by Dick Stivers
The colonel spat at the lieutenant. The wounded young officer paled with anger. He sat down abruptly, for his blood loss had left him weak. Blancanales stepped up to the colonel, slammed the heel of his hand into the prisoner’s solar plexus. Doubling over, Colonel Gomez choked and gasped.
Blancanales jerked the colonel’s head back by his pomaded hair. “Don’t spit. It is not polite. If you follow our instructions, you will live to have a trial. If you try to warn the other mercenaries, we will kill you. It makes no difference to us if you live or die.”
Struggling to breathe, his eyes streaming tears, the colonel nodded his head.
Slipping out a knife, Silveres reached for the prisoner. Blancanales caught his hand.
“I do not mean to kill him. But he shames that uniform.”
Grasping the insignia on the colonel’s fatigue sleeve, Lieutenant Silveres cut the unit patch away. He stripped the fatigues of all rank and unit identification. He threw the bits of cloth and metal to the floor. “Judas. Traitor.”
Their wakes white on the black waters of the river, the river craft left the Mamore and pushed upstream against the slow current of the tributary. The endless rain forest slid past, the masses of high trees deep shadows against the star-shot violet of the infinite night sky. To the east, the sky began to pale.
Lyons paced the deck of the PT boat, turning over in his head every detail of the coming assault. The interrogations of several mercenaries had provided good information on the layout and defenses of the slaver complexes.
The slaver city sprawled along several miles of river, compounds and equipment yards and the reactor sites interconnected by an asphalt all-weather road. In the first complex, Cambodian and Thai mercenaries occupied a compound a hundred yards from the riverbank. They guarded Wei Ho’s domed garden and compound, several hundred yards farther inland. An asphalt road connected the two compounds. A mile upstream, there were equipment yards, a narrow airfield, and apartments for the technicians. Another mile upstream, a camp of European and American mercenaries guarded the slave compound.
Three miles of swamp and forest separated the slaves from the first of three atomic reactors, Unit One, gutted by the “accident.” The other two Units were miles farther upriver. But the assault force would avoid the atomic reactors. They would attack Wei Ho.
The Indians broke into a sing-song chant. Squatting shoulder to shoulder against the gunwales of the PT boat, they swayed and nodded their heads to the simple rhythm. Lyons leaned against the cabin and scanned the darkness ahead of them. Nothing. He listened to the warriors’ song. He asked Thomas, “What is the song you’re singing?”
Thomas smiled, shook his head. “Make no sense in English. Very old song.”
“Is it a prayer? Like in church?”
“No, only song.”
“Tell me. I want to know,” Lyons insisted.
“It about women drinking… drinking much and want man to lie down with them… but men drink too much and can’t get up… so the women get no love…”
Lyons burst out laughing. “Sure it makes sense in English.”
His laugh died. Light glowed on the far shore of the river. Lyons motioned at the Indians. They were silent. He keyed his hand radio. “Wizard. Political. Lieutenant.”
Their voices answered. “The city?”
“You got it.”
Above Lyons, a hand radio squawked in Portuguese as the lieutenant issued instructions to the helmsman and the two Brazilians who manned the M-60s. The PT boat slowed as the dark form of the river cruiser came up to their side. The hulls bumped. Gadgets and Blancanales stepped down to the smaller boat.
Blancanales waved goodbye to the farmers manning the weapons. He called out to Lieutenant Silveres, “Vaya con Dios, hermano. “
“Good luck to you, Yankees.”
The cruiser and the two other PT boats continued upriver. The helmsman of their boat stayed back. Able Team and their Indian allies watched the river and the distant forest. The Brazilian gunners went to their weapons, waited. Above the river the stars had faded. The eastern sky was turning gray.
The helmsman called down to Able Team in broken Spanish. “Vamos, gringos. Ahora. “
Veering for the opposite riverbank, the patrol boat cut through darkness and low mist. Lyons signaled Thomas. Gadgets and Blancanales gave their battle rigs a last pat-down check. Thomas crowded his men against the stern.
Lines of lights, fuzzed by early morning mist, marked a dock. The helmsman kept his distance, dropping the rpm to a whisper and drifted past. Then he eased the throttle open to imperceptibly gain speed.
