Free The Point Team by J.B. Hadley Page A

hear whether we’d spotted your break-in, eh?”
    The FBI man said nothing. Mike picked up his listening gear and handed it to him. Kelleher left without a word. Which was
     sporting of him, Mike figured, since he could have trumped up all sorts of charges. But then he’d have his own illegal break-in
     to answer for. No, Kelleher went quietly because he was under orders to go quietly.
    Campbell walked around the trailer and climbed the steps to its door. He found himself looking into the unwinking big eye
     of a shotgun barrel inside the door. Tina was at the other end of the gun.
    She took the weapon from her shoulder, dropped the hammer on her thumbnail, and set about unloading the gun. “Thought I heard
     something out back.”
    “It was me.”
    One of Campbell’s unbreakable rules was for him not to involve Tina in anything. No matter what he got himself into, he wanted
     her to be innocent of it. She’d spot the FBI men soon enough herself if they kept hanging around—and since she knew nothing,
     she had no reason to be careful of what she said over the phone or elsewhere.
    He fetched himself a bottle of Dos Equis from the refrigerator and sat down to think. Tina found something on TV so that he
     could sit there staring at the screen and let his mind concentrate on the decisions he had to make.Harper, his old sergeant, was out, along with the four men he had contacted. There were others from the unit, and some he
     had met later as a merc. All good men. Little to choose between any of them. But all known to Washington as soldiers of fortune,
     and known to be associated with him.
    Campbell knew what the attitude of the Washington bureaucrats would be. A lot of the top politicians there would privately
     be supportive of Vanderhoven’s mission to get the kid out, but the desk-bound know-it-alls of the State Department would lay
     the law down.
They
were taking care of everything through diplomatic channels—which was bullshit—and all anyone else could do was make them
     look bad if they succeeded or “embarrass” the American government if they failed. So far as Mike was concerned, so much crap
     had gone on in Washington in recent years, he doubted very much if he could come up with anything new to embarrass anyone.
    The only idea Mike had come up with since receiving Harper’s phone call had been to recruit total unknowns in unexpected places.
     A classified ad in local newspapers would be one way to go. He’d have a lot of traveling to do to check the applicants, but
     expenses were no problem, and it would take him no more than a minute or so to decide whether he wanted a man along. It was
     a cumbersome way of doing the job, yet probably the most effective. Chances were better than good the FBI wouldn’t spot it
     if he kept the newspapers he used widely scattered and in fairly densely populated areas.
    He’d have to be careful of the wording. “Combat-hardened veterans …” He liked that, and it almost certainly meant service
     in Vietnam without mentioning the name. He’d put it under the first word veterans, then “combat-hardened only, big-money enterprise.” That was as near as he could get to making it sound legit and fast money
     at the same time. Then a box number. He would probably get some law-enforcement officers answering to check himout. He figured he could spot them fast, or at least not recruit anyone he had the least doubt about. He’d drive into Phoenix
     tomorrow and find the names and addresses of newspapers in the library.

Chapter 6
    J OE Nolan was in Youngstown, Ohio, and out of work. Not only had they closed the steel plants, they were even knocking some of
     them down. Takes an optimistic man to believe a plant will open again after it has been demolished. Some of his friends had
     taken off for Texas and other places. Others just hung out. All this was no great calamity to Joe. He always did wander from
     job to job, woman to woman, drink to drink … It was a guy in