The Hostaged Island (3 page)

Mist streaked the Virginia mountains. Defining the eastern ridgelines, the first light of day illuminated the autumn colors of the forest. The valley floor remained in darkness. Carl Lyons ran through bands of shadow and startling brilliance. He pumped his legs as if they were components of an unfeeling machine, disregarding muscle pain and rasping breath. He heard Rosario Blancanales a hundred yards below him on the mountainside. Lyons rounded a bend in the trail, took cover behind a fallen tree, waited.

As Blancanales' running steps approached, Lyons found a fist-sized clod of dirt. He continued to wait. But Blancanales didn't appear. Lyons could hear the rush and flutter of the bird's wings through the air. But he didn't hear Blancanales.

A stick hit the back of his head. Lyons spun and tumbled over. He saw smiling Blancanales squatting uphill from him.

"I thought the race was to the top of the hill." Blancanales stood, stretched. "But if you can't hack it..."

An electronic beep interrupted him. The pagers clipped to their sweatsuit waistbands beeped three times. There was a pause, then three more beeps.

Their grins faded. The morning exercise was over. Three beeps meant no more jokes.

As they sprinted down the trail, they heard overhead the heavy throbbing of a military helicopter.

April Rose met them at the gate to Stony Man Farm. Her blond hair flashed in the morning light.

"Don't go to your quarters, don't bother with anything," she said. "I've put your overnight bags and equipment cases on the helicopter. Here's your mission authorization from Mack..." she passed a tight roll of teletype paper to Blancanales.

"Where are we going?" Lyons asked.

"California. And I tell you, this one's worse than New York. Good luck."

April watched them as they sprinted the last hundred yards across a landing field to the waiting Huey. The chopper's idling rotor blades accelerated to a shriek. The skids left the ground as Lyons and Blancanales leapt in the side door. Gadgets Schwarz, already strapped in, glanced up, grinned in greeting, went back to reading a teletype printout; he wore only a bathrobe and pajama bottoms.

Hal Brognola was unshaved and his hair uncombed. He gave the three members of Able Team their intercom headsets. "Close those side doors, the briefing starts now." Brognola spoke into his headset's microphone. "Pilots, take off your headphones. Don't put them on until we approach the airport.

"Half an hour ago," Brognola began, "two-thirty California time, a motorcycle gang called 'The Outlaws' seized Santa Catalina Island."

"The Outlaws did what?" gasped Lyons.

"Let me continue. There are about seventy, seventy-five of them and as of now they are in control of the island. They have severed all communications to the mainland. They have killed or captured all the law-enforcement officers. Somehow, they took every resident of Avalon hostage. That's about fourteen hundred people, we aren't sure exactly how many. Avalon is a tourist town — there may be as many as a hundred tourists who are spending the weekend there."

Hal Brognola was Able Team's commanding officer, a burly older man answerable by choice to Mack Bolan (a.k.a. Col. John Phoenix) and by duty to the White House. He paused to ensure that his grim news was fully understood by the three men before him.

"The leader of the Outlaws, someone with the name of 'Horse,' called the Governor of California direct, on the Governor's secret hot line. That, in itself, is a significant point. That hot line number is classified. It is known only to the Governor's aides and a few military officials."

Brognola paused to refer to a printout.

"The gang leader made these demands. The release of three of their members now in prison. Twenty million dollars in gold. And a nuclear submarine to deliver the three gang members and the gold. The assumption is that Horse will then force the submarine's crew at gunpoint to transport the gang to some foreign country."

"Has any of this crazy stuff actually been confirmed?" asked the benign Blancanales. "Isn't there any chance it could all be..."

"No chance. It is confirmed. Though officially we're saying it's a prank. A Deputy Sheriff managed to make a shortwave Mayday call. The ships that reported the message have been told it was a loony tune.

"But when a Coast Guard helicopter flew over the town, it was fired on by light and heavy caliber machine guns." Hal sighed.

"The gang leader has threatened to kill ten hostages the next time any ship or aircraft approaches the island. His people control the port's radar station. Anything comes within three miles, he kills ten people.

