The Hostaged Island (6 page)

Lyons stared out at the dry hills rolling west to the Pacific. Steadily, a wide grin grew on his face: "Gentlemen, I have the perfect plan. Simple, straightforward, very effective."

"What's that?" Gadgets asked.

"We kill them all."

Crowning the mountainous interior of Catalina, the Airport in the Sky equalled its name. The engineers who had created this marvel of beauty and utility leveled the peaks of a mountain range to sculpt an artificial plateau high above the island. The airfield viewed the surrounding island, the vast Pacific to the west, the San Pedro Channel to the east, and when the winds blew away the smog of Los Angeles, the hundred miles of coast where the metropolis met the ocean.

Resident commuters, regardless of how often they flew in and out, enjoyed every flight. To the islanders returning from the concrete and glass maze of Los Angeles, the landing field seemed to be a platform floating between the blue-domed heaven of the sky and the primitive paradise of their isolated home. To the uninitiated tourist arriving from the mainland, their flight's descent to the field provided the first thrilling vision of an island wonderland known for its unique natural beauty.

Even those tourists who come to the island by boat often included the Airport in the Sky in their schedule, leaving the island's only town in buses and rented cars and following the winding, back-switching road through canyons and hills to the high airfield.

Able Team followed the same road, but did not continue to the man-made plateau of the airport. They stopped short. After studying their topographical maps of the island, they concealed their commandeered motorcycles and hiked up a steep gorge to the flat mountain crest.

At the top, on their bellies in the dry brush, they saw the Early California-style airport facilities two hundred yards to the north. They scanned the exteriors and the windows and doorways of the buildings with binoculars and the eight-power scope of the Mannlicher sniper rifle.

They saw silhouetted movements within the glass-walled controller's booth in the three-story tower.

"Three bikes outside," Lyons told the others. He raised the Mannlicher slightly. "Only two Outlaws in the tower."

"Outlaw number three," Gadgets said, "is in the chair on the restaurant patio."

Lyons scanned the parking lot, the restaurant, the control tower. "I say we go straight through the front door."

"Second the motion," Blancanales agreed. He chambered a round in the Beretta.

Staying below the edge of the plateau, they followed the contour of the mountain until they were downslope from the parking lot. Staying flat as they crawled up, they peered through the decorative bushes and flowers of the landscaping. Unlike the mountainsides, the restaurant landscaping was watered and tended through all the seasons, and it stayed spring green. The lush growth provided cover.

The sentry, his walkie-talkie on the patio bricks beside him, sat only a hundred feet away. Lyons pointed to himself and Gadgets, then pointed to the airport buildings. He pointed to Blancanales, then pointed to the sentry and pulled an imaginary trigger. Blancanales nodded.

Holding the Beretta in both hands, Blancanales extended the pistol in front of him at arm's length, resting both his elbows and the butt of the pistol on the ground. He sighted on the biker's chest as Lyons and Gadgets pushed up into sprinter's starting stance.

A voice cracked from the walkie-talkie. As Blancanales fired, the sentry leaned down to pick up the hand-radio. The sub-sonic 9mm slug slapped into his jacket sleeve. Forgetting the radio, he looked at the small hole, watched blood run from his arm. Then he saw Lyons and Gadgets charging at him.

He reached through scorching pain for the pistol at his belt, then he jerked back in the chair, a three-round burst punching a pattern into his chest. But he still moved, half rising from the chair as he groped for his pistol with his left hand. A final silent bullet hit him in the forehead. He sat back, his face slack, his three eyes open. The radio squawked again:

"Hey, goofball. Answer the radio. This is Eagle."

Lyons picked up the hand-radio and pressed the talk button. "Yeah?"

Gadgets pressed himself against the restaurant's stucco wall, looked for Lyons, saw him listening to the hand-radio as he rearranged the dead biker's body. He was positioning the dead man to look like he had fallen asleep, his face resting on his shoulder.

"I want you down where you can watch that road, you hear me?" the radio voice continued. "I don't want you in the restaurant drinking the beer, I don't want you wandering around smoking dope, I want you watching that road. Horse said..."

"Horse said shit," Lyons sneered into the radio. He saw Gadgets watching wide-eyed. Lyons grinned. "You don't tell me nothing."

"What? What did you say? You want me to come down there and kick your ass right off this island?"

"Waiting for you."

"You piece of..." The voice cut off.

