Stony Man - Triple Strike Part 5

"Do you need an escort?" Lyons asked.

"Not this time," Katz said. "You and Rosario hold the fort until I get back. I'll call you if I need you."

"We'll be waiting."

Bosnia DRAGAN ASDIK FROWNED as he listened to the reports of the search teams he had sent into the mountains. They had found the sniper's nest where the raiders had turned Naslin's men back, and recovered the three bodies they had left behind. As he had thought, it had been a small force who had ambushed them, not the company-sized unit the Iranians had reported to their leader. But though the one team had found the site, it hadn't been able to track the men from there. It was always difficult to find tracks in rocky terrain, and the enemy was good-the intmder had left no trail.

Another search team reported that it had found what looked like an empty bomb casing with a parachute attached. They said that it looked like some kind of aerial-delivery device and had found a couple of gas canisters along with other debris in the same place. But once again, there were few tracks leading away from the area.

Asdik ordered his men to keep searching and went to find the Iranian major. Like it or not, he would also have to report failure.

CHAPTER EIGHT.

Aviano Air Base, Italy The fake CIA ID immediately got Katzenelenbogen shown into the office of Colonel Ralph Waters, the commander of the U.S. contingent at the air base. But when he demanded that Schwarz be released ASAP, he ran into resistance.

"You have to understand," Waters said soothingly. "This incident occurred at an Italian base, and our host country has its own way of-"

"I don't want to hear any of this 'host country' c.r.a.p, Colonel," Katz cut him off. "The Italians have one of my men, and I want him back ASAP. The 'incident,' as you call it, took place in the U.S. sector of the base, and you should be the one investigating it, not a foreign officer."

"I don't think you understand, Mr. Brown," Wa-ters said with the same tone that he would use to speak to a child. "We have a delicate situation here. Two men, local nationals, were killed, and a third was wounded. We have to get to the bottom of this.

The Italian base commander, Colonel Alazono, and I have-"

Katz leaned over the man's desk. If there was anything he disliked, it was a man who didn't know where his primary loyalties lay. "Is this 'situation' as delicate as your pension status, Colonel?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that I can pick up that phone, call the Oval Office and have your b.u.t.t on the next flight back to the States. Mr. Green is an American under my command, and you have allowed him to be taken into custody by a foreign power. That may not exactly be treason according to the UCMJ, but I don't think that you're going to like having to explain what you have done to a closed-door congressional com-mittee. There are some congressmen who may not appreciate the subtle difference. If you wanted to be a diplomat, you should have joined the State Department not the United States Air Force.

"But," Katz went on, smiling for the first time, "if you want, I can see that you're made a civilian d.a.m.ned quick. Maybe even before you leave here."

That brought Waters to his feet. "You can't come into my office and threaten me like that."

"I just did, Colonel," Katz replied calmly. "What are you going to do about it?" "I'm going to talk to your superiors about this." "If you don't have the President's red-phone num-ber, Colonel, I'll be glad to give it to you," he offered. "I'm sure he would love to talk to you about this matter. Maybe you can explain to him what an American government agent is doing in the hands of a foreign power."

Something about Katz's demeanor warned the colonel that he was in way over his head. He was on the generals list, and the last thing in the world he needed was to have his career shot down in flames over something like this. He liked Alazono, but he knew when to cut his losses. He didn't know who this guy thought he was, but he didn't want to have to find out the hard way.

'Tll see what I can do."

"You'll do better than that, Colonel," Katz warned. "If he's not standing in front of me in fifteen minutes, I suggest that you start packing your bags. Your replacement will send a car to take you to your plane."

"Yes, sir," Colonel Waters responded, surrender-ing completely.

"Good. I'm glad that we understand each other. Also I want a copy of everything you have on the attackers on my desk by the time Green gets back."

"Yes, sir," Waters repeated.

The colonel sat and stared out the window for a minute or two once he was alone again. Words couldn't express the disgust he felt about his having been tapped to command this particular installation. Of all of the a.s.signments he could have gotten, he had to have been given something that had so much political input. d.a.m.n all politicians and double d.a.m.n all spooks.

Reaching out, he picked up the phone to call his friend, Colonel Alazono.

WATERS WAS AS GOOD as his word, and Schwarz was delivered to the Stony Man compound right after Katz returned himself.

"Thanks, guys." Schwarz waved to the two American APs who had driven him back well over the speed limit.

"You did a great job of springing me, Katz," Schwarz said with a grin when Katzenelenbogen met him at the door. "They hadn't even gotten around to using the rubber hoses on me yet, so I want to thank you."

"It was nothing," the former Israeli commando said, grinning. "It felt good to kick a.s.s again. Hal had the President working on getting you out, but I didn't want to have to wait that long."

The courtesies over, Schwarz got down to business. "What do you have on the guys who tried to make the s.n.a.t.c.h?"