"He has given the Governor forty-eight hours to deliver the ransom."

Lyons spoke. "How many people have they killed?"

"That's not known. However, he had a captured Deputy Sheriff — apparently the same officer who put out the Mayday — speak to the Governor. As the Governor listened, he heard the officer begin a prayer, then there was a shot."

Lyons closed his eyes for a moment. "That's the Outlaws. That's the way they work. Murder and mutilation," he murmured. "Once, when they were moving in on the East L.A. drug trade, they captured one of our undercover officers. They sent his skin to us in a box. With a cassette tape. They had skinned him alive and recorded the entire procedure.

"And we never got them for that. You know how it is, a case has to be textbook perfect to prosecute."

"The Outlaws' constitutional rights," Brognola commanded, "are hereby suspended..."

"Kayaks!" Gadgets blurted. "We'll take a boat as close as the three-mile limit, then paddle in. Fiberglass or canvas kayaks, with fiberglass paddles, a few inches of plastic foam over the equipment. There won't be any radar bounce off of plastic. And besides, a kayak rides only a few inches above the water. The equipment will actually be below the waterline.

"I was thinking of wind-surfing, but there might not be any wind, so..."

Gadgets' enthusiasm made Lyons grin. He glanced to the others, pointed at Schwarz. "You know, this guy is a wizard. Sometimes I wonder why he isn't a millionaire."

"Government work doesn't pay that good," said Gadgets. "But the benefits are okay. Travel, education, meeting interesting people, a good pension..."

Chances were they'd never collect a pension. Blancanales changed the subject.

"What about the media?"

"It is impossible to keep the press from investigating," Brognola said. "The first reporter who tries to check out the prank story will know something is wrong. We will need to cancel the tourist boat that shuttles back and forth between Los Angeles Harbor and the island. And the Coast Guard will be preventing any private craft from approaching the island. The most we can hope for is a few hours before the questions start. After that... " Brognola shrugged.

"And what happens if we can't break them?" Blancanales continued.

"Ask the Governor."

"That's not going to happen!" Lyons shouted. "I owe those scum from way back. As far as I'm concerned, this is do or die."

Gravity shifted as the helicopter banked. Blue sky filled one side door window. Blancanales glanced down at the concrete runway and parked Air Force jets, to the jet waiting for them. He turned back to Lyons.

"They don't call us unless it's do or die."

Still wearing sweatsuits, Lyons and Blancanales carried their bags into the forward cabin of the Air Force jet that would take them to Los Angeles. A man waited for them at the conference table. Behind him was a stack of aluminum cases in anodized black.

Wide-shouldered, thick-necked, with huge forearms and large hands, his hair clipped to a stubble, this man looked like a Marine Corps drill instructor.

But when he stood to greet them, he first pushed himself up with his arms, then used two forearm-clamp crutches to rise to his full height. His knees locked straight with metallic snaps.

"Andrzej Konzaki," he introduced himself, extending his hand, his right crutch hanging by the forearm clamp.

"Pleased to meet you." Blancanales shook hands with him.

Lyons didn't. "Who are you?"

"You mean, why am I here?" Konzaki smiled. "Is that not correct, Mr. Lyons?"

"Andrzej has clearance," Brognola called. He was struggling up the aisle with one of Gadgets' cases. Gadgets followed with a second case.

Engines shrieked. The jet taxied to take-off position on the runway. Lyons and Gadgets shook hands with Konzaki. They all took seats around the conference table, and strapped themselves in.

"Though we haven't met before," Konzaki told them, "we have worked together. You, Mr. Lyons, spoke with me only a few weeks ago, concerning some very unusual ammunition for a very difficult situation. I am Special Weapons Development, CIA. I viewed the video tapes, and I attended the autopsies of those Puerto Rican terrorists. Did you not think the results remarkable?"

"Yeah. Remarkable."

"And not one of the hostages," Konzaki continued, "suffered wounds from bullets or bullet fragments."