Lyons left the radio in the dead man's hands, then ran over to the stucco wall. He stood on the other side of the restaurant's door from Gadgets. Gadgets grinned, shook his head. Lyons waved his arms to get Blancanales' attention, then pointed at the restaurant door. They waited.

Thirty seconds later, the plate glass door flew open, slamming into Lyons where he stood against the wall. His Ingram banged the glass.

Looking at the biker who stomped out, they knew why he was called Eagle. His nose stuck out two inches from his face, the bridge of it almost perpendicular to his forehead, the end hooking down. And like an eagle, people looked up to him. He stood six-foot-eight.

Hearing the metallic clang of Lyons' Ingram on the plate glass, he glanced behind the door. For a big man, he moved fast, whipping the door aside, then driving a kick at Lyons' groin.

Both hands braced on the small weapon, Lyons blocked the kick with his Ingram. The kick bounced him off the wall. Eagle lunged for him.

A slug zipped past Eagle and smashed the glass door. Lyons' throat in one hand, his fist drawn back to smash this blond stranger in an Outlaws jacket, Eagle saw Gadgets bringing up his Uzi.

Eagle bashed Gadgets with Lyons. Gadgets sprawled on the bricks, the Uzi flying from his hand. Still holding Lyons by the throat, Eagle whipped an eighteen-inch machete from his belt.

Jamming the Ingram's stubby barrel against the biker's gut, Lyons fired a burst, five 9mm Parabellum slugs ripping through the man. They exited from his back and side.

Eagle didn't let go of Lyons. He raised the heavy blade to hack away the ex-cop's head. Lyons fired again, then again, swinging the muzzle back and forth as if he fought with a chain saw. He emptied the Ingram through the biker. Thirty slugs cut huge red slashes through his gut and chest.

The machete slipped from his hand finally, as he toppled backward and died.

A pair of boots in panic ran across the roof of the restaurant. Lyons fell back against the wall, gasping. He dropped the magazine out of the Ingram. He struggled to fit in another. A dazed Gadgets snatched up his Uzi, aimed up. But he had no target.

"Eagle! What's that shooting?" a voice above them demanded. "Hey, man! Move your ass! Someone's shooting..."

The G-3 boomed from the parking lot's flowering hedge. The body of a biker tumbled from the roof, fell to the bricks.

Lyons leaned against the restaurant wall, sucking breaths through his aching throat; Gadgets straightened his Outlaws jacket, checked his Uzi for damage. That all was close. It left them both really pissed off.

Following Forest Service roads and firebreaks, the three warriors on their Outlaw Harley 1200s weaved their way through the interior of the island. From time to time they could see the antennas of Radio Station KCAT on Mount Black Jack, where KCAT shared the peak with the Harbor Master's radar installation. A final bumpy motorcycle climb up a canyon's dry stream bed took them halfway up Mount Black Jack, to within a thousand feet of the station. They could go no farther on the bikes without risking observation.

Lyons sprinted to a ridge crest and watched the station through the scope of the Mannlicher. While the ex-cop was gone, Gadgets conferred with Blancanales:

"You know why that mess happened at the airport?"

Blancanales nodded.

Gadgets continued. "We've got to come to an agreement with Lyons about improvising. He's taking a lot of long, long chances. He's going to run out of luck. You stand with me?"

"If he goes down, we lose a very good man."

Lyons came toward them, returning from the ridge. "One man on the roof with binoculars. He's smoking dope and throwing beer cans. Ready to go?"

"No," Gadgets told him. "I declare a 'Severe Self-Criticism Session.' You came within a second of dying back there at the airport. If super-creep had come out with a weapon in his hands, you'd be dead. From now on, we plan it, then we do it. No more improvising."

Thinking only a moment, Lyons nodded. "At the time it seemed the right thing to do, faking him out on the hand-radio. It wasn't. I'm sorry. I was grandstanding. I am self-criticized. Now we go?"

Able Team proceeded to the peak of Mount Black Jack along narrow slashes of erosion, the overfolding brush obscuring the sky and the possible observation of the sentry above them.

Creeping to the edge of the fire-clearing around the station, they saw the cinder block buildings with open balconies that housed the offices and transmitter of KCAT, and a few hundred yards farther along a dirt road there was a steel tower supporting the constantly rotating scanners of the Harbor Master's radar. Outside the door of the radio offices, a hundred-yards away, were two Honda Cross Country Cruisers.