"Not much. Two of them were Italian locals who had security clearance for the base workforce. The third one, though, the one you left alive, is a ringer. He's an Iranian commando of some kind."

"It looks like I left the right one alive for a change.' '

"That's one way of looking at it."

"So, what do we do about this?"

"Nothing." Katz shook his head. "We still need to keep a low profile, so we just hang tight and hope it was a one-shot thing. But the next time you guys step outside the fence, go in pairs."

"You got that right."

CARL LYONS DIDN'T LIKE having idle time on his hands, and it was driving him crazy. He didn't mind helping Katzenelenbogen around the command post, but sitting around waiting for something to happen just wasn't his style. He hadn't earned his "Ironman" moniker because of his inertia. He liked to be out there charging hard all the time. On this gig, though, the only ones who were having fun were Bolan and Phoenix Force. But this was a foreign operation, and McCarter's people were the specialists in that arena.

Able Team had been set up to handle domestic situations for Stony Man and usually operated in the States or, at the most, in Latin America. But even with Phoenix Force taking care of the Farm's foreign missions, that didn't mean that Lyons and his teammates weren't up to a little foreign adventure. They were more than able to do it. All they needed was a chance to show their stuff. And as far as Lyons was concerned, the time had come for them to do it. The attempt on Schwarz couldn't be allowed to go un-answered.

When the ex-LAPD cop walked into the CP, Schwarz didn't look any the worse for wear after his short stay in the base slammer. In fact he and Katz were back doing what they had been doing most of the time since they had arrived in Italy-nothing.

It was true that Schwarz was fiddling around with the communications gear making sure that the satellite link was operating, but give him anything with more than three parts and he was content to spend hours messing with it. Katz was doing his thing as the operations wizard, but this far from the action, there was only so much he could do. He could only read through the Farm's latest faxes and look at the satellite photos so many times.

In short, everyone was waiting for something to happen, and Lyons was tired of waiting. He wanted to get out there and kick some a.s.s.

"Have we gotten anything more on those guys who jumped Gadgets?" he asked Katz.

The Israeli shook his head. "The Italians haven't been able to get much more out of the survivor. He keeps giving them the Islamic revolutionary party line. 'Death to the infidels' and all that c.r.a.p."

"Give me five minutes with the b.a.s.t.a.r.d," Lyons growled, "and I'll get him to talk to me."

"I really wish I could," Katz admitted. "Because I don't have any idea of the size of the opposition we're dealing with here. Obviously someone's on to us, and one decent-sized car bomb getting past the Italian air police would be all it would take to put us out of business."

"Well," Lyons said, trying to sound casual, "since there's not a h.e.l.l of a lot going on around this place right now, why don't Pol and I hit the bricks and see what shakes out? We might be able to develop something and save us from another nasty surprise."

"Blanca.n.a.les does speak Italian, doesn't he?" Katz warmed to the suggestion. Like Lyons, he had spent so long in the trenches that he didn't like sitting around, either. But even if his job now kept him in a chair much of the time, that didn't mean that he couldn't get something going. He could use the big ex-cop as his surrogate.

"I think he can get by," Lyons replied. "I'm told that it's a lot like Spanish."

Katz knew that he was falling into what was called "mission creep" in Was.h.i.+ngton, and that he should clear it with Brognola first. But, what the h.e.l.l. The big Fed hadn't specifically said that they couldn't defend themselves. "Wake him up and get him in here.' '

Rosario Blanca.n.a.les, the third man of Able Team, had been taking the night s.h.i.+ft at the CP, so he was sleeping during the day. "What's happening?" he asked when Lyons jostled him awake. "Katz is cutting us loose."

"Good," Blanca.n.a.les said as he sat up and reached for his shoes. "This has been a drag so far, and I can catch up on my sleep later." When Lyons came back with Blanca.n.a.les in tow, Katz was ready for a mission briefing. "We don't have a lot to work with," he began. "But I do have the home addresses of those two Italians Schwarz waxed. Maybe you can canva.s.s their neighborhoods and see if you can come up with their watering holes, their drinking buddies or something like that. For a couple of locals to have been involved with something like this, they would have had to have been in personal contact with Iranian agents somewhere along the line. And this is not the kind of place that you would expect to find too many Muslim immi-grants."

"Won't the local police have done that already?" Blanca.n.a.les asked. Like all of Able Team, he hated trying to work a case after the cops had already gone through and screwed it up.

"Probably," Katz replied. "But if they have, they haven't come up with anything or I would have heard of it. I put the fear of G.o.d into the American base commander, and if he hears something, he'll tell me."

"Even if the Italians have muddied the water," Lyons said, getting to his feet, "it beats the h.e.l.l out of sitting on our b.u.t.ts around here trying not to be a target."