The drone of a diesel generator carried from the shore. Lyons peered into the chill darkness, watching for the second pier.
“Alla,” the helmsman whispered, his voice like a shout to the tensed warriors.
Faint glowing spots emerged from the lightening night. Lyons hand-signaled the others. The PT boat stopped dead in the water as the assault force climbed from the rails. The men lowered themselves into the small boats.
Hands clutched ropes as men fumbled to their places in the dark. Lyons found his seat in a dinghy, felt the tiny boat sway and bob when the last man crowded aboard. Aluminum scraped fiberglass as the men with oars pushed away from the PT boat. The engine chugged again. The hull slipped away in the darkness.
Oars pulled at the black mirror of the river. Mist billowed and swirled. The men rowed quickly, carefully, never splashing, never banging the oars against the boats.
A black rectangle loomed against the gray sky. Pressing themselves low in the boat, the men looked up at the vertical wall of steel containers on a barge. A ray of lighted mist projected from the window of a toolshed on the docks.
Touching the earphone from his hand radio, Lyons keyed his transmit and whispered, “The current’s carried us downstream. We might have a hot landing.”
“Check,” Blancanales answered.
“Maybe,” Gadgets acknowledged from the canoe.
The oarsmen kept their strokes steady, silent. Lights on the riverbank made gray mist glow yellow. Lyons scanned the water behind them, caught two shadows sliding over the water: the other dinghy and the canoe.
Sand scraped the aluminum keel. Jamming the oars into the shallow water, the rowers steadied the dinghy as the other men slipped into the water. Lyons dragged his feet through the shallows, not risking a splash. Easing himself prone on the beach, he waited, listening. The other men fanned out around him. Ahead of them, a tangle of reeds stood motionless in the windless predawn.
A truck’s engine revved somewhere. The drone of the diesel generator drifted to them from time to time. The second dinghy and the canoe slid onto the beach. Boots and sandals crushed the sand.
Lyons waited until all the movement behind him went still, then crept through the high reeds. He heard grasses swish against moving men. At the top of the riverbank, Lyons and the Xavantes came to raw mud and gravel. Staying low in the reeds, he scanned the cleared ground.
To one side he saw an open-sided steel shelter, only a roof on poles to offer workers a relief from the sun and rain. A single bare incandescent bulb dangled on a wire, insects orbiting the point of brilliance. The light spilled over a wide area surfaced with asphalt and gravel. Lyons keyed his radio. “No go here. A lighted parking lot. Bear to the south. I’ll catch up.”
Boots scuffed on asphalt. Lyons dropped flat, listened. He heard a mechanical snick. A rifle safety! They’d spotted him!
Ten yards to his side a cigarette lighter flared, the mist glowing for an instant. Lyons parted the reeds to see the ember of a cigarette arc as a sentry took a drag, then let his arm drop.
“We got a mere on guard here,” he whispered into his hand radio. “I see only one. I assume there’s two. I’m taking them out.”
“Do it,” Gadgets’s voice answered from the tiny jack plugged into Lyons’s ear.
First he crept back and found Thomas. Pointing toward the sentry, Lyons held up one finger, two fin
gers. Thomas nodded. Lyons pointed to Thomas and another man and motioned for them to follow. Then he snaked through the mist-damp reeds, closing in on the sentries. The odor of tobacco drifted in the mist.
They were racing the dawn. Lyons slid his Beretta from the holster and eased back the hammer. He moved on. He felt reeds catching his Atchisson, squeaking slightly as they slid over the plastic. He froze for a moment and listened. Boots paced the asphalt.
Lyons continued. One hand in front of the other, his belly pressed to the matted weeds, he closed distance.
His hand touched a face, the sleeping man’s breath catching, his head turning away from Lyons’s touch. Lyons scrambled inches forward, sliding his body over the man’s head, his body deadening the slap of a slug smashing through a skull. The dead man thrashed for a moment, went slack soon enough. The other sentry still paced the road to the pier.
Easing forward, Lyons stayed flat. He watched the sentry pace and smoke. He waited. The mercenary turned his back. Lyons rose to a crouch and swung up the Beretta.
