Amazon Slaughter

16

As punishment for gas-bombing the gunboat, Chan Sann crucified the pilot. He did not listen to the French pilot's explanations about Williams's reported coordinates. He did not allow the pilot the mercy of suicide.

The French mercenary hung on a cross of planks, spikes driven through his forearms and feet. Flies and carrion beetles feasted on the raw flesh of his wounds. From time to time, the man returned to consciousness as the insects attacked his eyes. Incoherent with shock and agony and sunstroke, the dying pilot thrashed his head to shake away the insects, crying out in French and English. Sometimes he raved in Latin, intoning Catholic prayers, snatches of old hymns. As the sun sank, his motions slowed. They became spasmodic as blood and strength drained from him. Before he died, the beetles would eat his eyes.

Chan Sann sat in the shade of a rubber tree and watched the pilot suffer. Other Cambodians crowded around him, taking cold bottles of Brazilian beer from an ice chest. They chattered in their language, talking of the war against the bourgeoisie during the rule of their Communist master, Pol Pot. They had killed — with torture, Kalashnikov slugs, shovels, or starvation — all opposition to their regime. The opposition included doctors, lawyers, teachers, civil clerks, businessmen, shop owners, farmers, mechanics, laborers, Catholics, Buddhists, soldiers, officers. All educated Cambodians had died. All Cambodians who could read had died. All Cambodians who would not murder their neighbors, parents or children had died. Any failure to demonstrate unquestioning joy in the creation of the perfect Marxist state meant death.

During the three-year rule of Pol Pot, three and a half million of the counterrevolutionaries died, one-half of the population of Cambodia.

Now the Communist exiles joked of the extermination, describing tortures and mutilations that had amused them. They placed bets on when the pilot would die. Chan Sann did not participate in their game. He watched the French pilot with calm disdain.

"Tay!" Chan Sann spoke suddenly.

"Yes, Commander!" One of the Cambodians sprang to attention.

"He is a weakling. He will die soon. We will make him suffer more. Your knife, here..." Chan Sann made a motion.

"Yes, Commander!"

Running across the clearing, the soldier unsheathed his knife and slipped the blade into the abdomen of the naked Frenchman. With the skill of practice and experience, he dragged the tip of the knife across. The pain brought consciousness to the prisoner. The gash yawned, spilling out intestines. Flies descended in a cloud. The Frenchman looked down at the horror inflicted on him. He shrieked and he wailed.

Chan Sann smiled.

A walkie-talkie interrupted their game. Stopping his soldiers' giggles and chatter with a wave, Chan Sann pressed the radio's transmit key. "This is Chan Sann. Why do you disturb me?"

A voice blared. "Colonel Gomez has captured a river boat of workers. Wei Ho wants them for labor."

"Ready the helicopter."

As the forest shadows became enfolding darkness, the warriors neared the river. They had left behind the hills and ridges two hours before. The trail wove through swamplands and hardwood groves. Lyons drove Gadgets and Blancanales to the limits of their endurance. Even the Indian warriors moved slowly in the heat and humidity. Swarms of insects followed the line of men.

"Lyons!" Gadgets gasped, stumbling under his heavy backpack of electronics. "Where the hell are we racing to?"

"The river."

"It's less than an hour until sundown," Blancanales reminded him. "If we don't make camp, we'll have to put out lookouts and sentries in the dark."

"We'll camp at the river. Keep moving."

Using the forced march as a training exercise, Able Team had issued the new hand radios to Thomas and several Indians. Spreading out ahead of the main group, the Indians scouted parallel trails, looking for the easiest path, always watching for signs of slaver patrols. After the novelty of the "far-speaking boxes" wore off, the point men provided both security and speed. Marshes or dead ends never forced the heavily loaded main group to double back. Lyons rotated the point men, giving all the Indian warriors the opportunity to experiment with the twentieth-century devices.

Thomas received a radio message and translated it for Lyons, "One man smells the river."

