“Hopefully it’ll be only short-term,” Wethers said. “That’s usually the case in situations like this.”
“That’s what we’re banking on,” Delahunt said. “As for Calvin, he’s still in surgery. A field medic managed to stop the bleeding from his gunshot wounds, but they’re going back in for one of the bullets because it’s positioned too close to one of his arteries.”
“But he’s going to pull through, yes?” Wethers asked.
Delahunt skimmed through the rest of Encizo’s note, then said, “Rafe says it’s touch and go. The surgeons told him it was a miracle they were able to bring Cal in alive, given all the blood he’d lost. He got a couple units from two of the guys in that commando outfit that flew in with David and Gary.”
“And Gary? How’s he?”
Delahunt shook her head. “Partial tear in his right hamstring, and a strain in the left. That plus he pulled the muscles in his lower back. He can barely move.
“And with Rafe, the knife nicked a tendon and sliced into his right deltoid. He’ll be in a sling and full-arm cast for at least a few weeks.”
“Bottom line,” Tokaido interjected, “is that they’re all out of commission except for T.J.”
“This is quite a blow,” Wethers said. “First we lose two guys from Able Team, and now this.”
“I know,” Delahunt concurred. “And what’s really upsetting is that it looks like this was just a wild-goose chase.”
“Not entirely,” Tokaido reminded her. “I mean, we did manage to take out an BLM cell that was trying to set up a base in the mountains there.”
“Maybe so,” Delahunt conceded, “but if you ask me, I think the Basques deliberately tried to make it look like they were carting those stolen missiles.”
“Diversionary ploy?” Wethers queried.
“Exactly,” Delahunt replied. “Look at all the manpower that went into that mission. Not just on our part, but Spain, too. With everybody focused on those mountains, it gave the BLM a better chance to smuggle the missiles out of the area. Not to mention this supertank.”
“The needles have left the haystack, you’re saying,” Wethers replied.
“That would be my guess,” Delahunt said. “And the more time that passes without us finding them, the wider the search area’s going to get.”
“And on our part, we’re down to Pol and T.J.,” Tokaido said. “And Pol’s not even expected to reach Spain for another few hours. The trail’s just going to get colder.”
“Fortunately, it’s not up to just us,” Delahunt reminded Tokaido. “The Spanish are pouring as many resources into this whole thing as they can, and they’re getting help from the French and NATO, too.”
“Yeah, but they’re not as good as us,” Tokaido said. “You’re talking boys going out to do a man’s job.”
Delahunt managed a smile. “Do I detect a little home-team prejudice?”
Tokaido grinned back. “Hey, if you can’t root for the home team, what good are you?”
Wethers was in no mood for comic relief. He glanced across the room at one of the monitors depicting a sat-link photo of the mountainous terrain that stretched between Bilbao and Barcelona. He asked the others, “What have Hal and Barbara had to say about all this?”
“The chief’s back in Washington conferring with the Joint Chiefs of Staff,” Delahunt responded. “Barbara’s back at the main house. She said she was going to go over the backgrounds on some of the blacksuits and see if we can patch together a backup team to send over.”
“Won’t be the same,” Tokaido said. “There’s no replacing the guys in Phoenix Force or Able Team.”
The cybercrew was interrupted as the door behind them opened a second time. This time, it was a tall, blond-haired, blue-eyed man who strode purposefully into the room. His face was pale and his forehead glistened with sweat.
“I’ll take that as a compliment,” he told Tokaido.
“Carl?” Delahunt called out, startled to see the Able Team leader up and on his feet. “What are you doing here?”
Carl Lyons snapped a salute and flashed a menacing grin. “Reporting for duty, what else?”
“You’ve got the flu, for God’s sake,” Delahunt protested. “Look at you, you’re sweating like you just came out of a steam bath.”
“Flu schmoo,” Lyons snarled. “I just got done talking with Barbara. We’ve got work to do, so quit gawking and track me down a jet so I can get my ass to Spain, pronto.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
Facaros Pass, near Bilbao, Spain
Luis Manziliqua awoke with a start. He thumbed his wristwatch to light up the LED display. It was almost midnight, when meant he’d dozed off for nearly two hours. With a groan, he slowly rose to his feet. He’d fallen asleep sitting between two large boulders near the peak of Mt. Facaros and he was stiff. He stretched for a moment, then wearily grabbed a pair of binoculars from the ground and trudged a few yards uphill to his post atop the mountain.
Night had fallen over the area. There was a crescent moon overhead, and the cloudless sky was sprinkled with a scattering of bright, winking stars. It was cool up here at the higher elevations, and Manziliqua turned up the collar of his shirt to fend off the chill of a faint breeze. He was stationed thirty miles inland from the Bay of Biscay, and yet he could smell the sea in the air, a briny scent that brought to mind his previous life as a fisherman plying the waters near the coastal town of San Sebastian. How much simpler life was then, he mused. He’d found the daily routine stifling and couldn’t wait to leave it behind, but there were times now when he wished he’d never listened to the prattling of his cousins and got it into his head that there was romance and glamour to be found as a revolutionary. Hah! Where was the romance and glamour in pulling sentry duty night after night, first in the mountains overlooking the Gamuso proving grounds and now here atop the highest and loneliest peak of the San Madrillo Mountains? His job was to stay put and scour his surroundings for any noteworthy activity. Only once—last night at the proving grounds—had there been anything worth reporting. The rest of the time, from dusk to dawn for three weeks running, he’d had little to look at but the activity of wildlife and the occasional traipsing of planes through the heavens. His biggest challenge, night after night, was to stay awake and try to keep from driving himself crazy humming the same songs over and over as he tried to dispel the boredom. Some revolution.
Of course, it could be worse, he figured. He could have been among those who were killed earlier that afternoon twenty miles to the south. He hadn’t heard all the details, but apparently they’d lost nearly twenty men. That put things into perspective. He’d take boredom over death any time.
Yawning, Manziliqua put the binoculars to his eyes and lapsed into the tedious ritual of panning the terrain below. From his position, he had a view of two mountain roads leading inland from Bilbao. There was little to see of the first road; it was almost completely veiled by a blanket of fog, one of several cloudlike pockets obscuring much of the lower elevations. As he shifted his gaze, Manziliqua spotted a herd of elk crossing a dimly lit meadow valley. He wished he were down closer to them. He’d lugged a 50-caliber Barrett SWS up into the mountains with him, and with a rifle like that he could easily take out at least one of the elk once he was within eighteen hundred meters. True, it wouldn’t do much to advance the cause of the BLM, but at least he’d have