Konzaki eased back into his chair. He opened his attache case. "Before I present the tools for your present mission, let me continue with the briefing, courtesy of some data put together by your Mr. Brognola.

"Here are maps of Santa Catalina Island. Satellite photos. Los Angeles Police Department files on the Outlaws motorcycle gang for the last fifteen years."

The last folder Konzaki distributed to each of the members of Able Team contained a three-inch thick stack of photocopied forms and typewritten pages. Gadgets flipped through the stack he received:

"With this much attention, you'd think the LAPD would have known about the attack on Catalina."

"Don't knock the LAPD," Lyons spoke up, sensitive about his former job. "Five thousand cops for a city of almost four million people. You figure it out."

Brognola flipped through the folder, found a particular section. "Actually, the police were onto it. They have details on the theft of military weapons, the warehousing of civilian weapons and ammunition, and the assembly of all the California Outlaws in the Los Angeles area. They knew something was about to happen."

Konzaki swiveled his chair at that point and opened one of the several cases stacked behind him. He placed a scoped, bolt-action rifle on the conference table.

"This is a Mannlicher SSG in .308 NATO," he announced. "You're familiar with the Starlite scope. You'll notice I have fabricated a mount for the Starlite which will allow the use of the iron sights during the day.

"Here are a hundred 'Accelerator' rounds. With a velocity of over 4000 feet per second, the 'Accelerators' will make long-distance snap shots possible.

"Here are ten rounds like those you used in the New York tower hijacking. They will kill without creating a through-and-through wound. And, as you remember, a head shot is utterly devastating.

"Here are ten rounds with Teflon-coated steel slugs. They will punch through any vehicle. Almost any wall.

"Here are ten tracers. You might use them as incendiary rounds. I have a hundred rounds of hollow points, if you want them. However, this is not a fire fight weapon. Also, the police file reveals that these criminals have stolen considerable numbers of assault rifles chambered in .308 NATO. Rather than carry additional and perhaps unnecessary ammunition, I say capture the stuff."

He opened another case and brought out an odd-looking pistol with a short suppressor mounted on the barrel. "This is a Beretta Model 93R modified for silence. I have attached the suppressor and changed the springs to cycle sub-sonic 9mm cartridges. It fires single shots or three round bursts..."

"What's the cyclic rate?" Gadgets asked, intrigued.

"Practical rate of fire, approximately 110 rounds per minute. This lever folds down for the left hand and the left thumb slips through the extra large trigger guard. With both hands, short range burst accuracy is excellent.

"Here's a holster and gun belt. The pouches have fifteen magazines, each containing fifteen sub-sonic cartridges.

"In case you expend all that ammunition, this pouch contains the pistol's standard springs. I'll show you how to disassemble the pistol and replace the springs. That will allow the use of full velocity ammunition, though it will no longer be silent."

He opened another case. "Here are some standard weapons, with minor modifications. An Ingram in 9mm. And an Uzi. Both throated to feed hollow-points. I have also added flash hiders. Magazines and ammunition for both.

"Here are some small LAAW rockets, one for armor or barricade penetration, two with antipersonnel warheads.

"I also have this box of grenades for you, fragmentation and white phosphorous. And for Mr. Schwarz, radio-triggered detonators in several frequencies."

Lyons grinned. "All right! Christmas comes early. The odds just took a turn in our favor. But tell me..."

A buzzer interrupted him. Brognola went to the door separating the passenger area from the pilot's cabin, unlocked and opened it. A flight officer spoke quietly with him, then handed him a sheet of notes.

"This complicates it," Brognola said, returning to the group. "The Pentagon have six of their theoreticians on the island. Boffins, unarmed. Specialists in lasers, particle beams and atomic fields. You have got to bring those men out, no matter what. Highest national security priority. When we get to L.A., we'll have photos and dossiers waiting for you."

"What are they doing there?" Gadgets asked.

"It says they wanted a quiet place for intensive talks."

"Ha!" Lyons laughed bitterly. He turned to Konzaki. "What I want to know — did you put all this together in an hour? Are you a magician?"