"I don't want to try a hundred-yard shot with the Beretta," Blancanales said. "Next time the sentry wanders over to the other side, I'll sprint for the door. You guys cover me, then the three of us bust in. Agreed? Enough of a plan?"

The others nodded, smiling. Blancanales waited, then ran. At the door, he pressed against the wall. The door hung ajar. It had been shot open. Above him, he heard the crunch of motorcycle boots.

A beer can fell, rolled on the concrete of the balcony, foam and beer gushing from the top. "Goddamn it," the biker muttered. Then he called out as he leaned over the edge. "Vito. Throw up another beer..."

"Coming up." Blancanales called, a single slug suddenly punching into the biker's nose. He collapsed, his hand and head twitching as they hung over the edge of the parapet. Lyons and Gadgets joined Blancanales.

Blancanales pointed to himself, then pointed inside. Lyons shielded himself with the Ingram as they stepped into the office.

The room was empty. Blancanales continued to the next door, Lyons a step behind him.

In front of a television, a very pale biker nodded off. He wore only undershirt and jeans. In one hand he was holding a length of surgical tubing. A needle and syringe hung from his other arm. He didn't wake from his heroin stupor as Blancanales slipped up to him, put the Beretta to his temple. The junkie would never wake.

They returned to the door. "It's all over."

"Now we go put this..." Gadgets held up a small charge of C-4 explosive with a radio detonator, "...on the radar."

"I'll do the clean-up here," Lyons offered. "I'll be watching the road down the hill until you get back."

Gadgets and Blancanales nodded, then hurried out. Lyons gathered together the junkie's jacket, boots, and World War II German MP-40 submachinegun. He dumped the whole lot, dead junkie and belongings, into a tangle of brush outside.

He heard the motorcycles before he saw them. Running back to the station office, he keyed his hand-radio: "Gadgets, Pol! Take cover, bikers coming up."

"There's a sentry on the radar tower!" Gadgets hissed. "We're stuck out in the open hoping he won't... Oh, man... he sees us. We are in the shit!"

The Outlaws' walkie-talkie buzzed. Behind the voice, there was the roar of engines. "On our way up to relieve you dudes. I tell you, you're going to dig the good times at the casino — hey, you motherfuckers! You shooting at us?"

Rifle fire was ripping the quiet. A confusion of voices on the Outlaws' walkie-talkie mixed with the motorcycles' roar as they gunned up the hill. Lyons looked out the door, saw four bikers race past. Halfway between the radio station and the radar towers, Gadgets and Blancanales sprawled in the dirt road's ruts. A biker on the radar towers fired down at them with a large caliber rifle.

Firing wild from the handlebars of their 1200s, the four bikers sprayed Gadgets and Blancanales with shotgun and automatic fire. Bullets and double-zero shot kicked up dust all around Gadgets and Blancanales. The sniper in the towers continued firing.

A burst from Gadgets' Uzi spilled one of the bikers. Lyons grabbed the Outlaw walkie-talkie. "Pull back to the radio station! Chief's coming up the hill with twenty more guys. Don't die for nothing. We'll sit back here and shoot those two assholes to pieces."

Lyons saw the bikers circling back. He snatched an extra magazine for his Ingram. He stood in the doorway in his biker clothing, with the walkie-talkie covering most of his face. When the three bikers came within twenty feet, ignorant of the danger, he emptied his Ingram at them, knocking down two, wounding the third. Lyons ducked behind the cinder block wall, slammed in the second magazine, then blasted the third biker as he dumped his motorcycle and tried to pump a shotgun with an injured arm. Another biker, badly wounded, struggled to crawl behind his bike for cover, but died as slugs ripped away pieces of his head, punching holes in his downed bike. Gasoline whooshed into a dramatic fireball, singeing Lyons' eyebrows.

Changing magazines again, Lyons put a coup de grace burst through the third biker. On the other end of the mountain crest, Uzi and G-3 fire answered the sentry's rifle. Lyons saw the sentry fall through the tower struts.

Sprinting, Lyons didn't pause as he fired a burst through the spilled biker in front of him. The smell of death was everywhere. He continued on to Gadgets and Blancanales.

"Great trick, grandstand." Blancanales rose out of the dust holding his thigh.

"Heard it on the walkie-talkie," Gadgets grinned.

"Sorry about that," Lyons laughed. "Did it again. Improvised."

"I didn't say you couldn't improvise when it was necessary..."