Lyons grunted. “Maybe, anyway. But more likely there’s a power struggle in Chavez’s crews. The army doesn’t trust intel, or intel the army, or something. So one side called in outside players they could trust. They’re here because someone is afraid someone is running Juan Hernandez down. If they were a hit team they’d have taken him out by now.”
“Christo,” Schwarz agreed from behind the rifle. “They’re Colombian. They would have blown up the whole damn building or gone in and chewed him up with a chain saw in front of his family by now if they’d been paid to take him out.”
“So we take them out?” Blancanales asked Lyons.
“We can’t have them at our six o’clock when we go in after Juan,” Lyons said, thoughtful.
“We take them out, then whoever called in the shadow will know we’re in Bolivia and onto Juan,” Schwarz pointed out.
Lyons ticked off his points on his fingers, one by one. “This op is bloody wet already. Subterfuge will only take us so far. Speed and aggression is our key now, just like always. We hit them. We hit Juan. We hit the plane.”
Schwarz and Blancanales nodded.
“So we take ’em out before we interview Juan,” Blancanales stated.
“Yes,” Lyons replied. “But I want to make sure I get every last one of them possible. Not just the point men.”
“Find the nest?” Schwarz said.
“And clean it out,” Lyons finished. “The clock is ticking. We need to interview Juan. We can’t do it with that surveillance and I’m not predisposed to letting Colombian hitmen run around at will if I can have anything to do with it.”
“I heard that,” Schwarz said.
