Dick Stivers - Amazon Slaughter

"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.

White phosphorous turned the concrete guardhouse into a crematorium. Then another high-explosive round hit the gate. But it left the steel unmarked, the gate still closed.

A mile away, a rain of 40mm high-explosive and fragmentation grenades fell on the prefab buildings housing the nuclear technicians. Explosions marched across the apartments. Lines of explosions ripped the equipment yards. Gasoline and diesel fuel flamed. The lieutenant then moved the cruiser upstream, the gunners on the PT boats watching for slaver boats.

Lyons sprinted along the road. Forty-millimeter grenades passed over his head, hit inside the walled compound. Indian snipers in the trees killed every exposed Cambodian. Fire from Blancanales's G-3 slammed a guard's chest, staggered the man off the wall. The Indian at the roadside sighted over his Remington's barrel as he waited for a target.

Throwing himself prone in the mud only twenty feet from the gate, Lyons sighted the Atchisson on the gate's steel bars. But he declined to waste the slug. There was nothing vulnerable. Steel horizontals four inches square braced the bars. Concrete shrouded both ends of the gate. He shouted into his hand radio:

"I'm going over the top!"

"Don't!" Gadgets screamed.

"Only one way in..." Slinging his auto-shotgun over his shoulder, Lyons pulled the fragmentation grenades from his pants' thigh pockets. He jerked out the pins, holding the levers down as he dashed to the concrete wall. He threw the grenades over, one to the right, one to the left, and waited.

Blasts sent thousands of steel razors through the air. Lyons grabbed the bars and climbed and threw a leg over the top. An AK slug shriek-roared past his head. A slug hit steel. The shock went through the steel like hammers to his palms. Then he continued over, dropping to the asphalt, rolling, his Atchisson clattering.

Python now in hand, he scrambled for cover. Slugs from a G-3 at the tree line took out an Asian with an AK. Lyons saw a rifle barrel slide out of a fire port. He put a .357 hollowpoint through the slot. The rifle barrel jerked about, slid back, caught on its front sight.

From a doorway, three Cambodians rushed him.

Double-actioning 158-grain hollowpoints, Lyons put a slug through the chest of the first man before he took two steps. The Asian lurched but continued forward. Other slugs went into the second and third mercenaries, blood and flesh spraying from their backs. They went down. Lyons fired another shot through the first man, saw him fall. Struggling with the twisted sling, Lyons tried to get the Atchisson off his shoulder.

One of the dying mercenaries on the ground raised his rifle. Lyons snapped a shot at the man's face, saw his shoulder spray flesh. The AK pointed and flashed...

Diving, Lyons heard slugs punching concrete. In front of him, a Cambodian stepped away from the wall and brought his AK to line on Lyons's head. Lyons rolled to the side. One-handed, he threw open the Python's cylinder as he slipped a speed-loader from a belt pouch. He pushed the cartridges into the cylinder.

A blast ripped away the guard's head as his finger touched the trigger. Then he thrashed headless on the blacktop, his unfired rifle falling from his hands.

Lyons snapped his Python closed and looked back. Surrounded by swirling black smoke from the guardhouse, the Indian "prisoner" dropped from the steel gate, Remington in his hands. He fell in a crouch and fired again. An AK slug slammed him back.

Lyons, twisting his auto-shotgun free, sighted across the asphalt parking area at the bulletproof glass of a guard station, then shattered the glass with a one-ounce slug. He dropped the magazine still containing four slugs into his thigh pocket and jammed in double-ought/number two steel loads.

The Indian staggered to his feet, trying to make it to cover. Another slug hit him, punching into his leg. His leg flew out as if he slipped. Spraying the area with two wild blasts, Lyons dashed to the man and grabbed his wrist and dragged him to the cover of a doorway. Inside, Lyons saw stairs to the walkway on the wall.

With a through-and-through chest wound and a bullet-shattered leg, the Indian reloaded his Remington. Shock glazed his eyes but he still moved. The warrior pointed at the concrete walls of the main house, at the protected guard stations, at the gun ports. He shook his head to Lyons, then motioned to where the others fired from outside for the others to come. Lyons nodded, crept up the stairs leading to the wall, keeping his head down.

A walkway ran along the top of the wall, reinforced concrete protecting defending soldiers chest-high in front. Lyons eased one more step up the stairs. He saw no concrete on the side of the house and dome, only a safety railing. He bobbed his head up above the stairs, saw a fighting position on top of the guardhouse, the walls concrete and four feet high. Smoke swirled.