Seismic Surge. Don Pendleton

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      CHAPTER FOUR

      The men of Able Team had bound and separated their two prisoners, isolated from each other by nothing more than a strip of duct tape over eyes and mouths, preventing communication between them. Rather than immediately asking them questions, the three Stony Men preferred to work smart, letting them speculate on their own about their fate.

      Thanks to fingerprinting and analysis of their equipment, the trio were able to gather some useful information on the two gunmen. They got names.

      One was Stephen Baxter, drummed out of the U.S. Army Reserve for selling equipment out the back gate of his base. He then worked as hired muscle for Tonberth Security. There was little surprise to the fact that Tonberth was a contractor for the Jeopardy Corporation. However, the guns and communications were not linked to any purchases made by Tonberth, and Baxter was no longer employed by the company, having been let go for the same reason as his dismissal from the USAR.

      The other gunman was Emmanuel Rosca, a Mexican national, although his fair skin and blue eyes painted a picture of him as someone from a family of pure European blood. Lyons knew this kind of man, especially if he were a violent, gun-toting thug. Able Team had once fought a conglomerate of Latin American racists, the Fascist International, who felt it their birthright, by dint of their European blood, to command those who were descended from the native Central and South American Indians or those who had “sullied” their whiteness by lying down and creating generations of “mud people.”

      The group had considered itself the Reich of the Americas, and Able Team had waged a long, brutal war with this particular breed of bigot.

      It was no surprise to Able Team, then, when Rosca’s background turned up a series of dropped charges of violence or convictions on lesser crimes in Mexico, always avoiding prosecution for hate crimes or terrorist acts. Rosca had been rumored to have been a lieutenant in Los Soldados Blancos, the White Soldiers, but it was nothing that the Mexican authorities could actually pin on him. He’d disappeared about a year ago.

      The correlation of the White Soldiers to Option Omega, a connection established by Stony Man Farm, was only cause for more concern.

      “What’s the approach?” Lyons asked Blancanales.

      Rosario Blancanales had been called the Politician, or Pol for short, because of his way with words and ability to convince people to follow his suggestions, not because he was a liar who slung mud. Blancanales was one of Stony Man’s best interrogators, showing an uncanny skill at delving into someone’s wants and fears and utilizing diplomacy to open doors that even Carl “Ironman” Lyons couldn’t kick down. “I’m going to start with Rosca.”

      Lyons glared at the Mexican bigot as he squirmed, wrists and ankles bound, eyes and mouth sealed off with duct tape, ears rendered numb by headphones pumping white noise.

      “I know,” Blancanales added, reading the enmity that Lyons held for Rosca’s predecessors. Lyons had been captured, tortured and brainwashed by the Fascist International, a month-long ordeal that occurred in the wake of one of his best friends being murdered by those self-same “liberators.” “Carl, I know that this is one group that you wouldn’t mind resorting to killing with a thousand cuts. But we need answers.”

      Lyons nodded. “Don’t worry about me. I don’t want to hurt him. I don’t even feel like executing the bound-up little bitch. Killing helpless prisoners isn’t my way.”

      “I know that,” Blancanales said. He glanced at Rosca. “Though, mind if I let you build up a head of steam before I begin chatting him up?”

      Lyons smirked. “Oh, I don’t need to build up a foul mood. I installed a tap for that years ago.”

      Blancanales chuckled. “I figured as much. Gadgets and I’ve been getting pints off of you for years.”

      “The fear of a psychopath, ready to rock,” Lyons growled. His good humor only added a frenzied mania to his angry appearance.