"No." Konzaki spoke with infinite sadness. "I assembled several groups of weapons, each group suitable for different locales in the world, and different circumstances. I am not a magician, nor can I foretell the future, Mr. Lyons. I simply read the newspaper. I knew it would only be a matter of time before these weapons were needed."

Chris Davis lay in the dark, listening to Mrs. Shepard comfort her husband. Mr. Shepard, though battered and bleeding, sometimes doubling over with pain in his gut, had been silent until he slipped into sleep. Then he moaned and cried out. His wife held his head, smoothed his hair, pulled blankets around him.

He startled awake, and stared into the darkness around him. "It's okay," his wife whispered. "We're all right, it was only a nightmare..."

"You mean what I dreamed?" he asked her. "Or what's happening? Kid," he called, and Chris jumped up, "get me a bucket or something so I don't mess up your dad's study."

Mr. Shepard had suggested to the boys that they all sleep in the one room. As the den opened to the patio, their voices or flashlights would not betray them to Outlaws patrolling the street. If the Outlaws fired into the house, then two walls and Mr. Davis' shelves of law books protected them.

And they could watch and listen for movement in the backyard while one of them stood guard in the front room. Chris took a towel and a bowl to Mrs. Shepard, then joined Roger and their friend Jack in the front room.

He saw Jack smoking a joint. "Man! This ain't no party. You could get killed."

"Hey, man," Jack laughed. "This is the best party yet. We're going to kill some bikers. They show up, they die! Bang, bang."

"I told him," Roger said, shaking his head.

"Yeah, well I'm telling him again. Listen to this, jerk. If the bikers out there see that joint or your lighter, they're going to know someone's in here."

"Yeah. Well, okay. I'm going to catch some sleep. Wake me up when you see some targets." He blew smoke at them and returned to the den.

"They don't call him Jack-off for nothing," whispered Chris.

"I wish you hadn't given him that gun," said Roger.

"He's a jerk but he is on our side. We need all the help we can get. I think Mr. Shepard's going to die."

"I thought he only got punched out."

"Nah, he's all broken up inside. He's trying to be cool in front of his wife, but I think he's puking blood. If he can't get to a hospital, he could bleed to death in his guts..."

"Up there! Bikers! At the end of the street." Roger pointed up the block, to where their street ended in a three-way intersection with a cross street.

The bikers went into the house. Chris and Roger watched the lights go on. Shadows crowded one window, the window opened. From it could be seen the entire length of their street.

After the bikers left the house, the lights went out. One of the them pushed a motorcycle deep into the driveway, where it could not be seen from the street. Then the bikers left.

"One of them's stayed in that house," Roger said. "Watching the street."

"I'll get Mr. Shepard." Chris went into the study, and returned with the shaky adult.

"How you feeling, Mr. Shepard?" Roger asked.

"Fantastic." His face was too swollen for a grin. "So what's the problem?"

"That house over there," Roger pointed. "The Outlaws left a man in it to watch the street. They've got us trapped."

"You said you had it worse than this, Mr. Shepard. Were you in Vietnam?" Chris asked.

"I did all my fighting on Wilshire Boulevard and in front of the Pentagon in Washington. The name's Glen..."

"Your wife said you were in the army."

"They drafted me. It was prison or the Airborne. My mom and dad talked me into going, said Vietnam was all over, why not do my duty? Well, I went through basic, advanced infantry training, special weapons school, then they sent me to school to learn Laotian. That was in 1972, and they're teaching me to speak the Laos languages?"

Glen warmed to his story. His wounds had put him in the right mood for it.

"I told the Commandant of Fort Ord that if he tried to ship me out without declaring war, it would be my duty to resist. And the first criminal I'd shoot would be him.

"That was a quick ticket to the stockade, but I didn't go to Laos. They figured I was crazy so I did eighteen months in the psychiatric ward. Drugs, electro-shock, beatings..."

"Huh," Chris puzzled. "So that's why you're so political."

"This man knows the truth. Now let's figure out how to snuff that sniper."

"You can't do anything, Mr. Shepard. You're hurt."

