Dick Stivers - Kill School

Blancanales nodded. "I'll go."

They looked to Lyons. His eyes expressionless, showing nothing, Lyons glanced at his partners. "Why not? Almost there already."

Gadgets laughed. "What enthusiasm! Not exactly gung-ho on this one, are you?"

"You know what happened last time." Lyons looked out the port to the clouds and green lands of Central America below the jet. "We broke Quesada's gang. We got his address and passed the information to the Feds. And the Feds waited a day and a night before getting a warrant. You don't have to be Sherlock Holmes to figure what goes. That Nazi has friends we know nothing about and couldn't touch if we did. Chances are, we'll deliver him to the Justice Department and he'll be on the next flight back to El Salvador. 'So sorry, he escaped.'"

Lyons turned to his partners. "But we'll get him. We'll do our job. We will do whatever is necessary."

As the Air Force jet descended through clouds, Able Team looked out the ports to the vast flashing mirror of the Lago de Ilopango. Around the lake — actually the flooded crater of an ancient volcano — green fields checkerboarded the lush countryside. The clouds cast patches of darkness on the flatland fields. Brilliant sunlight on forests created scenes of luminescent green. To the southeast, the cones of volcanoes extended to the horizon.

"Wow," Gadgets gasped. "Amazing! What a postcard that would make."

Lieutenant Lizco laughed. "This is the first time you see my country? It is very beautiful. But when you learn the history, the five thousand years of cities and empires and peoples, then you will be very, very amazed."

Lining up on a runway, the jet dropped into a landing approach. The North Americans and the Salvadoran army officer took their seats and buckled their safety belts.

Despite the clouds of the approaching storm, the pilot glided down to a flawless landing. The jet taxied past the brilliant white and glass of the terminal to the white hangars at the far end of the airfield.

Everywhere on the blacktop, jetliners and private jets loaded and offloaded passengers and luggage. Gadgets pointed to the modern terminal.

"Things don't look very desperate. Could've bought a million rifles for the price of that place."

"Japanese money," Lieutenant Lizco told him. "General Romero wanted many tourists to come to our country. He built roads and hotels and the airport. But the people got nothing. And the war came down from the mountains. Now, I think only journalists use the airport. And they do not come to photograph beauty."

"No tourists?" Gadgets asked. "Look at all those tourists back there."

"They are Salvadorans. Returning from Miami and Los Angeles and New York."

Lyons watched a group of teenagers in designer jeans and silk shirts board a Lear jet. "Look at the kid in the tight pants. Doesn't your country have a draft or selective service?"

The lieutenant laughed cynically. "You expect the rich to fight for the privileges the rich enjoy? That is the duty of the poor. As it is in your country, yes?"

"No," Gadgets answered. "In Nam, I had a captain whose family was rich. Had gear from Abercrombie and Fitch in Manhattan. Shared his Chivas Regal with me. He was one brave dude. Lost a leg and eye trying to drag in a wounded grunt."

The Salvadoran apologized. "I am sorry. I should not assume your country is like mine."

"Then again," Gadgets added, "when the Army drafted all the poor kids and started calling in the rich kids, that's when the antiwar movement started. I saw thousands of rich kids on TV marching with NVA flags and posters of Uncle Ho-Ho, proclaiming the People's Republic of Yale."

"Do you know," the lieutenant mused, "that in my country's war, many of the Communist leaders are the sons and daughters of the rich. That is very strange, yes? A class contradiction, as the Marxists say."

The jet turned. Slowing, it eased into the shadowy interior of a hangar. A lurch signaled their arrival as the pilot hit the brakes for the last time. The lieutenant went to the cabin door.

"No more talk of politics," he announced. "I must arrange for our transportation to Morazan. It will take only a few minutes. Then we go."

A ramp clanked against the fuselage, and the door swung open. The lieutenant stepped out. Lyons leaned to Konzaki.

"While we put together our gear," he said, "go delay our friend. I want the Pol to be with him when he makes his calls."

"He's legit, Carl," Konzaki replied. "We checked him out. Excellent record at Fort Benning. We checked him all the way back to his high-school friends."

"You know who he's talking to? Did you check them? Did you check the telephone lines? Did you check..."

"All right, Carl, all right. I'm on my way." Konzaki gripped his aluminum canes and left as quickly as his plastic legs allowed. They heard him call out, "Lieutenant! One moment!"

Lyons leaned to Gadgets. "Got a minimike and a DF? I want that Lizco wired."

Gadgets faked a shocked expression. "But he's our friend! How could you suggest such a thing?"

"Because I don't trust..."

"Anybody," Gadgets finished the statement. He grinned as he took a hand-radio from the inside pocket of his sports coat. "Think I do?"

With a flick of a switch, the voices of Konzaki and Lieutenant Lizco came from the radio. "How exactly will you travel? Should the men change into casual clothes? Or should they wear coats and ties. I'm thinking about checkpoints. Perhaps they should wear their suits to impress the authorities."

Lyons laughed. "Okay. This is what we're going to do. The Wizard has him wired. We're going to listen to what he does and what he says."

Leaving the North American ex-Marine, Lieutenant Lizco jogged from the hangar. Outside, he started to the far end of the airfield, where private planes clustered around other hangars and mechanical shops. He saw a gasoline tanker bumping along a service road. Sprinting a hundred meters, the lieutenant leaped onto the rear bumper and rode to the private planes.

In a row of charter aircraft, he saw the blue-and-white six-passenger Cessna his friend owned. Though Garcia, the owner-pilot, had been a trusted lifelong friend of his father's, the lieutenant had no intention of telling Garcia the identities of the three North American passengers he would carry this morning. As the truck slowed to a stop at a fuel pump, Lieutenant Lizco stepped off.

He jogged through the parked Pipers and Cessnas and Beechcrafts. The middle-aged, pot bellied Garcia stood at his plane supervising the work of a mechanic. Lieutenant Lizco stopped short. He picked up a bit of asphalt from the blacktop and flicked it.

Garcia turned. He recognized the young man. The lieutenant motioned to the rows of planes. Garcia nodded. As the Salvadoran army officer wove through the parked planes, Garcia spoke with the mechanic for a moment before leaving him. He started toward the hangars, then doubled back. He glanced around the airfield before joining the lieutenant in the shadow of a Beechcraft's wing.

"The journalists are here, Guillermo?" Garcia asked.

The lieutenant nodded. "Is there a problem with the plane?"

"Routine work. When do we go?"

"When will the plane be ready?"

"A few minutes. How do we do this?"

"They cannot be seen. If possible, I would not involve you. You risk your life and your family. But there is no other..."

"This is for your father? For Alicia? For Luis and Anna?" Garcia crossed himself as he spoke the names of the "disappeared."

"What is the world without my friends? Without the children who laughed with my children? We must fight the assassins. If these journalists have the balls to expose Quesada and his gang, I would be a coward not to help them. It is an honor to take them to San Miguel. I am not afraid."