CHAPTER ONE

      Moses Lake, Washington,

      6:48 a.m. PDT

      Carl “Ironman” Lyons crouched in a water-filled irrigation ditch, soaked to the waist. A black ski mask covered his face, hiding his short-cropped blond hair, any reflection off his skin and, of course, his identity.

      The shallow canal was the only cover on the south side of the target. After three hours in the ditch it was finally getting light enough for Lyons to see the killzone without the aid of night-vision goggles. The ramshackle narco compound was surrounded by flat, tilled farm fields. Whatever was planted in them had barely sprouted.

      No perimeter fence or gunposts protected the pair of hammered, single-wide trailers on cinder blocks, the converted SeaLand cargo-container-cum-laboratory, the sagging, unpainted shotgun shack, the collection of junked and rusting cars and the jumble of fifty-five-gallon chemical drums and empty ammonia tanks.

      No fence was required.

      The site was eight miles from the nearest public road, in the middle of seventy thousand acres of private land.

      Lyons’s .357 Magnum Colt Python hung in a black ballistic nylon shoulder holster, a foot above the water-line. A pair of suppressor-equipped, 9 mm MP-5 SD-3s sat in quilted Gore-Tex scabbards on the mud bank in front of him. The scabbards’ flaps hung open, exposing the machine pistols’ black plastic grips and retracted folding stocks.

      Lyons methodically clenched and unclenched his big fists to keep the blood flowing to his fingertips. Below the water, his legs were numb, hips to toes, and it felt as if his testicles had retracted up into his body cavity. The former L.A. cop didn’t try to block out his discomfort. Just the opposite. In the back of his mind he inventoried it over and over, item by item.

      Being royally pissed off was a good thing.

      It helped him maintain focus.

      Then he caught movement on the horizon to the north. Four sets of headlights cut through the purple gloom. The lights bounced up and down, up and down as the vehicles bounded over the crop rows. Lyons flipped open the cover on his wristwatch and checked the time. The convoy was a little ahead of schedule.

      As the vehicles drew nearer, he heard the rumble of the engines and the squeak and rattle of cargo. The minifleet of rental trucks was delivering raw materials and would take away finished product for distribution in Idaho, Washington and Oregon.

      The Moses Lake operation produced and transported a couple million dollars’ worth of methamphetamine a week, a joint venture of the Mexican mafia and an enterprising southern-California-based barrio gang.

      Lyons knew all about bangers from his days with the LAPD. They were the Cub Scouts of organized crime, earning their merit badges fighting other gangs, staking out turf for drug sales, supplying security for shipments and collections. The Mexican mafia, on the other hand, was into some elaborately bad, big-boy shit. Kidnappings. Political payoffs and assassinations. Torture.

      One by one, the four trucks’ headlights swept over an enormous John Deere combine abandoned in the middle of a cultivated field one hundred yards away. As the lead vehicle rapidly closed on the narco compound, the driver started honking his horn. The other drivers followed suit.

      Almost at once, weak yellow propane lanterns came on in the trailers; there was no electricity at the site. Lyons saw shadowy movement behind the newspapers taped up for window shades. Then people started spilling out the trailer doors. Some had guns. Most didn’t.

      That was the sticky part.

      The twenty without guns were barefoot, dressed in rags and not there by choice.

      The seven with guns wore ranchero jeans and shirts and low-heeled cowboy boots. They carried AK-47s and sawed-off pump shotguns on shoulder slings, and two-and-a-half-foot-long clubs on wrist thongs.

      Given the small size of the killzone and the number of structures, isolating the camp’s forced laborers from the armed enforcers was going to be flat-out impossible once the attack began.

      The rental trucks parked in a daisy chain in front of the SeaLand container. The four drivers and four passengers got out, leaving the headlights on and engines running. The lead driver carried an overstuffed, black nylon gym bag. From the tats crawling up their necks and their superbaggy shirts and pants, Lyons immediately made them as bangers.

      The rancheros started herding the rag people toward the trucks. It was slow going. The unfortunates had to take short, shuffling steps because their ankles were tethered with loops of plastic-covered cable.

      In the headlights’ glare Lyons got a good look at the meth zombies. Forced to work in the cargo container lab without respirators or skin protection, they were perpetually stoned from the toxic fumes and the drug powder in the air. They had legions of sores on their faces and arms, and bald patches on their heads. Lyons figured most of that damage was self-inflicted. Unless otherwise occupied, hard-core tweakers picked themselves raw looking for “meth mites.”

      He also got a close look at the clubs the rancheros carried. They were made from a single shaft of bamboo. The business ends were split into dozens of narrow strips, right down to handles heavily wrapped with layers of electrician’s tape. Like cat-o’-nine-tails, they could shred skin down to the bone. They were relatively sophisticated enforcement tools, which confirmed his guess that the rancheros were all mafia crew. If bangers had been in charge of the narco slaves, they would have relied solely on fists and boots.

      The Able Team leader caught a strong whiff of beans cooking inside the trailers. The familiar sweet aroma mixed with the cat urine stink of the meth lab. The effect was like a snap kick to Lyons’s solar plexus.

      Then another set of headlights appeared on the horizon. These were blue-white halogens, coming from the east, the direction of the farm’s main house. Lyons had seen the Feds’ aerial-surveillance photos of the building, which looked like an upscale Vegas whorehouse. A sprawling, fieldstone-faced split level with a two-story, five-car garage, a swimming pool, tennis courts and gardens.

      The workers, rancheros and bangers all stopped and stared as a midnight-black Lexus LX740 pulled up and parked. A pair of tall, fit-looking Mexicans got out of the front of the big V-8 SUV, both in short leather jackets, slacks and shiny, pointy-toed dress shoes. The third man, who exited the left rear door, looked as if he’d just rolled out of bed. He