"Great, pass the word along. We rest at the river." Lyons called back to Gadgets and Blancanales. "Ten or twenty more minutes."

"Joy to the world!" Gadgets gasped.

Another radio report came in. Thomas listened, then told Lyons, "There is fighting. He hears machine guns."

"How far?"

Thomas keyed his new hand radio to question the scout.

"He thinks it might be on the river."

"Tell him to keep going until he can see who's shooting at who."

Another scout buzzed Thomas. He listened for a moment. "It is steamer boat on the river. They fight with the army."

"With the army? Brazilian army or what?"

Thomas shrugged. "We go see."

An aerial sound cut off their talk. The line of men stared up at the dark branches above them. The distant rotor-whap of a helicopter came to them, then faded away. The warriors double-timed for the river.

Calling Lieutenant Silveres forward, Lyons briefed him as they followed Thomas. Despite his heavy pack, Lyons moved fast, striding up rises, jogging down. Breathless and sweat drenched, the young officer stumbled under his load of weapons and ammunition. But he never asked for rest.

"The river's a few minutes ahead," Lyons told him. "The point men have it in sight. They told us there's a steamer boat fighting with the army. They don't know who's on the steamer. They don't know what army it is. But we know who's in the helicopter. If it's your people up against the slavers, they might need help mucho pronto. So be prepared to introduce us. And do us a big favor, will you? Say something good. I mean, lay off about the CIA and gringos and the invasion of Brazil. Please? Por favor?"

"I will tell..." the lieutenant gasped out words as he struggled to keep up with Lyons "...my superiors... what I have seen. You have... risked your lives... to help these Indians. I respect that. You rescued me from the foreigners. You fought the foreigners... But the Mamore marks the boundary of Brazil. Only the army of Brazil... will fight in Brazil. It is not my decision or the decision of my superiors. It is the law. Because you come from a rich... military power... does not give you the right to fight in other countries. We are not cowards like the Europeans. The army of Brazil... and not the United States Army... defends our people."

"Hey, kid, that's reasonable. But understand, we're Colonel John Phoenix's men from the United States of America and we're wiping out slave-takers. If you can help us do it, great. But to me, that river's only water."

"Armed foreigners entering Brazil become the enemies of Brazil. When you cross the Mamore, you become my enemy. I will do my duty."

They heard the fire of automatic weapons. Lyons halted the line. A scout ran to Thomas. Thomas translated the report to Lyons and Lieutenant Silveres, "It is ended. The army take steamboat, take many farmers. We can do nothing."

"What army? You mean slavers? Could your man see what's going on?"

Thomas looked Lieutenant Silveres straight in the face, sneered. "I mean Brazilian army take steamboat. You go see what goes on. It happens now."

Advancing another hundred yards they came to a steep riverbank. Eroded by the flood current in the rainy season, a sheer dropoff overlooked a beach ten feet below and the river beyond. The line of men fanned out and crawled to the edge of the drop.

Several hundred yards downriver, Lyons saw a rust-streaked paddle-wheel boat aground on a curve in the river, the prow jammed into a sandbar. The amber light of dusk glowed on its white cabins and railings.

His binoculars closed the distance. A Huey helicopter bobbed on pontoons. An Oriental soldier threw a line from the Huey's side door to a Brazilian soldier on the rear deck of the steamer. The Brazilian caught the rope to secure the helicopter. Other lines held three olive drab PT boats to the aging river steamer. Stenciled unit numbers marked the sides of the patrol craft. Soldiers with unit patches and helmets swarmed over the decks of the steamer.

