Dick Stivers - Kill School

"Thank you. I will go make them ready. When your plane is finished, prepare to leave. I will bring them in a car."

He shook Garcia's hand and left. Watching the hangars and work sheds, the lieutenant dodged from plane to plane. No one saw him leave the pilot. At the end of the lines of parked aircraft, he cut across the blacktop to the access road. This time no trucks provided a ride.

Walking along the access road, he glanced at the hangars and trucks he passed. He could not allow anyone to observe him. A junior officer on leave had no reason to meet with North Americans. If a treasury agent or guardia officer or national-guard intelligence operative saw him with the North Americans and somehow identified him, he faced "disappearance" days of torture and mutilation in the basement of a police station, then the dumping of his faceless, sexless, anonymous corpse in a ditch or river, or on the desolate lava wasteland of El Playon.

To join the scattered bones of the thousands of unknown dead… To join his father in the soil of a corrupt and ravaged country.

A light green Dodge sedan cruised slowly toward him. Rifle barrels extended from both rear-door windows. Keeping his hands in the open, the lieutenant continued his stride.

The Dodge slowed to a stop and waited. Mirrored sunglasses watched him, the faces of the four national-police officers impassive as stones. Inside the car, a police dispatcher's voice squawked in competition with the blaring voices and trumpets of a Mexican pop song. The lieutenant attempted to ignore the police.

"Halt."

Lieutenant Lizco waited as the doors flew open. The muzzle of a G-3 jammed into his ribs. He heard clicks as the policeman flicked the rifle's safety on and off. Behind him, another safety clicked off.

"Identification," a police sergeant demanded. He rested his right hand on his holstered .45 automatic and extended his left hand.

Opening his sports coat wide before he reached for his wallet, the lieutenant felt his hand shaking. Not with fear, but with rage.

How many guerrillas had these police created? How many young men and women despised their country and their government because of these… these… The lieutenant did not want to use the word police. While he fought in Morazan, these middle-aged goons threatened and insulted and beat, sometimes raped or murdered the young people of the city.

"He is a lieutenant in the army," the fattest goon told the others. "Why are you here, soldier? The Communists are in the mountains."

"I need a plane to get back to my unit. If the Communists are in the mountains, why are you here?"

The fat sergeant laughed. "Subversives are everywhere. We search for them."

A policeman with a G-3 laughed. "Maybe we find a pretty one."

"Go, soldier."

Restraining himself from speaking again, the lieutenant walked away. His body tensed with the expectation of a bullet in his skull. He forced himself not to look back. When he heard the car doors slam, he allowed himself the luxury of anger, his rage becoming a long monologue of obscenities and curses. He glanced back to the Dodge as it continued to the hangars of the private planes.

"After the Communists, I fight you, pigs!"

Monitoring the minimike, Blancanales translated the threat.

"Is he okay?" Gadgets laughed. He punched Lyons in the shoulder, his karate-hardened fist hitting a deltoid of iron. "I mean, is he okay? He's okay in my book ."

Lyons's eyes narrowed to slits. "Disrespect for police officers indicates subversive tendencies..." Then the ex-LAPD detective laughed also. "All right, enter Lizco's name in The Book of the Cool ."

Able Team had watched the young officer's encounter with the national police from a window in the aircraft hangar. The minimike had transmitted every word to Blancanales, who translated the words of the police, then the obscenities and threats of the lieutenant.

The lieutenant approached the hangar and the steel doors slid open. A North American technician, who Konzaki had told them had embassy security clearance, attached a truck's tow bar to the tail of the Air Force jet. Able Team turned their faces away as the technician pulled the jet from the cool darkness of the hangar.

"But," Lyons continued, "the minimike stays on him. How long is it good for, Wizard?"

"Indefinitely. I can switch it on and off to save the battery."

"Good. We'll go along with this kid. But all the identification we brought from Stony Man — the passports, the credit cards, the media identification — we can't use it."

"Carl, we need that identification to move through the country," Blancanales told his partner.

"That's why we've got the ten grand in cash. We'll buy forged id. Chances are the Agency printed the identification for Stony Man. Which means every Nazi and death squad in the country has it. If we show it to a soldier or cop, they'll take us."

"The Central Intelligence Agency works for the United States," Blancanales countered. "Not the Salvadoran fascists."

"Oh, yeah? Who were those crew-cut types who killed..." Lyons's voice caught with an instant of grief "...who killed Flor?"

"Man, nobody knows about them," Gadgets broke in. "Just because they look Agency doesn't mean they are Agency. Could've been Russians, maybe Albanians. Could've been Martians for all we know."

"Quit the jive," Lyons told him. "I know."

Blancanales stopped their talk. "Here he comes."

The lieutenant stepped through the office door. He glanced to the truck towing the Air Force jet. When he saw no one observing him, he crossed to the North Americans.

"We go to Morazan. The plane waits."

The three Stony warriors took their heavy cases of weapons and gear.

In the truck towing the Air Force jet, the blond, blue-eyed technician watched the three North Americans leave with the Salvadoran. He noted the obvious weight of the cases that the tall, hard-muscled men carried. Then the technician continued with his work. He towed the jet to the fuel station. While the Salvadoran workers refueled the plane, the tow-truck operator went to a telephone.

"This is Scott. They're here."

A Spanish-accented voice questioned him. "You are positive? Describe them."

"They match the photos. The Latin, the blond-haired Anglo, the dark-haired Anglo with the mustache. They arrived with the one without legs. In a jet. No company markings. A Salvo national took them away in a car."

"To where?"

"I don't know. They were very cautious, I couldn't overhear them. I attempted to plant a bug, but they never left their equipment for a second."

"What equipment?"

"Heavy, heavy suitcases. Oversized, long enough for rifles. I couldn't get any other information. They were all watching me."

A laugh came through the phone. "So now we will watch them."

Over the noise of the idling Cessna engine, they heard the small-arms fire. Gadgets went flat in the dust of the airfield. Lieutenant Lizco shouted to Garcia.

"Go! There is fighting!"

"But you? How will you escape?"

"It is already arranged! Go! Now!"

Garcia leaned across the seat and gave the lieutenant and the three "journalists" a salute. Then he jerked the cabin door closed. The engine roared. A sandstorm enveloped the four men as the Cessna pivoted. Bumping across the dirt airfield, the Cessna gained speed and lifted off.

The firing continued, somewhere to the north. Lyons took off his sunglasses and blew dust and grit off the lenses. He scanned the sunlit, forested mountains around them.

"No one's shooting at us," he commented as he stood up. He grabbed his equipment cases. "But things could change. Make distance."

The lieutenant grabbed one of the cases. He pointed to a hillside tangled with dense brush and second-growth pines. "There. I have a car hidden."