"You want to do it?" Glen Shepard asked bluntly. "Think you can kill a man in cold blood?" The boys didn't answer. "I was trained to defend my country. Right now, my wife and you and the neighborhood people are my country."

Leaning his M-14 rifle against the window ledge, Acidhead dropped a pinch of PCP onto a rolling paper, added some Mexican marijuana, and rolled up. He leaned back into the easy chair and touched a flame to the joint. "Dusted!" he laughed, watching the street through heavily lidded eyes.

Headlights and taillights streaked across the far end of the street; the rumble of motorcycle engines came loud, then faded. A patrol, thought Acidhead. He stared at the trees overhanging the quiet street. Dawn-gray sky showed through the canopy of branches. He took a few more hits of the cheap dust and cheaper marijuana. The pattern of dark branches and graying sky suddenly reversed, the sky a mass of jagged fragments exploding from darkness all of a sudden.

He shook his head to clear his vision. "Can't get too far out there," he mumbled to himself. He ground out the half-smoked joint. "Gotta do some killing."

A wiry man, Acidhead stood less than six feet even in his thick-soled riding boots. He wore his curly hair and beard cut to the same two inch length; hair stuck out straight from his head, giving him a surprised look at all times. His bulging eyes added to the impression.

"Acidhead, this is Horse," the hand radio squawked from the window ledge. "You in position?"

"Wherever I am, I'm here and ready."

"You got much fog there?"

" I can see a block or so."

"You know what to do. Anything that don't wear our colors, kill it."

Watching for movement on the street, Acidhead thought of the people who lived there. Upstanding citizens. Righteous, God-fearing people. Daddy, mommy, the little kiddies. When he cruised the freeways on his bike, they were the people who stared at him like he was some kind of human-shaped shit.

He'd get his chance. All the guys guarding the crowd in the Casino talked about how many teeny-boppers they'd rape. Forget the teeny-boppers, Acidhead thought. When he pulled guard duty, he'd take the real young ones.

Fantasizing, he picked up the half-smoked joint, relit it. He thought of how they'd cry and scream. What would the good people think of that?

Easing himself over the last fence, Glen Shepard dropped to the sidewalk and stayed crouched in a shadow cast by a streetlight. He unslung the short-barreled shotgun, watching the street for bikers.

Wearing his dark slacks, and a black leather jacket and black stocking cap borrowed from the Davis boys, he hoped he looked like an Outlaw. He moved from shadow to shadow until he saw the sniper's window. A lighter flared, the biker's face emerged from the darkness, then was gone as the flame died. But the red point of a cigarette glowed. Glen watched the window for a minute. He saw only the one cigarette, heard no voices.

Calculating the angles, Glen saw how he could cross over the street. The trunk of a large tree on the opposite side blocked a part of the sniper's field of fire. If Glen stayed within that narrow area, he could cross unobserved.

But he was visible from everywhere else. He would have to take his chances. Soon it would be daylight. Then the Outlaws would sweep the neighborhood, searching every house, flushing out the residents.

Crawling to stay beneath the screen of a low hedge, he watched the window. When it disappeared behind the tree trunk, he stood up, stepped over the hedge, walked. He couldn't run. The pain in his gut flared with every step. If he ran, he'd puke again.

Expecting a bullet, he forced himself to swagger, holding the shotgun loosely in one hand. At the far curb, he strolled into the tree's shadow, then dropped flat, and crawled into the driveway of the house. He painfully snaked up the porch steps, praying there was nothing in the darkness to knock over.

A voice broke the stillness. He cringed, pointing the shotgun. It was the hand-radio, holding forth from the window only six feet from him.

"Acidhead! Come in, you there? Wake up!"

"Yeah, I'm awake. What?"

"This is Charlie. You kill anything yet?"

"Nothing to shoot at..."

"You will have in half an hour. Happy hunting, over."

As he listened, Glen slid the last few feet to the window. A window screen leaned against the house. He saw the forestock and barrel of a military rifle sticking out a foot from the window.

