Don Pendleton - Tower of Terror

"Excellent! Excellent!" he told them.

Luisa laughed. "If the pigs try to get through here, I'm gonna come down and take a look, after it's all over."

"Now the lobby," Zuniga told them. He punched the elevator's up button. "And when you're done there, we'll put together a special surprise for our hostages. For when they escape:"

The doors slid closed. In the privacy of the elevator, he allowed himself a smile. The plan was progressing smoothly. In the first few hours of the siege, they had accomplished all their objectives. They had cut the building's communications. They had placed the explosives and incendiaries. They had captured the corporation's employees. The squad would soon be safe from police attack. The only threat to the plan was the shattering of the radio-detonator when Ana lost her pistol to the man in the jogging suit. But the loss of the detonator would not be a problem. The "escape" of the employees would trigger the charges.

Blood-red water swirled over the white enamel of the sink. Lyons scrubbed the clotted blood of the Vietnamese off his face as he talked with Blancanales in the washroom of the garage.

"She could give us the link between the creeps in the WorldFiCor tower," Lyons argued, "and the main man, the number one creep who set it all up."

"Let the feds pump her full of chemicals," Blancanales countered. "Then we'll go check out her group's apartment. I smell trap all over this."

"Any blood on my back?" Lyons asked, trying to peer over his shoulder into the mirror.

"There's blood all over you," Blancanales said. He dabbed at splotches on Lyons' suitcoat. "The inside of that car looked like a grenade went off. Bet that's the last time they ever think of kidnapping an American."

Lyons held up the broken handcuffs to Blancanales. "What's that say on there?"

"Made in the People's Republic of Vietnam."

"Cheap imitations," Lyons scoffed. "Thing is, there's no way she could have contacted her people — if there are any others. When I walk in there with her, I've got them cold. I'll take an Uzi, a tear-gas grenade, all the standard stuff. She pulls any trash, I'll gas them and blast my way out. I'm on a winning streak today — can't lose!"

Blancanales laughed. "If you say so."

A siren sounded, startling them. Lyons looked into the auto shop area, saw the ambulance with the three Vietnamese pulling away. Le Van Thanh waited with Mr. Taxi and Mr. Smith, liaison agents for the Able Team.

Lyons dried his hands and face with a white shop towel. Then he folded the towel, moistened one corner of it. "For her. She's got blood on her, too."

"So courteous," Blancanales joked. "Next thing you'll be taking her handcuffs off."

"No way. What I figure is that with her group a complete failure, she can't go back to Vietnam. So she wants to cut a deal with us. Hoping she won't go to prison. Makes sense?"

"None of this makes sense."

Lyons and Le Van Thanh went ahead in the taxi. Blancanales followed with Mr. Smith. Even as the afternoon faded, the day's heat intensified. On the sidewalks, girls in gauze dresses and sheer summer tops ignored the smiles and quips of men on apartment steps. Kids sprinted through sprays of water. Ice cream vendors pushed their carts home, all sold out.

Le Van Thanh rode in the back seat of the taxi with Lyons, her hands cuffed in front of her, her ankles cuffed too. After she had managed to wipe the blood from her face, Lyons had found a brush for her. She was a beautiful young woman, but her face was set in an impassive mask. Lyons wondered idly if it was fear or fanaticism. But it didn't really matter to him.

He had Gadgets' bag full of Uzi death. If the Vietnamese woman made one wrong move, he'd empty a magazine through her.

But if she helped him save the lives of the WorldFiCor employees captured in the Tower, he'd go to every office in Washington D.C. to plead her case. And if there was any truth in the story she had told him, that made her an ally against terrorism. Besides, she was pretty and had a dangerously high kick. He'd like to take her to a disco.

The FBI cabbie watched the streets pass, then turned at last into a quiet street of brownstone apartments. They were old apartments with new paint, contemporary windows, security entries. Cadillacs and Porsches and Saabs lined the curbs.

"Good neighborhood," Lyons commented.

"The building with the blue door," she told the FBI cabbie. She turned to Lyons, holding up her cuffed wrists. "How can I go in with these chains?"

"You don't need to go in. Wait here."

"If I don't go in, you must kill the soldier in the apartment. But if I do go in, I can tell him to surrender. Then we will take the files and leave. It will only take two minutes."

Lyons glanced through the taxi's rear window. Smith and Blancanales pulled to the curb behind them.

"Taximan."

"Yes, sir."

"Last-minute conference with my partner," Lyons told him. "Take out your weapon, don't turn your back on her. She makes a move before I get back, kill her." Lyons looked to Le Van Thanh. "You understand?"

"You must think me very foolish. I, a chained foreigner in a strange city, guarded by several men with weapons, should try to escape?"

"So don't."

He glanced to the roofs of the apartment buildings, to the windows of the apartments overlooking the street. He saw no one watching the street. Down the block, an elderly woman walked a poodle.

With the canvas bag's strap over his shoulder, and the Uzi concealed in the bag, Lyons left the taxi cautiously. He'd already made one mistake today. He gripped the Uzi, his finger on the trigger, thumb on the safety. He scanned the roof lines again as he walked back to the other car.

Blancanales had equipment spread out over the back seat, with a newspaper folded out to conceal it all from pedestrians' view. Lyons got in the front seat.

"She says there's a soldier in there. Said if I don't take her in with me, I'll have to shoot it out with the man."

"It's your decision," Blancanales told him.

"Great. Wait till I'm in the building with her, then follow us in. Smith," he turned to the federal agent. "I want you to keep a channel open to your people and the police."

"Backup?" Smith asked.

"Whatever happens will happen too fast for backup. We'll just pull out and leave them to pick up the pieces, explain things to the neighbors. I'm on my way."

On the sidewalk again, he watched for curtains moving, for neighborhood people, for any movement at all. Nothing. Only the distant music of radios, the rush of traffic on the avenue. He got into the taxi.

"All right," Lyons told her. "You and I go in."

He leaned down and unlocked the cuffs on her ankles. She held up her wrists. He shook his head.

"You are one dangerous lady." He stepped out of the taxi, holding the door open for her. Staring straight ahead, she left the taxi, walking quickly to the entry of the apartment house she had pointed out. Lyons watched her long, slim legs flash from the banker-blue of her long skirt. He hadn't noticed the slits at the sides of her skirt before.

That's a good sign , he thought. Fashionable young women don't die for a cause .

Half-running to catch up with her, he took her keys from his pocket, opened the door with his left hand. Fashionable skirt or not, he kept his right hand on the Uzi.

Inside, he saw a rubber doorstop. As Le Van Thanh walked to the elevator, Lyons kicked the doorstop to the threshold, pulled the door closed against it. The door remained open half an inch. It took only a second. Then he went to the elevator, pulled her away as the doors slid open.

"We'll take the stairs."

"But it is four floors up."

"You're healthy, you can do it. You first. Fast!"