Headlights swept the reeds as a truck turned onto the pier road. Bouncing over the ruts and broken asphalt, the troop truck bore down on Lyons.
21
Caught in the headlights, Lyons sat back down in the reeds, his legs and boots still out in the open. The sentry turned, blinking against the glare. Blinded, the man turned to Lyons and spoke in Spanish. The truck downshifted, low-geared past Lyons and swung in a wide circle to turn around.
Two mercenaries hopped off the tailgate. Snapping up the Beretta again, Lyons put a single shot into the head of the sentry near him. Then he left the reeds in a sprint, his long legs straining against the weight of the weapons he carried. He fired three-shot bursts into the two mercenaries and then vaulted onto the tailgate.
Lyons was in a tangle of arms and legs; the Beretta’s slugs slapped flesh. He kicked and elbowed, fired burst after burst into the mercenaries there. Dropping out an empty magazine, he jammed in another fifteen rounds. He heard steps behind the truck, whipped around, the Beretta on line for a target.
Thomas and three Xavantes were rushing toward and around the truck. Lyons heard a machete strike steel, heard tempered glass pop. A flurry of machete hacks chopped meat in the front seat.
Lyons saw a soldier on the road flop over and grab up a rifle. Snap-sighting, Lyons fired a burst. The slugs slapped the man’s head sideways. Other slugs whined into the distance. The soldier still managed to lurch to his knees, shattered jaw and face hanging, and shouldered his rifle. Lyons fired more bursts into the almost-dead soldier’s chest and face. The impacts finally knocked him down and out. That one did not want to die.
Keeping the auto-pistol pointed at the bodies sprawled on the truck’s floor, Lyons grabbed dead men, dragged them to the tailgate one-handed, the pistol cocked, the safety off. Xavantes grabbed the bodies.
“Thomas!” Lyons called out. “Dump them in the brush. Hide them.”
As he reached to grab another dead mercenary, an arm swung up from the floor with a knife. Lyons blocked the arm, fired a burst into a wounded man’s face. Flicking the fire selector down to single shot, Lyons put a death-slug into two more palpitating mercenaries. Then he kicked them to make sure.
“Goddamn nine-millimeter!” he cursed. “It’s not the right slug for this!”
Blancanales, Gadgets and the Indian warriors dragged the last bodies into concealment.
“Change in plans,” Lyons announced. “Same routine but we ride. Yeah?”
“Make it, man,” Gadgets agreed. “Full speed ahead.”
“Thomas, Gadgets, get all the Indians in the back. Pol, you and me in front. Thomas, keep your radio on. We gonna whip some tricks.”
Darting into the reeds, Lyons pulled a fatigue shirt off one of the dead men, then found a floppy hat. He sprinted back to the truck as Blancanales threw it in gear and rolled forward. Stripping off his Atchisson and crisscrossed bandoliers, Lyons put on the mercenary shirt and pulled the hat low over his genipap-blackened face.
Blancanales kept the speed down, following the roads by memory to the main road that connected the several complexes. They paused at the intersection for approaching headlights. A truck came from the direction of the Cambodian garrison. As it passed, they saw Asian faces staring from the interior. Lyons keyed his hand radio. “Lieutenant. This is your beach boy. Things are moving fast. Are you ready?”
“We are ready.”
“Is it light yet where you are?”
“A little.”
“Stand by. A few more minutes.”
Switching off the truck’s headlights, Blancanales turned toward the garrison of Wei Ho’s personal guards. Gray light defined the forest outline towering above the road. Dawn sky showed through the branches. Watching the odometer, Blancanales called off the distance. “Got to be close now. We go any farther, we risk going straight up to the gates.”
“Let’s see how this thing does cross-country.”
Spotting a dry gap in the trees, Blancanales calmly left the road, low-gearing through the weeds, weaving around stumps, the truck lurching and swaying on its springs. The vehicle smashed through branches, scraped a fender, bumper pushing down saplings. Brush and dead wood scraped the undercarriage. The front wheels dropped into a fern-covered gulley. Blancanales whipped the wheel to the side and stood on the brakes, but too late. The truck slid through ferns and vines, hit bottom.
“End of the line once again,” Blancanales laughed as he swung out of the cab.
