Dick Stivers - Amazon Slaughter

"Man, oh, man," Gadgets sighed. "Sooooo glad it wasn't me."

Blancanales stepped over the railing and came up to his teammates. "I don't think they even knew what hit them." He flashed a penlight on Lyons's face. "You're bleeding. You feel all right? Can you stand up?"

"I shot this Atchisson pistol-style, caught the butt..."

Blancanales turned off his light. "All you've got is a bump. That's other people's blood on you."

"We take one!" Thomas called out. "One soldier alive."

Several Indians dragged the man out of the cabin, gripping him by his uniform and web belt. Six inches of white bone waved from his right shoulder. Blood foamed from his chest and mouth. The Indians stood the dying man in front of Able Team.

Pulling a length of nylon cord from his thigh pocket, Blancanales looped it around the stump of the prisoner's right arm, cinched the cord tight to stop the blood spurting from the artery. He eased the man to the deck.

The prisoner struck out with his left arm. One of the Indians leaned forward, a shotgun muzzle going to the man's face. Blancanales shoved the weapon aside. He ripped off the prisoner's shirt and examined the wounds.

Blancanales looked up to the others, shaking his head. "He'll be dead in a minute..."

"So will you!" the dying slaver gasped in English, blood frothing from his mouth. "Die puking your lungs, die of gas, you..."

Coughing and choking broke his words. Blancanales put his penlight beam on the man's face. He was middle-aged, with a long-ago-broken nose. The beam flashing over his body, Lyons's light revealed the sucking chest wounds, a knot of hanging intestines; on his left arm, web lines of scars.

Lyons leaned over the man and slapped him back to consciousness. "Junkie! Who do you work for?"

"Yankee hijos de putas! Wait for yours... If the gas don't...the Chinaman will skin you alive, take a week to do it... Me tonight, you tomorrow!"

"Who's the Chinaman?" Lyons shouted.

"Go to hell..." A gurgle of blood stopped the addict's suffering.

"He's gone," Blancanales told Lyons.

"To hell," Lyons said.

"A junkie mercenary working for a Chinaman," Gadgets mused. "Freaky."

Lyons aimed the penlight and closely examined the dead man. Jailhouse tattoos in blue ink spotted his shoulders and back. A faded senorita posed on a shoulder blade. On the left forearm, Lyons found words,

Puerto Rico Libre — FALN . He pointed out the tattoo to Blancanales and Gadgets.

"A Puerto Rican junkie mercenary working for a Chinaman in the Amazon. Very freaky," Gadgets stressed. "And what about that gas he raved about? What do you think?"

"Another boat!" Thomas called out, pointing downriver.

Blancanales lifted his binoculars and focused on two tiny running lights. At a headland where the river curved, a spotlight switched on. The xenon beam searched the night, found the cluster of river craft. Two lines of tracers arced toward them.

Lyons ran for the gunboat's pedestal-mounted M-60 machine gun. He slipped in blood, had to scramble to the weapon. Finding a belt in place and the barrel still warm from firing, Lyons estimated the distance and spun the backsight's ranging wheel with his thumb. He fired a long burst, saw no obvious hits. He called out, "Thomas! Here!"

Passing the M-60's pistol grip to the Indian leader, Lyons crossed the gunboat again and jumped the railings. He went to the M-60 mounted at the back of the Indian boat, kicked aside branches lashed to the rail and sighted on the spotlight. He jerked back the cocking rod and squeezed off a burst. Again, because of the night and the extreme distance, he saw no hits.

Thomas blazed away, arcing burst after burst at the distant slavers. Tracers crisscrossed, slugs splashing in the river, a few slugs punching the boat. Blancanales and Gadgets circulated among the Indians with G-3 rifles, showing them how to twist the rotary sight out to the extreme range, 400 yards. The riflemen fired aimed single shots.

The spotlight went out. The slaver boat's tiny running lights moved back for the shelter of the headland. The machine-gun fire continued. Muzzle flashes from rifles sparked from the dark form of the retreating boat. Then the lights disappeared behind the headland.

Firing died out. Thomas sent a last futile burst after the escaping slavers. Blancanales and Gadgets returned to the patrol cruiser. Blancanales paused to check the dressing on the Indians wounded when the enemy gunboat had reconned the "sandbar" with its machine guns.

"Anyone else hurt?" Lyons called out.

"Only this man. Through-and-through thigh wound, shattered the bone. He has to go out on the plane tomorrow morning..."

"Thomas," Lyons called to the Indian, leaning through the screen of branches. "We get off the river now. We can't risk going farther."

"Yes, understand." Thomas shouted his answer, pointing to the headland. "Much danger there. They wait, maybe. Maybe many boats."

The engine rumbled to life, belching diesel smoke. Gadgets called out from the bridge of the cruiser, "In gear!"

Slowly, ponderously, the cluster of boats — the patrol cruiser, the slaver gunboat, the two trailing airboats — crossed the slow current. As they neared the riverbank, Lyons peered into the darkness, searching for a cove or inlet or island — somewhere to conceal the boats.

"Nowhere to hide, but I got a plan," Gadgets told him, as if reading his mind. Spinning the wheel, Gadgets steered the cruiser directly into the riverbank. The bow plowed into the soft mud. The gentle current slowly pushed the cruiser's aft around, reversing the cruiser's direction and pushing the gunboat aground. Now the camouflaged cruiser and airboats screened the gunboat from the river.

Lyons laughed, slapped Gadgets on the back. "The Wizard does it!"

"Not yet. We need a work party to cut more brush and tree branches. With that talk about gas, I don't want any plane spotting us."

Lyons nodded. He left the bridge, taking the steps two at a time to the deck. He paused at the rail to scan the open river for a moment, saw nothing but a long, shimmering streak of reflected moon. As he turned away, a shotgun muzzle jammed into his gut.

"Now, Mr. CIA Gringo, I am no longer your prisoner."

Surveying a topographical map of the area, Chan Sann directed his patrol boat's pilot to steer for the riverbank. By radio, he sent the hovercraft to a position immediately below the headland. There, the hovercraft's MK-19 40mm full-auto grenade launcher commanded the curve in the river. When the Brazilians came downstream...

Chan Sann went to the cabin door. On the patrol boat's rear deck, a squad of mercenaries prepared their counterattack. Soldiers checked the belts of cartridges for the boat's M-60 machine guns, stacked ammo cans near the weapons. Other soldiers readied a third M-60, unfolding the bipod legs, closing the feed cover on a belt of cartridges. Chan Sann called out, "Hoang! Lopez! In here."

Two of the men left their work to join their commander at the map.

"You will take the machine gun and a radio to here." Chan Sann pointed to the top of the headland. "Our boat pilot will let you off now. You will watch for the Brazilians. Radio us when you see them."

Fear crossed the faces of the soldiers. Lopez, a Texan Chicano on the run for drug-gang murders, and Hoang, a Vietnamese-French Eurasian from the Marseilles crime underworld, exchanged glances. But they did not question or object to their commander's orders. Two men alone in the Amazon faced real and imaginary horrors. But to question Chan Sann meant certain death.

Nodding, they saluted Chan Sann, retreated to the deck. "Oh, Jesus," Lopez whined. "We are screwed! We got to go up there with the snakes and Indians."