Shadow War. Don Pendleton

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СКАЧАТЬ setup was knocked clear of its moorings and crashed to the floor, plunging the room into heavy shadow as a single brilliant lamp, now facedown, continued to burn. Men shouted in pain and confusion and anger as the front door of the building was smashed open.

      Gadgets Schwarz thrust the barrel of his Steyr AUG through the smashed window glass and saw a dark shape pulling itself up off the floor, a long weapon in its hands. Schwarz squeezed the trigger and put a 5.56 mm round into the figure, then fired three more.

      The figure went down and Schwarz pivoted smoothly, spotting a cluster of shapes directly behind the tangled mess of the halogen lights. He held back on his trigger and snapped the shortened barrel in a tight Z-pattern, burning a short burst into the crowd. Bodies hit the floor.

      Carl Lyons entered through the warehouse door, his Atchisson autoshotgun testing the strength of his thick arms. The selective fire assault shotgun was fed with a 20-round drum magazine attachment and Lyons kept it tucked in close against his body, firing from the hip in such tight quarters.

      He saw a balaclava hardman jump to his feet directly in front of the door, an old-fashioned Ingram MAC-10 in the grip of a fist covered by black, fingerless gloves. A sound suppressor as long as the weapon itself preceded the weapon like a black wand.

      The Atchisson boomed in Lyons’s grip. The weapon recoiled smoothly into the ex-LAPD officer’s hip. The 12-gauge fléchette round discharged into the Zetas’s upturned face from a distance of less than three feet.

      The tiny steel darts ripped through the flesh on the right side of the ex-commando’s face and drove mercilessly into the man’s skull. The back of the Mexican drug soldier’s head erupted, and the man’s body followed the momentum of his pulverized skull.

      As blood spilled out of the ruined body, Lyons moved into the room. Behind him, Blancanales peeled off to the right, the H&K submachine gun up and ready in his hands.

      Able Team moved in a tight configuration, a well-rehearsed ballet of trajectories and overlapping fields of fire. No motion was wasted as Schwarz anchored one section of the fire triangle and Blancanales another, letting Lyons and his autoshotgun move up the middle.

      Blancanales tucked the folding stock of his submachine gun tight into his shoulder, the sound of Lyons’s booming shotgun ringing in his ears. He saw the silhouette of a man holding a Kalashnikov and cut loose, a burst of rounds striking the gunner high between the shoulder blades and punching through his neck.

      The narco-soldier tumbled, and, in the light of the single halogen lamp burning facedown on the warehouse floor, Blancanales saw three men hanging from chains. A man he instantly recognized as Humberto Lagos pulled a Beretta 92-F pistol from a shoulder holster and put it to the temple of one of the bound prisoners. The Able Team commando snapped the sights of his submachine over the man’s head and his finger tightened on the smooth metal curve of his trigger.

      A slight figure stumbled out of his periphery, coming between him and Lagos. To his surprise Blancanales saw that it was the young woman from the car. He leaped forward and grasped the noncombatant by the arm, still holding his weapon up in his hand. He caught a flash of beautiful brown eyes as he held the woman close. His stomach clenched as he saw the hanging prisoner jerk like a fish on the line as Lagos put a bullet through his head.

      The former Mexican commando turned to face Blancanales and the Able Team operator caught a sudden flash of a scar across the man’s neck. It was ugly, the tissue raised so that it looked like a piece of red licorice.

      Blancanales pulled the trigger on his weapon, the 9 mm Parabellum rounds chewing into Lagos like spinning lead buzz saws. The Mexican dropped straight down as his forehead was brutally cracked open.

      Blancanales felt the panicked woman squirm in his grip with sudden violence, twisting hard against his hold. He heard her cry out and suddenly he felt an icy burn stab into his stomach. He gasped at the sudden agony and the twisting hellcat broke free from his grip.

      There was a second impact down low and another sudden burst of agonizing fire. He looked down and saw the woman snatch a knife from his lower abdomen. He looked up and she was snarling as she yanked the knife back to stab him again.

      His knees buckled in surprise and he fell to the floor, striking the ground hard on his buttocks. He looked up. The woman rose above him with the knife swept up above her head in both hands.

      Marta screeched and snarled as she slashed downward. Blancanales felt his conscious mind snap like the shutter on a camera. Gone was the young woman in slutty heels and too much makeup. Gone was blazing pain low in his gut. Gone was the booming of Lyons’s shotgun or the chatter of Schwarz’s assault rifle. Gone were the stumbling, dying Zetas.

      All that remained was threat and response as blackness swarmed up to claim him.

      The H&K MP-5 jumped in his hand as if of its own volition. But even then he couldn’t bring himself to do what needed to be done. The MP-5 jumped as he used it like a blunt instrument, striking the young woman with rapid-fire jabs like a boxer in the ring, first in the kneecap to bring her down, then into the soft curves of her body. Her slight frame shuddered under the impacts and she fell backward as she dropped her knife.

      His guts felt as if scalding salt water had been splashed in them, but his arm was like the lever on an oil derrick and he laid the muzzle upside her jaw with a sound like a branch snapping.

      She tumbled farther backward and fell to her back. Her head made a low, dull sound as it bounced off the floor. The arteries running into the avulsions left by the gun sight spilled her young blood onto the concrete floor, mingling with the puddle already formed by the blood of Lagos’s still-warm corpse. Marta’s eyes rolled back in her head and her jaw hung slack in loose reflex as she was shoved into unconsciousness. Her lover’s eyes remained fixed and open on the scene as Blancanales’s closed into darkness.

       CHAPTER FOUR

       France

      “Yes, Henri,” Monica Bellucci said into the phone. “I’ll have copies of his cell-phone logs to you by the morning. You just get my money.” She hung up the phone.

      Bellucci carefully tapped out a small amount of cocaine from a gold phial onto a little silver spoon she wore on a Gucci chain around her neck. She put the spoon to her nostril and quickly snorted the bump. She heard the lock on the room door unlatch as the key card worked the electronic mechanism.

      She set the phial on the countertop and leisurely turned toward the entryway. She spread her legs slightly on her outrageously high stilettos and the black rubber dress stretched tight across her narrow thighs. She felt the last bump of coke kick in. She was fully engaged in her role.

      The suite door swung open and Nayef al-Shalaan stepped inside the suite. Behind him towered four burly bodyguards in dark suits. In contrast al-Shalaan was short, but his face was set in the harsh lines of a man used to getting his way.

      His mahogany eyes fell to the table and widened in surprise as he saw what was positioned there, sitting in plain view. Bright dots of color appeared on his dusky cheeks as he realized his bodyguards could plainly see the coil of rope. The manacles. The riding crop.

      “Outside,” he snapped.

      Immediately the crew stepped back, their faces impeccably passive. Al-Shalaan slammed the door shut and the lock engaged. His eyes rose from the accoutrements and devoured Bellucci. His hunger was naked and exposed, and he drank in the sight of her.

      “You СКАЧАТЬ