Texas Showdown by Don Pendleton, Dick Stivers Read Free Book Online Page A

van, Blancanales felt the air compress as Pardee slammed the van doors shut on them. "Reminds me of prison."
    Gadgets touched his ear, pointed to the walls of the van. Blancanales and Lyons nodded. "Way I see it," Gadgets said clearly, "they run a tight operation. And I'm glad. Most of the gangs down South don't get busted from the outside, it's always a Fed or an informer on the inside. So a tight operation is all right with me."
    The van took them first to an infirmary. Again, in the few steps between the van and the door of the prefab infirmary, they saw almost nothing of the base: chain link fencing topped by razor wire, and a blacktop road.
    "Strip down," an orderly told them. He gave them each a deep plastic tray. "All your clothes and personal things in the trays. And I mean everything. Rings, dogtags, all of it."
    "When do we get it back?" Lyons asked. "And where's our luggage?"
    "Hey, man," the bone-thin blond orderly drawled in his southern accent. "Until you clear Security, that's the least of your worries."
    Naked, they waited until a doctor took them one by one into an examination room. A middle-aged man with the gray skin and ravaged body of an alcoholic, the doctor did not introduce himself nor question them on their medical histories. Speaking only in monosyllables, he took full-body photographs of them, complete X rays, then blood samples.
    Next, the orderly gave them each day-glow orange fatigues and tennis shoes, and hurried them back to the van.
    "Dig these jazzy uniforms," Gadgets sighed.
    "Camouflage," Lyons said. "For an invasion of Las Vegas."
    Another short ride and the van dropped them at their barrack. The building sat at the edge of the base. It looked like a prison unit. Two electric gates and a glass-walled guard booth completed the impression created by the chain link fence and razor wire.
    A man standing six-foot-eight stomped from the barrack door. "Stop rubbernecking, new meat. In here!"
    They filed through. The interior was one large room. Two rows of ten steel bunk beds ran the length of the barrack. Though there were scuffs in the linoleum and chips in the paint of the steel beds, the place had the smell of a new house trailer, just months old. The sheet steel walls had the original enamel. Not one of the windows was cracked.
    "I am Sergeant Cooke," the three-hundred-pound soldier told them. "Until Captain Pardee is positive on your identities, you stay here. When you clear Security, you will join the other men. Until then, you sweat. Here are the supplies you need for the next few days."
    He pointed to a table. There were three identical piles of sheets, pillowcases, blankets, soaps, razors.
    "I suggest you make your bunks now. Tonight you might not have it left in you." Sergeant Cooke threw back his immense shoulders, glared at each of them for an instant, and added: "I'm taking you out for a long walk."
    * * *
    Ten miles into the rocky foothills, Sergeant Cooke collapsed. He floundered in the dust, trying to stand, but got no further than his hands and knees. He fell onto his back, gasping, his face gray and streaming with sweat.
    Blancanales sat at the side of the trail, watching Sergeant Cooke struggle. Gadgets looked down at the huge man. Lyons squinted into the afternoon glare. He shaded his eyes and scanned the horizon.
    "You think they're training over there?" Lyons pointed to the east. "Every once in a while, I hear booms. Thought I saw a helicopter."
    "Take a break, Morgan," Blancanales told him.
    "We got a problem here with the D.I. Looks like heatstroke to me."
    "Textbook case," Gadgets agreed.
    "What's with you guys?" Sergeant Cooke croaked. "Pardee hire you straight out of the Special Forces?"
    Gadgets flashed a grin to Blancanales and Lyons. "Sort of."
    The second day, Sergeant Cooke rode a 1200cc dirt bike while Able Team double-timed.
    * * *
    High above the rocks and red dust of the Texas desert, Tate Monroe surveyed the maneuvers of his mercenary army from the helicopter