Hell Dawn. Don Pendleton

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СКАЧАТЬ Montoya and his group disappeared about six months ago, along with enough guns, ammo and explosives to supply a small army.”

      “Which is precisely what they are,” Schwarz said.

      “According to Mexican intelligence sources, there have been rumors that the group decided to sell its collective skills on the open market,” Kurtzman said.

      “Mercs?” Lyons asked.

      Kurtzman shook his head. “A couple of the group’s foot soldiers have been spotted in the Tri-Border in South America, meeting with a multitude of bad actors, everyone from Chinese triads to al Qaeda. Some of our best people—Delta Force, Navy SEALs—trained these folks in counterterrorism tactics.”

      “And now they’re sharing what they know with terrorists and criminals,” Lyons said. “Beautiful. And this fits with your buddy Gabe how exactly?”

      “Two weeks ago, the lady Gabe killed apparently traveled to Mexico. Puerto Vallarta to be exact. She used her own passport, so she wasn’t necessarily trying to hide her travels. A day or so later, a Mexican intelligence agent shoots a picture of a man named Pedro Vasquez meeting with an American woman in a small beachfront café. Vasquez is sort of their bagman, or business manager, depending on how you want to look at it. Mexican intelligence has been shadowing him for a couple of months, hoping to catch up with the group, but to no avail. He rarely makes direct contact, but instead relies on cloned cell phones that they constantly churn through and hand-delivered messages left at drop-off points.”

      “Old school tradecraft,” Schwarz said. “Smart group.”

      “No e-mails, no single home base. Frankly, they’ve stolen a page from guys like Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein, using primitive communications whenever possible and constantly staying on the run.”

      “What happened to Vasquez?” Schwarz asked.

      Kurtzman shrugged. “Not sure. He’s an attorney in Puerto Vallarta, but he recently came up missing.”

      “Dead?”

      “Possibly. More likely, though, he found a hole to crawl into until things settle down a little bit. The Mexicans had a stroke of luck and found the guy supplying the disposable phones, and he had a list of phone numbers for the phones. They passed this stuff along to the National Security Agency, which is hoping to catch a stray phone call, one they can trace back to the group. Once they do, the Mexican authorities have promised to drop the hammer on these bastards.”

      “What are we?” Lyons said, his face flushing. “Chopped liver? I’d like to be there for that, not babysitting some damn egghead and cleaning up the Agency’s messes.”

      Kurtzman nodded. “Understood, Carl. But we need to look at the bigger picture here. Someone wants to get hold of Gabe for a reason. And, if they do, they’d have something horrible in their grasp. They don’t call this worm Cold Earth for nothing. Imagine multiple meltdowns occurring at once.”

      Lyons held up his hands defensively. “I get it. I get it. I just don’t like sitting on my rump when something needs done, is all.” He displayed one of his snakeskin cowboy boots. “These boots were made for kicking tail, baby.”

      “Nancy Sinatra you’re not, amigo,” Blancanales said, grinning. “Aaron, do we have any of our own people following up on the Mexican lead, just in case things start happening?”

      “We’ve got Phoenix Force on standby. Until we get a little more hard intel, Hal’s decided to leave them in Virginia. We have no idea where these guys might surface, or whether a second crisis might pop up. So he’s trying to conserve resources, as they say in the business world.”

      “That’s a euphemism for cooling your heels,” Lyons said with a smirk. “Good. No sense in us having all the fun. Let’s just hope your boy’s got an eye out for us.”

      CHAPTER TWO

      Where the hell were they?

      Fox peered through the coffee-shop window again for the fourth time in twenty minutes, eyes scouring the streets for some sign of Kurtzman. This was his third day on the run, and he found himself jumping at shadows. He’d arrived in Leadville two days earlier, after hitching a ride from a trucker. He’d been able to get some clothes from a church, and public rest rooms had given him a place to wash, making him look like just another hiker stopping in town for a shave and warm meal. A dull ache in his back and neck reminded him that he’d spent the last couple of nights sleeping on the ground in a meadow behind the local elementary school.

      Setting down his coffee, he reached for the nylon satchel he normally used for carrying his laptop. Unzipping it, he stared at the weapon inside, an Uzi submachine gun. Computer nerds weren’t supposed to know how to use such weapons. But he did, thanks largely to a couple of gang bangers he’d known in his hometown who were given to driving to the country, dropping hits of acid and shredding rabbits and squirrels with well-placed bursts from the Israeli-made subgun. He’d never had the stomach to shoot an animal, but he’d wasted more than one discarded beer can during those trips. So he could shoot straight, if necessary.

      Besides, you didn’t need to be Annie Oakley to shoot yourself in the head. Just the proper motivation. He figured losing a wife, being betrayed by his own government and having every creep in the world chasing him gave a guy all the motivation he needed. A crashing realization of what he was about to do struck him, causing his hands and knees to tremor. He shoved the bag aside, leaving it closed, but not zipped, and lit up a cigarette.

      “Might as well smoke ’em,” he muttered. “You’ll likely be dead in an hour.”

      “Sir?”

      The voice caused him to start. Yanking the cigarette from his mouth, he whipped his head around and found the waitress standing next to his table. Brushing aside her kinky brown hair, she gave him a confused smile.

      “Sir, did you say something?”

      He waved dismissively. “Just yapping to myself,” he said.

      She nodded. “Can I get you something else?”

      He looked at her face, oval-shaped with pale blue eyes, and felt that heavy sensation settle into his chest again. His wife also had had blue eyes. “Just the check.” The uncertainty still in her eyes, she nodded and headed back toward the counter to tally the bill.

      With his left hand, he rubbed his cheeks, now bare because he’d shaved his goatee in an attempt to alter his appearance. Good luck. A man mountain covered in tattoos trying to hide himself by removing a little facial hair, it seemed a vain effort. Like trying to dress up hell with a flower garden.

      Kurtzman’s reply to his e-mail had been brief, but comforting. We’re coming, he’d written. Stay cool. So he’d been doing just that for the last several hours, but he’d yet to see any sign of his old friend.

      Fox had been operating as a computer nomad of sorts over the past few days, using the machines at the local libraries to check his e-mail account and to scan media Web sites for any word of his appearance or of the shootings at the safehouse. As expected, he’d found nothing. He’d checked his e-mail account about an hour ago, looking for any further communications from Kurtzman, but had found nothing.

      The sound of car doors slamming СКАЧАТЬ