Dick Stivers - Scorched Earth

But fortunately the Yaquis had anticipated his exhaustion. From the assembly area, they had walked north until a ridge and the curve of the canyon blocked the group from observation by the soldiers. No soldiers at the helicopters or in the pueblo would see the group as they moved through the moonlight. No one would hear the rocks he kicked down the mountainside.

Somehow, he didn't fall. Finally he came to the loose rock with sand at the base. Moving slowly, he stepped through the few inches of water in the streambed. Mosquitoes buzzed around his head. Gadgets did not have the energy to flick them away.

Single file in the moon shadows, the Yaquis moved south. Handfuls of ashes had blackened their clothes and faces. Gadgets stayed close to the Yaqui who spoke English. Without the translator, he would be useless in the infiltration.

Walking quickly for the first few hundred meters, they slowed when they saw the lights. Gadgets heard screams in the village. He looked up to the ridge. Though he could not see the helicopters or the soldiers from where he crouched in the canyon, he heard their voices. And above him, on the opposite mountainside, lights and shadows flashed across the rocks.

He took a deep breath. He checked the earphone plugged into his left ear and the wire leading to his hand radio. Then he clicked the transmit key with his identification code and whispered, "This is the Wizard. We're going in."

Clicks answered. He heard the code for Blancanales. Then Lyons answered. But no voices. They had already closed the distance to the sentries.

Good, the ex-Green Beret, veteran of a hundred "special actions," told himself. The sooner we kill these goons, the sooner I get to sleep.

Drawing back his autrorifle's actuator, he chambered the first subsonic round.

On the west side of the ridge, Lyons clawed up the steep slope. He moved carefully, testing each handhold on brush or rock before pulling himself up. Vato climbed an arm's distance to his left. To both sides, the other Yaquis clung to the mountainside and moved slowly, silently toward the top. Above them drunken soldiers celebrated their victory over the defenseless people of the mountain village. Lyons heard shouts, sometimes the screams of women. With every scream, rage surged through his mind. The fatigue of his body did not numb the anger. His stomach knotted with hatred. The muscles of his jaws ached as he gritted his teeth with frustration.

Only a few more minutes...

His hand radio clicked, then he heard Gadgets's voice in his earphone. Lyons paused to click an acknowledgment with his transmit key. He did not risk a voice response.

The slope rounded as they neared the ridgeline. Moving faster, the infiltrators snaked through the short brush. Moonlight lit their way. Pausing for a moment, Lyons raised his grease-blackened face to check their position.

Over the brush and rocks, he saw only the rotor-stabilizer assemblies of the helicopters. Light reflected from the undersides of the rotor blades. Smoke from a bonfire wisped into the moonlight.

The fire confirmed his position.

Ahead of them and to the left, he would find the shallow gully cutting through the perimeter. Lyons hissed quietly to the others, then started toward the erosion ditch.

Boots crashing through the mesquite stopped him. Motionless, Lyons waited, hearing breaking sticks, rocks kicked. The boots walked through the weeds a few more steps, then stopped.

Had a sentry spotted them?

Lyons heard a zipper, then a stream of water splashing. Keeping his head low, he looked up to see a soldier only a few steps away. Urinating. Lyons watched the drunken soldier sway. Finally, the soldier staggered away.

Another hiss from Lyons signaled the Yaquis. They continued forward, inching closer to the perimeter.

South of the pueblo, twenty-five meters from the last house, Blancanales saw the pale-blue line scratched across the darkness. He turned to the Yaquis behind him and hissed a warning. The soft, almost inaudible scratching of dry grass on hands and cloth stopped. They lay motionless in the weeds beside the pathway as Blancanales continued forward.

The ex-Green Beret paused to snap off about eighteen inches of dry, rigid stem from the wild grasses around him. As he continued, he waved the stem ahead of him like an insect's antenna.

When he came to the blue line stretched across the pathway, he paused. At waist height, the line of clear monofilament extended from the rocks of the mountainside to a thicket of cacti at the edge of the gully. He touched the line with the grass stem and found it taut.

In the moonlight, he scanned the grasses and brush of the area. He saw a path of crushed grass to the cacti. Another path led to the rocks. Blancanales peered at the hard packed earth of the path. He saw no turned dirt, no erect trigger prongs, nothing to indicate a mine or booby trap buried in the path.

Blancanales crawled under the monofilament line. He went to the crushed weeds leading from the pathway toward the rocks. Snaking through the brush and dry grasses, he felt the dirt ahead of him with his left hand. He waved the long grass stem in front of him to check for other trip lines.

He stopped at the rocks and watched the pueblo. Cries and voices came from the shacks. Through a window he saw soldiers. At the last house of the village, its whitewashed adobe blue in the moonlight, a man leaned against the wall. Blancanales saw the line of a rifle.

With his hands, Blancanales felt through the gravel at the base of the mountainside. He crawled closer to where the nylon trip line disappeared into the shadow under an overhang. With the grass stem, he checked for other lines. Finally, the stem scratched plastic.

Blancanales eased into the shadow. Waiting for his eyes to adjust to the near-total darkness, he looked for the end of the monofilament. But his eyes could not distinguish details within the darkness.

Turning his body, he sat up. He knew the mono-filament line passed over his right shoulder. He knew the line ended at the detonator. That placed the detonator and the explosive charge of the bomb directly in front of his face.

He would have to defuse the bomb by touch.

He reached out and touched rock. Lightly, slowly, he moved his fingertips over the boulder. He found something slick, the width of a belt. The slick band covered the texture of the rock. He traced the band to the center. It flexed under his fingertips. He touched the edge, felt his fingertip stick.

Tape. They had looped tape around a rock. He continued to the center. He came to a shape. He traced the outline of the shape, a rectangle. He found raised letters: Front — Toward Enemy.

It was a claymore mine. Face to face with the kilogram of high explosive and the thousands of steel ball bearings, Blancanales closed his eyes. It made no difference in the darkness. And if he triggered the claymore, his life would be gone before he saw the flash.

His fingers traced the upper edge of the claymore. A length of det-cord entered the detonator well. Tape secured the det-cord and a pull-firing striker to the rock.

The safety pin hung by a length of cord. Touching the striker assembly with the small finger of his right hand to maintain the position of his hand, he searched for the safety pin's hole. The tip of the pin scratched on the firing device's tube, then slipped home.

Taking a moment to breathe, Blancanales calmed his mind, then pushed the pin through the striker housing.

He put his left index finger through the pull ring and held the spring-driven striker shaft. Then he pulled the monofilament, releasing the striker shaft, and eased the striker down. It stopped against the safety pin.

Blancanales did not cut the monofilament. If the' soldier who placed the mine specialized in anti-infiltration devices, there would be a second claymore at the opposite end of the line. If intruders stumbled into the trip line, the double explosion would rake the kill zone with thousands of high-velocity steel balls from both sides.