Ramrod Intercept. Don PendletonЧитать онлайн книгу.
“It’s open, ‘Agents’ Lemmon and Bocales. Please, enter. Please, fear not.”
Lyons considered going through the door with his Colt Python out so they could get quickly beyond any friendly preamble. He opted to leave the big piece where it was for the moment, until he got a firm read on what was what. He led Blancanales through the door and found himself moving into a sprawling suite fit for a king. Big leather couches. Wet bar, giant-screen TV. Two inches of white carpet, wall to wall. Long black marble conference table. Soft white light fell from the ceiling, framing a handsome face he recognized from the Farm’s intel pac on Jim Lake. As he moved deeper into the suite, he was somewhat curious why a former Air Force colonel would wear his jet-black hair down to his shoulders, like some wanna-be hippie or biker. Go figure how the mind of a traitor, or an insane demon worked, he thought.
He took a measure of the two other men standing off to the side of the desk. One was a Van Gogh–type gunslinger, goatee, but no hair on his head, the face gaunt and weathered, the eyes sunken black pieces of coal. The other guy was a buzz-cut issue like the men he’d gunned down in the alley. The eyes of both men warned Lyons they had itchy trigger fingers.
Lyons took up turf in front of the desk, hauled out his Justice credentials. And Lake gave him that deep chuckle, in his face.
“Please, don’t insult me.”
“How’s that?” Lyons growled.
“Okay, we’ll play it your way for the moment. What can I do for you, Agent Lemmon and Agent Bocales?”
JIM LAKE KNEW a bulldog when he saw one. In fact, wildmen were the only kind he wanted to hire on as security. Guys, yes, who could go through a door loud or quiet, in search of blood and wearing somebody’s guts for a necklace, either way they charged in. No fear, just do it. To even consider losing made a man a loser before the proverbial feces even hit the fan.
The one called Lemmon wasn’t the kind to tap dance or dream of losing. “Here it is, Colonel,” the big guy said, with a contemptuous note dropped on “Colonel.” “Three of your buzz-cut Dirty Harrys were eighty-sixed. They tend to want to shoot people on sight to make their day. They tend to seem to not care if they’re civilian or like us, with the Justice Department, which already dumps you in a world of feces. This is what we know, and this is what we’re going to do. We know you’re running a scam to unload high-tech weapons and technology overseas somewhere. We know you were using your executives and think tankers to draw out the wolves, my guess is so they could be scapegoats when you left Dodge. You’ve gone for broke, and you lost. Now we have two of your employees who want to turn songbird under our care and protection.”
Lake knew what had to be done. He steepled his fingers, rubbed his eyes and blew out a long breath.
“What? Am I boring you assholes?”
“Uh, Agent Lemmon, let me speak frankly, so we can get past all this macho posturing and palavering.”
LYONS SENSED the whole mood change around him. It was as if a dark veil had dropped over Mr. Chuckles, some rage clamped down on before then, churning over now, building heat, the pot of his black soul simmering. Van Gogh and Buzz-cut Issue had to have been clued in to the sudden shift in Lake’s demeanor, and Lyons read the squaring of the shoulders for what it meant.
It was set to blow, loud and hot. It was going to get messy, and the mere fact Lake was prepared to go for it told Lyons the guy had backup somewhere, ready to bolt town to pick up the pace on whatever his dark agenda.
“Well, Agent Lemmon, I guess there’s not much left to say, except I can’t recall the last time I saw a G-man walking around in rubber-soled combat boots. I didn’t know government issues, the official kind, trooped around with compact submachine guns in special swivel rigging beneath oversize windbreakers. To answer your suspicions, yes, I have a deal, a major deal in the works that could change the entire destiny of the world. Yes, my employees were nothing more than human chess pieces to be moved around at my wish, to take the fall, as you put it, while I fly off into the sunset. You know what my problem is—”
“I’m not your shrink, Colonel. I didn’t come here to listen to how you were an abused child and all you need is a little love.”
The big chuckle again. “My problem is I don’t like wrinkles in my plans, large or small. My problem is, when I don’t get my way or what I want, I become extremely agitated.”
And Lyons was already searching out some immediate cover, aware he and Pol were caught in the coming cross fire. It was something in Lake’s look and voice, a new darkness sinking to still lower depths, that warned Lyons to make a scramble to save his skin.
The Able Team leader was in the air, flying over a couch as the Uzi appeared, like some sorcerer’s trick, in Lake’s hands.
CHAPTER SIX
The Uzi subgun was out and flaming 9 mm parabellum rounds before either Blancanales or Lyons could free his own hardware. Lake beat them to the punch. Instead of standing his ground in some grandstand suicide play, pulling iron and blasting back at the face of death where he stood his ground, he opted to take a running dive over the conference table. The sprint and flight stole him a few precious moments. Only pistols were barking now, chiming in the deafening symphony of weapons fire, hot lead scorching the air, seeking out his scalp like angry hornets.
“You’re fucking with the wrong air commandos, ladies!”
Lake, bellowing like some fire-and-brimstone preacher hungover on Sunday morning, the long-haired crazy man pounding out the lead, marking his turf behind the desk, defying to be shot. Blancanales skidded off the table, hot slipstreams of lead tearing past his scalp, tugging at his shoulders. On the way down he unleathered both the Beretta 92-F and the stubby Ingram machine pistol, and got busy dishing it back before all was lost. A shaved head with goatee came shooting around the corner of the table when Blancanales cut loose with a double burst. The Van Gogh shooter was capping off rounds from his own Beretta when Blancanales was rewarded by a scream of pain. Van Gogh lurched back, out of sight, grabbing at the red smear on his upper thigh, cursing up a storm.
“If you’re Feds, I’m the prince of darkness!”
The way the madman was pumping out the lead, screaming in berserker fury, Blancanales didn’t find the statement a stretch.
Lake was stone-cold insane.
A swivel chair was absorbing a flurry of 9 mm rounds when he popped up, and let it once more rip with twin lead barrages. It was luck, more than skill, winging the rounds out when he tagged the buzz-cut gunner, sent him crashing down on Lake’s desk, bleeding and flopping all over polished teakwood surface like some giant gutted salmon.
“Nice shot, son!”
And Lake seemed to slap home a fresh clip in a nanosecond, not missing a beat.
“You want the best, you’ve got the best! The hottest Colonel in the land. Jim Lake!”
THE GUY WAS hung out there but good, off in some land of insanity that even caused Lyons to balk for a full second or two. He was shooting up his own office, which told Lyons he didn’t plan on coming back here. Whatever Lake’s personal vision of greener pastures, Lyons didn’t intend to let it become reality.
Not on his watch.
Not this night.
The mini-Uzi and Colt Python out, Lyons skirted on a hunch away from the tracking line of autofire that was eating up the couch, a storm of insatiable lead locusts buzzing in his ears. He came up, just in time to find Blancanales nailing the buzz-cut gunner and cut free with hand cannon and subgun to give his friend a much needed helping hand. The mini-Uzi hosed the desk, but Lake was already ducking, the curtained window behind him, drawn to block out some bird’s eye view of the city skyline, taking a few hits. It fluttered a little as holes were punched through the window to let some traffic noise filter in from far below.
On his two o’clock Lyons