The truck stood at a forty-five-degree angle in the gulley. Lyons and Blancanales scrambled up the bank, helping the other men from the back. They took a compass bearing and headed for the compound of Wei Ho.
Early morning lighted their way. Birds screeched in the distance. The men slipped through the brush and tangled vines. Insects rose in clouds. Indians with hand radios fanned out in front of the main group.
A point man buzzed Thomas. He translated for Able Team, “Forest ends. There is fence. Then flat land, no trees, nothing.”
“The mine field,” Blancanales said.
“Can they see the gate?” Lyons asked.
Thomas spoke with his men. “One gate. Many guards.”
“That’ll be it.”
The warriors continued. They joined the point men in the brush at the edge of a gravel road. Across the rutted tracks, an eight-foot chain link fence topped with razor wire kept animals out of a hundred-yard-wide mine field.
An asphalt road fenced on each side with the chain link cut across the open area and headed to the steel gate of the compound. A concrete guardhouse protected the entry. Visible over the high concrete walls was the pleasure dome of the Chinese warlord. The morning’s light revealed guards everywhere. Blancanales focused his binoculars on the gate guardhouse.
“Two mercs inside. Cambodians. Two more at the gate. Call Silveres. There can’t be any problems.”
Lyons keyed his hand radio. “Beach boy calling. You ready?”
“We wait for your word.”
“You won’t wait much longer.” Lyons turned to Blancanales. “Ready?”
“As I’ll ever be,” Blancanales answered, forcing a smile. He stripped off his pouch of 40mm grenades, then handed his M-16/M-203 to Gadgets. Thomas spoke with one of the warriors as the man stripped off his combat gear.
“They got glass in that bunker,” Lyons said to his partners. “We’ll put high explosive and one-ounce 12-gauge slugs into them, see if they break. Everyone else puts out cover fire. Thomas, put your snipers up.”
The group trotted parallel to the perimeter. Indians with G-3s dropped out, found trees overlooking the compound. Coming to the asphalt lane, other men scrambled up trees to where they would have a line of fire unobstructed by chain link. Blancanales took a G-3 and a Remington and slung the shotgun over his left shoulder. He took frag grenades from his thigh pockets. He straightened the kinks from their cotter pins. He dropped the grenades back in the pockets but did not button the flaps
.
Thomas gave the disarmed Indian warrior a length of cord. The man put his hands behind him, looped it around his wrists and held the cord tightly. Blancanales grabbed the free end.
“Wish me luck.”
“You got it.”
Blancanales gave his Indian “captive” a shove. The prisoner staggered from the roadside brush. Blancanales kicked him in the direction of the gate.
Gadgets and Lyons climbed small trees, went hand over hand through branches until they had firing positions. They lay prone on branches, sighting their weapons: Lyons the Atchisson, Gadgets the M-16/M-203.
Lyons keyed his radio’s transmit. “Count down starting, keep the line open.”
“The men are at their positions.”
“In a minute…”
Kicking his prisoner, jerking on the rope binding his hands, Blancanales drove the Indian toward the gate.
Two Cambodians went to the steel bars that blocked the entry and motioned Blancanales back. Pushing his prisoner onward, the apparent mercenary pointed to the hand radio at his belt and called out, “Tengo una problema. No lo trabaja”. Problem. Radio. “Comprende usted?”
The guards unslung their AK-47 rifles and leveled them at the two intruders. Blancanales stopped, back-stepped, jerking at the Indian’s rope. “No problem. I go! I go!”
Blancanales and the Indian warrior threw themselves into the mud and ruts at the side of the road.
“Now, Lieutenant! Hit them!” Lyons whispered into his hand radio. He sighted the Atchisson on the bulletproof windows a hundred yards away and fired.
The window became a mass of shatters. The two sentries at the gate fired on Blancanales. Rifle fire from high in the trees slammed the Cambodians down.
“One more!” Gadgets shouted from the other tree.
Lyons sighted again, put a second one-ounce steel-cored slug into the window, punched a hole the size of a fist. The M-203 sent a high-explosive grenade arcing for the guardhouse.
It missed the window. Gadgets reloaded as the snipers killed Cambodians running for the gate. A second 40mm grenade arced across the mine field.