Able.Team.14.Into.the.Maze.1984 by Pendleton Don

Author:Pendleton, Don [Pendleton, Don]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0100-12-31T22:00:00+00:00

Lyons and two of the Yaqui teenagers, Kino and Jacom, stood guard on the rooftop. They alternated shifts, sleeping and watching the dark street. Cars and trucks sped by, bouncing over the broken pavement. People walked past without a glance at the abandoned garage. The street noises, the jets roaring overhead, the radios and televisions covered the screams and shouts of Gunther's delirium in the storeroom.

After midnight, the neighborhood fell quiet as the thousands of families in the tenements finally slept. But the sounds of the city never stopped, the traffic noise of the avenues and expressways still going on, planes and trucks and unmuffled motorcycles hurtling unseen through the gray, polluted night.

Despite the tropical latitude, Lyons shivered. He clutched his sports jacket tight around himself. At the elevation of Mexico City, more than two thousand meters above sea level, the air became cool after sunset. Now, in the predawn hours, the few people still on the streets wore jackets and sweaters.

He stared up at the flashing Tecate sign, a neon explosion of red and yellow letters framed in a blue afterimage against the gray night. Able Team had gone from searing desert to the tropical coast to the cool mountains in only a few days. His body had not time to acclimatize to the sudden changes. He said aloud, "I do get around. No doubt about it."

"Que es?" Jacom asked.

"Nada." Lyons knew the word because Gadgets used it often. He tried to explain that he had only talked to himself. "Hablo... hablo nada." He didn't know enough Spanish to explain. He pointed down and left the rooftop.

Going down the steel stairs, Lyons heard an incomprehensible monologue of some guttural language. He saw Blancanales and Coral sitting by the bed, listening and taking notes. The fascist colonel thrashed against the rope restraints, his body soaked in sweat, his blind eyes snapping from side to side but never focusing.

Gadgets had electronic gear spread out on a table. He changed the cassette in the tape unit recording Gunther, then returned to the circuits of the NSA radios captured from the International. Lyons looked over his partner's shoulder. Gadgets pointed to the maze of circuits and components.

"I think they did a directional scan on this radio. That's how they got us on the freeway. Like a DF, except..."

"You deactivated it?"

"That's not it," Gadgets explained. "I think the encrypting generates a distinctive electronic signature. Apparently they picked up the signal. That's why one of their officers asked who was on the freeway. When no one answered, they sent some cars to check it out."

"So we can't monitor the Nazis now?"

"I wouldn't risk it. I guess we've lost that trick. Too bad. It was slick."

"But we got him talking," Lyons commented, looking at Gunther.

"It's a fact." Gadgets nodded. "That dope opened up the doors of his head. Problem is, we don't know what came out."

"What?"

Blancanales answered. He pointed to his pages of notes. "We can understand his Spanish and English. But he lapses in and out of German.

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