The Hostaged Island Read Online Free PDF Page A

our..."
    The shot sent blood spewing over the Harbor Master's map of Santa Catalina Island.

4
    Mist streaked the Virginia mountains. Defining the eastern ridgelines, the first light of day illuminated the autumn colors of the forest. The valley floor remained in darkness. Carl Lyons ran through bands of shadow and startling brilliance. He pumped his legs as if they were components of an unfeeling machine, disregarding muscle pain and rasping breath. He heard Rosario Blancanales a hundred yards below him on the mountainside. Lyons rounded a bend in the trail, took cover behind a fallen tree, waited.
    As Blancanales' running steps approached, Lyons found a fist-sized clod of dirt. He continued to wait. But Blancanales didn't appear. Lyons could hear the rush and flutter of the bird's wings through the air. But he didn't hear Blancanales.
    A stick hit the back of his head. Lyons spun and tumbled over. He saw smiling Blancanales squatting uphill from him.
    "I thought the race was to the top of the hill." Blancanales stood, stretched. "But if you can't hack it..."
    An electronic beep interrupted him. The pagers clipped to their sweatsuit waistbands beeped three times. There was a pause, then three more beeps.
    Their grins faded. The morning exercise was over. Three beeps meant no more jokes.
    As they sprinted down the trail, they heard overhead the heavy throbbing of a military helicopter.
    * * *
    April Rose met them at the gate to Stony Man Farm. Her blond hair flashed in the morning light.
    "Don't go to your quarters, don't bother with anything," she said. "I've put your overnight bags and equipment cases on the helicopter. Here's your mission authorization from Mack..." she passed a tight roll of teletype paper to Blancanales.
    "Where are we going?" Lyons asked.
    "California. And I tell you, this one's worse than New York. Good luck."
    April watched them as they sprinted the last hundred yards across a landing field to the waiting Huey. The chopper's idling rotor blades accelerated to a shriek. The skids left the ground as Lyons and Blancanales leapt in the side door. Gadgets Schwarz, already strapped in, glanced up, grinned in greeting, went back to reading a teletype printout; he wore only a bathrobe and pajama bottoms.
    Hal Brognola was unshaved and his hair uncombed. He gave the three members of Able Team their intercom headsets. "Close those side doors, the briefing starts now." Brognola spoke into his headset's microphone. "Pilots, take off your headphones. Don't put them on until we approach the airport.
    "Half an hour ago," Brognola began, "two-thirty California time, a motorcycle gang called 'The Outlaws' seized Santa Catalina Island."
    "The Outlaws did what?" gasped Lyons.
    "Let me continue. There are about seventy, seventy-five of them and as of now they are in control of the island. They have severed all communications to the mainland. They have killed or captured all the law-enforcement officers. Somehow, they took every resident of Avalon hostage. That's about fourteen hundred people, we aren't sure exactly how many. Avalon is a tourist town — there may be as many as a hundred tourists who are spending the weekend there."
    Hal Brognola was Able Team's commanding officer, a burly older man answerable by choice to Mack Bolan (a.k.a. Col. John Phoenix) and by duty to the White House. He paused to ensure that his grim news was fully understood by the three men before him.
    "The leader of the Outlaws, someone with the name of 'Horse,' called the Governor of California direct, on the Governor's secret hot line. That, in itself, is a significant point. That hot line number is classified. It is known only to the Governor's aides and a few military officials."
    Brognola paused to refer to a printout.
    "The gang leader made these demands. The release of three of their members now in prison. Twenty million dollars in gold. And a nuclear submarine to deliver the three gang members and the gold. The assumption is that Horse