Amazon Slaughter

15

As the last minutes of night grayed to day, Blancanales poured buckets of chill river water over Lyons. Filthy and naked, Lyons stood shivering on a sand beach. Mist blanketed the sand and the mirror-calm river. Hundred-foot tapestries of shadowy forest rose from the far bank. Dawn light broke through the highest branches, the shattered radiance beaming shafts over the mist that shrouded the river and its beaches.

Lyons grabbed handfuls of sand to scrub away blood and diesel oil and jungle slime. His genipap dissolved to reveal his sun-browned body. Scrubbing his waist and buttocks and legs exposed the white band left by the stretch trunks he usually wore to beaches.

Higher on the sandy slope, Gadgets sprawled on his poncho with the shortwave radio, monitoring a band to the pilot of the Stony Man seaplane. The plane approached. They had received their first communication from the pilot thirty minutes before. Now they waited for the sound of the engines.

The radio blared. "This is the Bird. Coming in on your signal. See a river."

"Can't hear your engines yet..."

In the west, the three men of Able Team heard a buzz. Their heads turned simultaneously. The noise grew louder. Only seconds later, the props of the two-engined seaplane ripped the gray silence, the plane passing low over the rain forest. Morning light flashed from the plane's wings as it soared in a wide banking loop, the pilot reversing direction to land with the rising sun behind him.

"This is Hardman Three," Gadgets shouted into the radio. "We're around the bend two or three hundred yards from the boats. We got a crowd of prisoners, and we don't want all of them seeing our team and you pilots in the daylight. So go on past the boats. We'll offload down here. Got it?"

"Read you loud and clear. Touching down now."

The roar returned as the seaplane descended. They lost sight of it behind the bend, then it appeared again, skimming low, its pontoons finally slicing the misted water. Prop blast foamed the river.

The seaplane pivoted on its pontoons and approached the shore. The engines died. Blancanales dumped a last bucket of water over Lyons's head. Voices rang out as Indians ran from the camp, their bare feet and sandals slapping the sand. Warriors carried the stretchers of the Indians wounded from the "recon-by-fire" the night before, plus the knee-shot Cuban pretty boy. Others herded the second captive Cuban. Lieutenant Silveres jogged with them, his H&K G-3 slung over his shoulder.

Lyons knotted his waistband and pulled his loincloth tight. He waited with Blancanales as the plane eased up to the beach, its pontoons scraping on small rocks. The pilot switched off the engines. A side door flew open.

Crowding around the door, the Indians received crates and packages. Thomas organized the men into a line. Pairs of men lugged rope-handled crates to the sand. Other men carried plastic-wrapped packages. Stenciled words identified the contents: Canned Meat, Vitamins, Medical. In minutes, crates and wooden boxes and packages covered the beach.

Splashing through the shallows, Lyons and Blancanales peered in the side door. Blancanales shouted over the chatter and laughter, "Any special instructions?"

A pilot looked up from unlashing a stack of crates. It was the copilot of the DC-3 from three nights before.

"Well, say. How you all doing here? Looks like you're making friends and influencing people." He stared at Lyons. "Looks like you lost your soldier suit."

"What about messages?" Blancanales repeated.

"Maybe next time. This is the last of it. Now where are my passengers?"

The copilot shoved three more crates to the door. Indians took two, Blancanales and Lyons the third, a box marked Radios. Several Indians heaved the second Cuban into the plane. Then the stretcher men loaded the wounded aboard.

"Those Cubans give you any trouble," Lyons called out, "tell them to take a walk!"

"Will do!" the copilot laughed. With a salute, he jerked the door closed.

Starters whined inside the engines. All the men retreated from the plane. The engines roared to life, throwing spray as the seaplane maneuvered. In the center of the river, the engines shrieked with maximum rpm and the plane soared away.

Silence returned to the forest. In the distance, birds whistled and cried out. Insects droned. On the beach, Gadgets sorted the cargo. Lieutenant Silveres surveyed the equipment and provisions.

