Dick Stivers - Warlord of Azatlan

Lyons stopped Blancanales as he slipped out a syrette of painkiller. "We don't have time. Besides, we can't have him stumbling around stoned."

As he spoke, Lyons put his knee on Nate's back. He grabbed the splinter. As he pulled, Nate screamed, convulsed with pain: "Goddaaaaaaaaaaamn you! You torturing bastard!"

Lyons laughed. He gazed at the bloody blade of hardwood. "I don't know what you're screaming about, didn't hurt me at all."

"Here, take some antibiotics." Blancanales passed Nate a palmful of pills.

"Forget the post-operative care," Lyons snapped. "We got to move."

Despite his injuries, Nate walked point down the mountain pathways. Only he knew the trail. He pointed his tiny 9mm Ingram ahead of him, his right arm bound against his body with strips torn from a dead merc's uniform. Lyons stayed close behind with his Atchisson.

"Thanks, spook man," Nate told him. "For helping me."

"Then stop calling me 'spook man.' We're not with the Agency."

"I know. No CIA would have helped me. But I call you anything I want. Don't like it, go home."

"Anything you say, Geronimo."

Nate laughed. "You and me, we could be friends."

The captured sniper and spotter slowed them as they raced against dusk to the crack in the stone above the cave-fortress of Unomundo. Finally, Nate found the entrance by moonlight.

Far into the mountain, they questioned the prisoners. Lyons cut their gags.

"Why the pictures of the president?" he asked.

The rifleman laughed. "Why do you think?"

Blancanales squatted in front of them. "If you cooperate, you live."

The pro-fascist mercenaries looked to one another. The spotter spoke first.

"We don't get paid enough to die. What do you need to know?"

"Why the pictures of the president?" Lyons repeated.

"To hit that preacher."

"Unomundo intends to assassinate the president?"

The rifleman interrupted. "Mister, you're on the wrong side. Unomundo's going to kick ass tomorrow . As the man says, The New Reich Shall Rise."

Deep in the volcanic mountain, only their flashlights breaking the absolute night, they continued their questioning of the Nazi assassins. They squatted in a half-circle on a ledge. The cavern dome arched above them. Behind them, a chasm dropped into darkness.

"What happens tomorrow?" Lyons demanded.

"The Reich," the rifleman repeated. "Tomorrow we make a nation for all the dispossessed white people of the world. We will annihilate all the Commies and Christians, and start an empire of the strong and pure."

"Where are you from?" Blancanales asked him.

"Born in Texas. But I'm Rhodesian. Let me take you to Unomundo. He'll need men like you tomorrow. There's a place for you in the Reich. You'll live like princes."

"What happens tomorrow?" Lyons asked him again.

"There's still time to join. We leave after dark for the capital, my spotter and me. We're going to grease El Presidente Preacher in the morning when he goes out to pray. Our squads will kill the politicos in their beds. Then the gunships and airborne teams will hit the government buildings and the army garrisons. Then buses and trucks will roll in with troops to secure the city."

Lyons led them on. "What kind of money can we get up front?"

"A few thousand. The real payoff comes after the victory, when we divide up the country. Everybody gets an estate. And money. And Indians as slaves. And the Indian girls for whores. How does that compare with a salary and a pension after thirty years?"

"You think he'd hire us, even after we killed the men up there?"

"Positive. You killed losers. He needs men like you. Untie us and we'll take you to him."

"Right now? We could talk to him tonight?"

"Right now. He's briefing the commanders. And he'll be going in with the gunships tomorrow. He's no bigmouth lying politician, sending us to die, then rubbing bellies with the niggers and Commies. He'll lead his army from the front. Let's go! Right now. You can be on the winning side for a change."

Taking his partners aside, Lyons asked them: "We got enough from these monsters? I'm throwing them in that hole." He flicked a rock into the darkness of the chasm. Seconds later, far, far below, they heard the rock strike stone.

"Maybe they know where Unomundo is in the compound," Blancanales suggested. "Then we hit him with that Walther rifle."

Nate shook his head. "The officers' quarters don't face out. There is no clear shot. My way is better. I will kill them all at once."

"You got the plastic?" Gadgets asked. "We only brought a kilo of C-4 and some radio detonators."

"It is there."

"You said the munitions are in another cave," Lyons reminded Nate.

"They are. Listen. I wanted to do this alone. But together we must do it tonight. I will contact my friends. A few men."

"Who are they?" Blancanales asked.

"Friends. Guatemalans. But I take the Nazis. They are mine. One hundred thousand dollars and two Nazis. Very cheap."

"But where's your explosive?" Gadgets asked him.

"In the cave. They have a five-hundred-gallon tank of propane..."

"Righteous!" Gadgets laughed with excitement. "If the conditions are right, that's better than TNT. You got my vote."

Lyons handed Nate his silenced Colt. "No torture session. We don't have the time."

"All I need is rope."

Nate returned to the two tied Nazis.

"What are you doing?" the rifleman demanded to know. "Man, you're an American, don't you..."

Cinching their gags tight, Nate stopped the talk. He kicked the pro-fascists onto their stomachs. Untying the nylon cords around their necks, he triple-tied their wrists behind their backs, then linked the two men by all the remaining rope, perhaps forty feet. As he worked, he pronounced sentence on them.

"You are not animals, you are not insects. You are less than shit. You are poison. You have poisoned this beautiful place with your European sickness. Eight years I lived here in peace. Now you come with slavery and death. My wife is Indian. My son is Indian. My friends are Indian. If there is a hell, I send you there. But first, you know hell here..."

Blancanales slipped out his Beretta. As he clicked off the safety to give the prisoners the mercy of a quick death…

Nate looped the rope over a jutting rock and kicked the Nazis off the ledge. In the unnatural quiet of the volcanic chambers, they heard the Nazis' arms pop backward out of their shoulder sockets when the rope snapped taut.

They heard the guttural choking and thrashing of the gagged Nazis. Nate shouted down to them.

"It will take a week for you to die. When your arms rot off, you fall."

"Oh, wow," Gadgets sighed. "That one's straight out of a nightmare. Think they'll live a week?"

Lyons and Blancanales said nothing as Nate assembled his equipment. Below, the choking and thrashing continued. Finally, Lyons went to Nate.

He spoke softly as he slipped out a knife. "We're not like them. No matter what they do, we're not them."

"That is how they killed Xagil's father. The husband of my wife's sister. For them to suffer is justice."

"No, it's only revenge. And if we stop to avenge every murder, every atrocity, they will take the world. It is not victory to torture the torturers."

Lyons cut the rope. A moment later, the Nazis smashed on the rocks.

None of them spoke. Nate turned away. Able Team followed him through the maze of the mountain's interior.

Two hours later, they returned to the sanctuary of the cave overlooking the valley. Nate dispatched Xagil to gather the men from hidden farms scattered throughout the mountains.

"I told him to run," Nate reported to Able Team, "but it will be hours before they all come. Now we plan the attack."