Blanca.n.a.les smiled to see the Ironman come alive again. It was time that they got back to work.

AT FIRST, IT WAS slow going. As Lyons had said, Blanca.n.a.les could get by in Italian, but only slowly and the local dialect was difficult to understand. By the early afternoon, however, they had managed to glean a little information, including the name of the garage the two men had used. Most of the information was useless neighborhood gossip, but the tip about the garage interested Lyons.

As with everything else they did, the Europeans handled automobile maintenance differently than how it was done in southern California. Rather than having a string of gas stations, dealers.h.i.+ps and spe-cialty garages along major streets, the Italians sent their cars to the small neighborhood garages for gas, maintenance, repair and parking. The garages also served as hangouts for the local wastrels, low-grade hoods and other social riffraff. It might be a good place to check out.

Lyons liked the garage a lot more when Blanca.n.a.les drove their rented Lancia past it and saw that it was closed during business hours. Everything else on the block, including the smaller garage on the next corner, was open, so that place should be, too. The fact that it wasn't could be significant if it was being used as a safehouse.

"Pull over," he said. "We need to find someone to talk to about who owns that place."

The small grocery store two doors down looked like a good start. With much hand waving and using several English words, Blanca.n.a.les got the story on the garage. According to the grocer, the garage had been sold to foreigners a year or so ago, and the new owners didn't seem to want much business. He said that they were only in there at night, and they didn't open up when someone honked for service.

The grocer's take on the garage's new owners was enough for Lyons. As soon as they were back in their car, he reached for the cellular phone. "Find a place to stash this thing where we can keep an eye on that place," he said. 'Tll call Katz and let him know where we are."

"How about that comer two blocks down?"

Lyons glanced to the left and saw the alley. "Yeah, pull in there."

PULLING A STAKEOUT in Aviano, Italy, wasn't like keeping an eye on a gang hangout in East L.A. Two guys, particularly two foreigners, sitting in a car were bound to attract unwanted attention. But since nothing was going on, even the local kids had lost interest in them by nightfall.

The two men waited for an hour after dark before making their move. When they did, getting into the building was as simple as picking a lock. When their night goggles showed them that the place was empty, they flicked on their flashlights and started to look around.

"We need Gadgets here," Blanca.n.a.les said when he saw the computer equipment on the table against the back wall.

Lyons handed him the cellular phone. "Call him while I look the place over."

Schwarz answered on the first ring. "What's up?"

"I thought you'd like to know that we found a computer and fax in here," Blanca.n.a.les told him.

"Great. Fire it up and see what's in it."

Blanca.n.a.les booted the system, but when the screen came on, it showed that a pa.s.sword was needed to get in. "It wants a pa.s.sword," he told Schwarz.

"You said there's a fax machine and modem?"

"Yes."

"No sweat," Schwarz replied. "That means they're on-line. Give me the make and model number of the equipment."

Using his flashlight, Blanca.n.a.les read off the names and model numbers of the computer, fax and modem.

"Okay, I got them," Schwarz said. "Now, what's the street address there?"

"It's 109 Via della Rosa."

"Hang on while I get into the web. I'm going to try to find their E-mail address."

A moment later, Schwarz was back on the phone. "Okay, I got their address. Now let me see if I can break their pa.s.sword."

The screen message suddenly changed to a DOS prompt. "I did it," Schwarz said, cackling. "Now we can get to work transferring whatever they have stored in there. Are you ready?"

With Schwarz talking him through it, Blanca.n.a.les sent the entire electronic contents of the computer via modem to Schwarz at the Stony CP.

"Okay," Schwarz said triumphantly. "They have a fast modem, so it came through quickly. I'll be able to read everything they have stored in that thing. Now I need to figure out a way to block their access to the machine without destroying it."

"Why don't we just take it with us?"

"You don't want them to know that we're onto them, do you?"

"Can't you change the security pa.s.sword?"

"I can, but that's too easy to bypa.s.s," Schwarz replied, sounding thoughtful. "I've got another idea. Hang on for a couple of seconds."

Suddenly the screen in front of Blanca.n.a.les filled with numbers that flashed almost too fast for the hu-man eye to see. "This screen's gone crazy," Blanca.n.a.les said. "What did you do to it?"

"I just told the computer to compute pi to a million places. That will keep it busy for several days and we'll be back in the States by the time it gets done, if it ever does. But until it does, it can't work on anything else. Even turning it off won't work because I programmed it to boot to the new program."

"So you've cut off then-communications to Iran?"

"At least on that machine." Schwarz laughed. "They'll have to buy a new computer and modem and go through the setup, and that should buy us enough time to track them down."

"The miracle of modem electronics."

CHAPTER NINE.

Rosario Blanca.n.a.les was shutting down the computer when Carl Lyons suddenly killed his flashlight. "Someone just drove up," he whispered over the corem link.