"Weapons. Ammunition. For many more men and much more fighting. You must tell me now what you intend. My country, is only eight or nine kilometers from this place."

Gadgets called out to his partners. "Hey, over here. The lieutenant wants a briefing." Lyons and Blancanales joined them.

"Do you continue into my country?"

"What we have to do," Lyons said, "is to get out of here before the slavers send another plane to gas us. We need to make distance."

"I ask you again," the lieutenant's voice rose with impatience. "Do you continue into my country?"

Able Team did not answer. Biancanales glanced to Lyons and Gadgets, finally nodded an answer. Yes.

"You say you have a directive from thiscountry," the lieutenant said. "But by what authorization will you invade mycountry?"

"Perhaps," Biancanales grinned, speaking softly, calmly, "we can speak to your superiors later today. Where do they wait for us? We will meet and discuss..."

"Do not joke with me, gringo!" the lieutenant jerked the G-3 auto-rifle from his shoulder.

Biancanales had Silveres by the throat in an instant, kicking the officer's feet from under him to dump him flat on his back in the sand. He put a knee into his chest, screamed down into the young man's face, "Don't you ever call me that again! My first language was Spanish. I grew up in the barrio. I had to learn English in school. If it's anyone here who's a gringo, it's you. With your arrogance and petty, pompous macho... You stupid little college punk — you must really think you're blessed by God."

"Wow, Lieutenant," Gadgets laughed, "you live dangerous. I never saw anyone get the Pol pissed. You got life insurance?"

"What are we going to do with him?" Blancanales asked, standing. He helped Lieutenant Silveres to his feet, slapping sand from his uniform. He picked up the G-3 and shook sand from it, then returned it to the young officer. "Really, we have to come to an understanding with you, Lieutenant."

"I thought we had an understanding," Lyons stepped up, buckling his Python's shoulder holster. "We need soldiers, we need allies. We'll need your help today or tomorrow, but all you're doing is giving us trouble. Can't you trust us for a day or two?"

"Do you think it so strange that I defend my country?" the lieutenant asked.

Exasperated, Blancanales shook his head. Finally, he spoke slowly, with fatherly patience. "Lieutenant, if we were the enemies of your country, would you be alive now?"

"The United States said it was the friend of Argentina, then betrayed Argentina to the British Imperialists."

Lyons stopped the argument. "This punk's a dunce. He does not understand the real world of Mack Bolan. For the sake of the survival of good and gentle people, we have to explain it to him. But let me keep it simple. Here it is. Step out of line again — like last night, like this morning — you die. No talk, no philosophy. A bullet. Understand? No, don't answer. We don't have time to hear it. Thomas! Assemble the men!"

They divided their force into two groups. A small group of men escorted the mercenary prisoners back to the tribe. The prisoners marched in a line, a long rope linking their necks. They carried loads of food, medicine and weapons for the people. In a few days, Thomas promised the defeated mercenaries, planes would take them out of the Amazon. Though many of them faced extradition and trial for crimes in other nations of the world, the mercenaries cheered their fate. They preferred any prison in the world to horror and death from Chan Sann.

The main force crossed the river, then camouflaged the cruisers. They continued north overland. Able Team and the Xavante warriors carried loads, also. As they expected to recruit more fighters en route to the slaver camps, every Indian carried extra weapons lashed to their new green-patterned packs. The made-in-Taiwan load-bearing equipment bulged with H&K magazines and boxes of 12-gauge double-ought. A team of Indian warriors carried the group's only heavy weapon, an M-60 machine gun and a thousand rounds of belted cartridges. Weight and the lack of tripods for the gunboat weapons — the other M-60s and the full-auto 40mm grenade launchers — forced the fighters to leave the other weapons behind.