So slowly that his thighs shook from the strain, Glen stood up. He shifted the shotgun from his right hand to his left, slipped the Davis family's twelve-inch stainless steel carving knife from his belt. He held it low.

"Hey, Acidhead," Glen Shepard hissed. "You got a smoke?"

"Who's there?"

"The bogeyman. You got a smoke, I'm all out of the good stuff."

Leaning from the window, the biker looked in, both directions, saw Glen. "You gotta be careful, I coulda shot..."

Thrusting upward, Glen jammed the long blade through the biker's throat and up into his brain, pushing through cartilage and bone. The dead man convulsed, snapping the blade off inside his skull. Glen was left with only the handle and four inches of blade.

"Hey, Acidhead, you okay?" Glen asked, speaking loud, testing the environment. "What's with you? Anybody else here? Help me with him, will you?"

But no one answered. Shotgun ahead of him, Glen stepped through the window. In seconds, he stripped the dead man of his Outlaw jacket, his weapons, and the walkie-talkie.

Electric stars sparkled overhead in the domed ceiling of the Avalon Casino Ballroom. Beneath the false heavens, the imprisoned people of Catalina — men, women and children: residents and tourists — waited, agonized. Some tried to sleep on the dance floor. Most sprawled on the floor or paced through the crowd. Numbed and silenced by fear, many stared into space, ignoring the other prisoners around them.

Max Stevens refused to surrender to his fears. Leaving his wife and teenage daughter with a group of friends, he limped through the crowd. He saw crying men, sobbing women, men and women with faces twisted by barely restrained hysteria. Despite the ballroom's humid warmth, he still wore his coat. He searched through the crowd, found men and women who were still calm and thinking. He quizzed each hostage as he spotted them:

"You want to talk about getting out of here?" he asked a young woman.

"How? What are you going to do?"

"I don't know yet, but if we get the chance, we should be ready."

"I'm willing to listen..."

"Not just listen. I want to hear your ideas." Then he moved on to the next person.

"You think we can break out?" he asked a bath-robed man.

"Maybe. Those creeps aren't supermen."

"Tell me when I get back with the others." Max pressed on, always searching for the faces of the acquaintances he trusted.

"Max Stevens! You okay?" One of the island's resident fishermen held him by the shoulders. "I saw them shoving you around."

"I tried to get away."

"That's my man!" The fisherman leaned close. "Think a knife could help us get out of here?" He pulled up his pants leg, revealing a knife handle in his boot.

Max grinned. "They didn't search me, either. Think fourteen rounds of .45 caliber hollow point might open some doors for us? I got my Hardballer and two magazines."

The fisherman's face crinkled into a wide grin. "Might help."

"Don't go anywhere," Max told him. "I'm looking for more recruits."

He found many, but searched for more, crisscrossing the ballroom, looking into the faces of everyone there. Screams and shouts stopped his search. He joined a crowd gathering around a scuffle.

Two Outlaws were beating and kicking a middle-aged man as two others dragged away a pretty teenage girl. A woman lay gasping on the floor, doubled-over, her face bleeding from several blows.

"What's happening there?" Max asked an onlooker.

"Those animals saw a girl they wanted. The girl's mother and father tried to stop them. I wish I hadn't left my gun in the house."

"You want to do something about it?"

"No! Max, no!" His wife Carol had come to the crowd. She jerked him back. Pressing close to him, she clutched at the weapon under his coat. "If you try anything, even if you kill them, kill ten of them, you'll die. You've got Julia and me to think of. No matter what, you'll be killed. They've got machine guns for God's sake!"

Max looked helplessly at the Outlaws. They dragged the shrieking, pleading teenager out of the ballroom. His wife took his face in her hands, made him look at her. "She'll probably live, Max. Don't throw your life away. Someday, she'll forget. If they kill you, I'll never forget."

He listened to his wife, his lips a bloodless line across his face. He looked over at the beaten man and woman. As the bikers walked away, a few onlookers went to the aid of the bloodied couple, covering them with coats, wiping the broken teeth and blood from the man's mouth. Max looked back to his wife:

"What if the next girl they want is Julia?"