Don Pendleton: Unified Action

James shrugged. “There are clashes going on between progovernment and opposition forces. The government is threatening to balkanize, making the whole area highly unstable. There’ve been increased activity of extremist groups in the area. Most especially the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, or IMU, a terror group with direct links to al Qaeda.”

“Those are our boys,” Price said. “We have good intel they’re planning attacks on U.S. government facilities in the region. JSOC has had to shift too many assets south into Pakistan because of increased Taliban activity in the northwest border region there. They asked if we could send you boys to war.”

McCarter sat up. “Straight fights?”

“Is anything you do straight?” Kurtzman asked.

McCarter looked at him. “I’m not quite sure how to take that, mate.” He paused, then lifted an eyebrow. “Are you flirting with me, Bear?”

“Yes. Yes, I am,” Kurtzman said and nodded.

“If we’re done playing eHarmony.com do you think we could get back to the briefing?” Price asked.

“We’re going after bad guys?” James asked.

“Hunter-killer operation, search and destroy,” Price confirmed.

“I’m so happy,” McCarter replied.

Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic

THE SABERLINER BANKED hard as it made its approach.

Out their windows the members of Able Team could see several columns of thick, black smoke roiling up as the city burned. Dominican politics started at the street level and worked its way up. Public housing units and neighborhoods were carved into voting districts, and political workers utilized street gangs and corrupt police to intimidate voters and manipulate precincts.

Democracy in the Dominican Republic, much like ghetto-level law enforcement, was an exercise in violence, bribery and fraudulent activity on such a widespread scale that it was endemic to the nation.

The smooth, well-modulated voice of the pilot broke over the speaker. “I just received permission to land at the executive auxiliary airport,” she informed them. “But I’ve been advised that customs has shut down the gates as a result of the rioting.”

“Damn it,” Lyons muttered. “Nothing can ever be simple.” He paused. “Ever.”

Blancanales turned toward the speaker and addressed the pilot. “How soon can you do a turn-around and be in the air?” he asked.

There was a pause then a slight buzz of feedback as the pilot opened the channel again. “Ten or fifteen minutes,” she replied. “Just long enough for the ground crews to turn the plane around. There are no other planes scheduled ahead of us.” She clicked off then added, voice dry, “We’re apparently the only ‘executives’ stupid enough to land in Santo Domingo in the middle of chaotic civil unrest.”

“I don’t suppose you have, um…contingency items on board?” Schwarz asked.

“We’re not that kind of ride, gentlemen,” she answered. “We get things done by flying under the radar.”

“Ha-ha.” Lyons scowled.

With a bemused expression Hermann Schwarz watched the Saberliner take off. Beside him Blancanales was engaged in a rapid-fire exchange with an airport official while Carl Lyons stood off a short distance, big arms folded over a massive chest, scowl firmly in place.

The Dominican Republic had the feel of a hell zone, Schwarz reflected. He’d seen plenty of Third World trouble spots in his time, first with the military and then with Stony Man. The air was thick with humidity, heavy with equatorial-influenced heat. The smell of smoke from structure fires floated on the air with a greasy, acrid stench that was impossible to mistake.

He could hear the sounds of people rioting just blocks from his location, the dull roar punctuated by shrill staccato of police and emergency vehicle sirens. Occasionally there was the bark of firearms, sometimes even the sharp boom of a gasoline tank going up. The city was still reeling from two hurricanes that had blown ashore this season alone. Political corruption had only delayed and diluted the response. Private aid companies such as UNICEF and the Red Cross had been forced to use UN peacekeepers to deliver food and medicine. Some organizations had even been forced to hire private military companies to ensure delivery to areas deemed too hostile for UN security platoons.

Sometimes the Dominican military helped; sometimes they exacerbated the problems. Likewise with the police, the government bureaucrats and even the street warlords.

Schwarz snorted himself out of his reflection with sardonic cynicism. A flying cockroach the size of a Ping-Pong ball buzzed his head. He turned away and spit onto the concrete.

“Hot,” he said.

Lyons nodded. “Sun’s going down,” the Able Team leader said. Both men were waiting to see if Rosario “Politician” Blancanales would successfully work his special brand of magic on the airport official. If not, things were going to get increasingly difficult. “You make the crew at the gate?” Lyons asked.

Schwarz nodded without turning around. “Sure. Port authority patrolmen. M-16s and maybe a two-way radio.”

The customs force was parked at an employee access gate about fifty yards from where Able Team stood next to an upgraded Quonset hut hangar. Three police officers with a sergeant of the guard had parked a white soft-top Land Rover next to the chain-link gate.

The men ran to a type, tall and whipcord-lean with very dark skin. Their weapons were held casually and their uniforms, loose British-style tan jungle khakis, were reasonably maintained. Just beyond them a long asphalt road ran along a boulder-and-ballast dike across a swampy stretch of land before entering a rundown neighborhood.

Schwarz gestured with his chin toward the urban buildup beyond the garbage-strewed marsh before slapping at a mosquito on his neck. “You wanna take the back road?”

“Seems wise,” Lyons agreed. “We go out the front gate into the shopping district, we’re only going to run into more patrols and checkpoints.”

“Gangs are going to run the neighborhoods. Might be just as bad,” Schwarz pointed out.

“Gangs won’t cause as much trouble in the long run,” Lyons countered. “With the dead bodies and all,” he added.

Schwarz smirked. “Thanks for clearing that up. For a moment I thought you meant they’d be able to trace all the bibles we’d be handing out back to the Farm.”

Lyons ignored him, turned back toward the gate. His eyes narrowed as he sized the men up. “I’d rather bribe ’em,” he admitted.

“The safehouse’ll have operational funds but for now we’re fresh off the plane. We either get out of this gate or we fail. It’s one or the other.”

“Don’t I know,” Lyons said. “I just hope Hal’s contacts will pull through.”

“Maybe if the government wasn’t under siege…” Schwarz trailed off.

“I guess if I don’t like it I can always go back to being a cop.” Lyons turned his head and spit on a beetle longer than his thumb as it scurried by on the concrete. The air was so damp from the humidity he felt as if he was being water boarded.

“Our target is out there,” Schwarz reminded him. “I kinda doubt they’re going to let us just track him down. I got long odds on us getting our ticket out that gate.”

Lyons nodded. He lifted one fist the size of a canned ham and squeezed it with his other hand. The knuckles popped like gunshots. “There’s an American in trouble,” the ex–LAPD detective said. “Bad day to be a Dominican customs cop.”

“Have you seen this place?” Schwarz grunted. “Every day is a bad day for those poor sons of bitches.”

Blancanales nodded, then thanked the minor bureaucrat he was addressing. The man walked away and Blancanales came toward them. He looked jaunty and upbeat as he approached, but that was just the man’s basic personality. Lyons knew before the stocky Puerto Rican said anything that it was a wash.