Zigzagging up a ridge of hills, they reached the crest as the day's temperature became intolerable. A heat-scorched ridge line viewed the snaking river to the south and west. To the north and east, another river shimmered in the blazing sunlight: the Mamore River, the natural boundary of Rondonia, one of the western states of Brazil. The Mamore coursed northwest and joined the Madeira, the waters of the Andes finally draining into the Atlantic Ocean.

"Take a break!" Gadgets gasped, stooped under the weight of his radios and electronics. He ignored the panorama, collapsing in a tangle of leaves and grasses.

"By the map," Blancanales told them, "if we push all day, we'll make the Mamore with one or two hours of daylight left."

Gadgets jumped up shrieking. A mass of thousand-footed worms covered his pack and clothes. Flailing at the millipedes, he hopped about in distress. Lyons pulled off Gadgets's backpack and swept the crawling insects from his collar, brushing them out of his hair.

Whipping off his sweat-soaked cameo shirt, Gadgets finally shook off the last of the millipedes. The Indians around them laughed at the North Americans' antics.

With a glance at the map, Lyons pulled his poncho out of his pack. "Forget it. I haven't slept in three nights."

Lyons sat and closed his eyes.

He opened them as someone shook him. He blinked at the afternoon shadows around him. In only an instant, the sun had dropped in the sky, the air cooled. Lyons stared around him in disbelief.

"Ironman, we go," Thomas told him.

Gathering his equipment and weapons, following Thomas down the Indian trails, Lyons moved in a dream state, his mind not yet awake. Fragments of afternoon light blazed in deep shadows, polishing leaves with sharp brightness. Exotic butterflies fluttered in the rain forest's tangled growth, their wings in shadow, then suddenly flashing like neon, then lost again in the triple-canopy darkness. Lyons walked through the per fume of flowers and the stink of jungle slime. Ahead of them, he saw the line of warriors.

Another smell drifted to him, the foul stench of decomposition. In a few more steps, he saw the terrible source.

The Indian men pulled bodies of men and women and children from the dead brush. Around the clearing, every plant and tree had withered, yellowed. Yellow leaves carpeted the earth. The sunlight came unfiltered through the stick-bare branches of dead trees.

"Chlorine gas," Gadgets told him. "Point man found them a minute ago. We've counted fifteen people so far. We found a cookfire, a few pots and pans, one old shotgun. I guess the slavers spotted them."

Steeling his gut, Lyons glanced at the bodies. Chlorine had seared the eyes and mouths of the Indians, had attacked their lungs. They had died screaming, their faces contorted, their mouths wide, caked with horrible wastes. Death — agony twisted their limbs. Now, after days of heat and humidity, the gases of decomposition ballooned their bodies, stretching taut the chlorine-seared skin.

"What are your men doing?" Lyons asked Thomas.

"We bury families."

Lyons shook his head. "No time."

"Then we burn..."

"Can't risk the smoke. The slavers are looking for us now, no doubt about it."

"Evil to leave the people for animals and birds.

"The longer the slavers live, the more people they gas, the more Indians they take for slaves. If we stay to bury these dead, more people die. That, surely, is the greater evil. I'm sorry. Please explain to the men. We must continue."

Thomas went to the men and told them what Lyons had said. To a man they protested, waving fists toward Lyons. But after another minute of talking, Thomas persuaded the men to leave the dead. One of the Xavantes pulled a feathered amulet from his neck and dropped it on the bodies. The line of men left the scene of mass murder.

Jogging forward, Lyons paused beside Lieutenant Silveres. "You saw that back there? We're after the scum who gassed those people. And we're going to waste them. I don't care if they're in Bolivia, or Brazil, or France. So if we have to cross your sacred national boundary, don't give me any crap."

"The defense of Brazil is the responsibility of the Brazilian army. We don't need meddling foreigners to protect our people."

"Don't need our help? Then why didn't youprotect those people?"

Without giving the proud young officer time to reply, Lyons ran forward and took his place behind the point man.