Dick Stivers - Amazon Slaughter

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 fingers. 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.

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.