fellow countrymen.
Then the first wave of fighters hit again, scattering the horsemen.
Not far away, behind the cover of big rocks, Gul Daoud shrugged at the three Americans. “You Yanks’d do anything to free American
hostages. Now you see for yourselves that these Russians would sacrifice four of their own to deprive us of a single jeep.”
CHAPTER 5
The gun show was on the outskirts of Bakersfield, adding maybe sixty or seventy miles on his trip on Route 5 from Los Angeles
to San Francisco. As he drove, Lance Hardwick dialed in a temperature of sixty-eight degrees on the Automatic Climate Control
system of the Volvo 760-GLE and then fiddled with the graphic equilizer, which balanced the weaker set of front speakers With
the forty-watts-per-channel pair in the back. It was like he had Bruce Springsteen singing in the bucket seat beside him,
and the band in die backseat, except for the drums, which were halfway up the rear window. He was also doing ninety in the
fast lane, depending on his Whistler Spectrum to detect stationary, moving, trigger, even pulsed police radar from behind
hills, around curves, Qr wherever the highway patrol could squeeze into. The Spectrum was his own equipment and not part of
the rented Volvo. It flashed a red light when it smelled police radar and clucked like a Geiger counter next to an atomic
bomb.
Lance smiled at the idea of a decent sound system on a mission with Mad Mike Campbell. Campbell would havehim in a Chevy or a Honda—something unobtrusive. But this was one of Lance's solo jobs, something he kept up in spite of becoming
one of Mike's regulars. Maybe it had something to do with him being an actor, or more accurately, an out-of-work actor. He
had been used to scuffling for a living. His only so-called acting jobs had been as a stuntman on TV series and low-budget
movies. Mostly he had worked as a bodyguard for L.A. rock musicians. It had not turned out as great as he had once hoped,
but at least it was sunshine and palm trees—and he was Lance Hardwick with an apartment in West Hollywood instead of being
Miroslav Svoboda from Minneapolis. True, when his mother had named him Miroslav, she had expected the family to return to
Czechoslovakia, and how was she to know, anyway, hardly talking any English herself at that time, that you couldn't make it
in America with a first name like Miroslav. Lance. That was more like it. The other part of his stage name, now his legal
name, was a stuntman's joke. And why not? His whole life in a way was a stuntman's joke. Yet his mother had never been able
to accept his new name. She still wrote him as Miroslav Svoboda c/o Lance Hardwick. Like Mr. Hyde c/o Dr. Jekyll. But imagine
calling a kid Miroslav…
Mike Campbell had been a consultant on a war movie in which Lance and others had filled in for the stars when things got rough.
He knew Mad Mike by his rep and bugged him for a chance to go on a real-life mere mission. Then, when Mike finally gave him
a chance months later, he had almost literally blown the opportunity with cocaine at the training camp before they left. That
wasn't so long ago, yet now he looked back on himself then as just a dumb kid.
This mission he had accepted dealt with what he guessed was an even dumber kid, only seventeen. The boy's father was a Los
Angeles studio musician Lance had known for years. As a backup and often lead guitarist, he sat in on recording dates with
name bands in order to help out on the musical end of things, which was not the strong point of quite a few famous rock bands,
and he took instant bucks instead of credit and royalties. Because studio musicians soon lost the drive and desperation to
strike out and make abig name for themselves, the work was a treadmill in a way, but a comfortable high-income treadmill with all the perks.
This guitarist's son had dropped out of high school and then disappeared four months previously. He knew his son had
Then the first wave of fighters hit again, scattering the horsemen.
Not far away, behind the cover of big rocks, Gul Daoud shrugged at the three Americans. “You Yanks’d do anything to free American
hostages. Now you see for yourselves that these Russians would sacrifice four of their own to deprive us of a single jeep.”
CHAPTER 5
The gun show was on the outskirts of Bakersfield, adding maybe sixty or seventy miles on his trip on Route 5 from Los Angeles
to San Francisco. As he drove, Lance Hardwick dialed in a temperature of sixty-eight degrees on the Automatic Climate Control
system of the Volvo 760-GLE and then fiddled with the graphic equilizer, which balanced the weaker set of front speakers With
the forty-watts-per-channel pair in the back. It was like he had Bruce Springsteen singing in the bucket seat beside him,
and the band in die backseat, except for the drums, which were halfway up the rear window. He was also doing ninety in the
fast lane, depending on his Whistler Spectrum to detect stationary, moving, trigger, even pulsed police radar from behind
hills, around curves, Qr wherever the highway patrol could squeeze into. The Spectrum was his own equipment and not part of
the rented Volvo. It flashed a red light when it smelled police radar and clucked like a Geiger counter next to an atomic
bomb.
Lance smiled at the idea of a decent sound system on a mission with Mad Mike Campbell. Campbell would havehim in a Chevy or a Honda—something unobtrusive. But this was one of Lance's solo jobs, something he kept up in spite of becoming
one of Mike's regulars. Maybe it had something to do with him being an actor, or more accurately, an out-of-work actor. He
had been used to scuffling for a living. His only so-called acting jobs had been as a stuntman on TV series and low-budget
movies. Mostly he had worked as a bodyguard for L.A. rock musicians. It had not turned out as great as he had once hoped,
but at least it was sunshine and palm trees—and he was Lance Hardwick with an apartment in West Hollywood instead of being
Miroslav Svoboda from Minneapolis. True, when his mother had named him Miroslav, she had expected the family to return to
Czechoslovakia, and how was she to know, anyway, hardly talking any English herself at that time, that you couldn't make it
in America with a first name like Miroslav. Lance. That was more like it. The other part of his stage name, now his legal
name, was a stuntman's joke. And why not? His whole life in a way was a stuntman's joke. Yet his mother had never been able
to accept his new name. She still wrote him as Miroslav Svoboda c/o Lance Hardwick. Like Mr. Hyde c/o Dr. Jekyll. But imagine
calling a kid Miroslav…
Mike Campbell had been a consultant on a war movie in which Lance and others had filled in for the stars when things got rough.
He knew Mad Mike by his rep and bugged him for a chance to go on a real-life mere mission. Then, when Mike finally gave him
a chance months later, he had almost literally blown the opportunity with cocaine at the training camp before they left. That
wasn't so long ago, yet now he looked back on himself then as just a dumb kid.
This mission he had accepted dealt with what he guessed was an even dumber kid, only seventeen. The boy's father was a Los
Angeles studio musician Lance had known for years. As a backup and often lead guitarist, he sat in on recording dates with
name bands in order to help out on the musical end of things, which was not the strong point of quite a few famous rock bands,
and he took instant bucks instead of credit and royalties. Because studio musicians soon lost the drive and desperation to
strike out and make abig name for themselves, the work was a treadmill in a way, but a comfortable high-income treadmill with all the perks.
This guitarist's son had dropped out of high school and then disappeared four months previously. He knew his son had
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