Panning up the length of the boat, Lyons knew why Thomas had sneered at the lieutenant. Through the binoculars, Lyons watched a scene of terror and murder. Soldiers pursued young girls on the decks of the paddle-wheel boat. Men and women struggled with the well-armed soldiers and took rifle butts in their faces. He saw a man with a shovel try to defend his wife; a soldier raised his auto-rifle: the muzzle flashed; an instant later, the sound of the burst drifted upriver. Soldiers dumped the body of the man into the river, tore at the clothing of the woman. Lyons watched her flail and scream, but her voice did not carry over the distance. A man and a woman jumped from the lowest deck, splashed through the waist-deep shallows. They didn't make the beach. Soldiers fired bursts into the water ahead of the couple, forced them to return. The soldiers clubbed the man and woman to the deck, kicked them. From time to time, other auto-bursts popped.

"There's the army of Brazil defending the people." Lyons passed the binoculars to the lieutenant. For a minute, Lieutenant Silveres watched. His hands shook. Without a word, avoiding Lyons's eyes, he returned the binoculars. He staggered back from the riverbank. Lyons heard him cursing.

Blancanales went to him. The older soldier stood with the lieutenant, gripped his shoulder. Lyons heard talk in Spanish and English, then a monologue of what had to be obscenities in Portuguese. The young officer was raving, gesturing wildly, gesticulating toward the distant river steamer. He clutched at the sling of his G-3. Blancanales had to restrain him, shove him back.

Lyons rushed to the side of his friend. "What's his problem now?"

"There's an officer there. A Colonel Gomez. Apparently Gomez was the one who sent Silveres out here. The lieutenant is out here from the capital investigating a rumor for the Bureau of Indians that all the Indians in the region are gone. So Gomez sends the lieutenant and his three men up here, and what happens? The slavers take them, torture him to find out what the army and the government told him about the problem out here. The lieutenant's from an army family — very proud of its history and its tradition of honor, patriotism — and this is an insult to everything that he is."

"And Gomez is the one he radioed," Lyons despaired. "So that bastard knows the score on Able Team. Great. Just great. Your punk lieutenant's so dumb arrogant he broadcasts the fact that there are only three Americans and a platoon of Indians out here. Great."

The lieutenant turned to him. "I apologize. You are right, I... But I did notsend a radio message. I do not know radios. I could not find the proper frequency. I have not compromised your mission."

"Gomez is in charge of this region?" Lyons asked, planning the next move. He glanced at the helicopter and the several boats. "Once we're past him, there are no more Brazilian units between us and the slaver camps?"

The lieutenant nodded.

"We wipe out the colonel and his soldiers. We take the boats, make it to the slavers. If you want to help those people on that boat, Lieutenant, then we must cross the Mamore. If we run into any loyal Brazilian army units, you will have to explain the situation. Law or patriotism or whatever."

"There will be no problems whatsoever, my friends." The lieutenant stared across the Mamore to Brazil. "In the name of the warrior you speak of, your Colonel Phoenix, that river is only water."

Moving silently through the last minutes of dusk, they marched to the curve of the forest that jutted into the Mamore. A few yards from the riverbank, Able Team and its Indian allies dropped their backpacks and prepared their weapons. Only a hundred yards of beach and shallow water separated them from the paddle-wheeler. They heard the cries of women.

Gadgets monitored the slaver frequencies. "Ironman, Politician. Thomas. Speed it up. They just radioed the slaver base. They're going to pull the old boat off the sandbar and take the people to the camps."

By touch, Blancanales passed a tube of face-blacking to Lieutenant Silveres. The Brazilian took a dab, then passed the blacking on to Thomas. All of the men shared it, ritually passing the blacking on to every man in the group, even those who already wore genipap. Hands checked magazines and bandoliers in the darkness.

Lyons conferred with the others. "I say we try to take the patrol boats and the helicopter first. If we can take a radio operator alive, without an alarm going out, we got a chance to cruise straight into their camp — as if we're bringing in the boatload of slaves. Thomas?"

"Maybe."

"Lieutenant Silveres?"

"Very good."

Blancanales agreed. "Sounds good to me. If everything goes perfectly..."

"Yeah, yeah. We do it, okay? Gadgets, you stay here and listen for any Mayday calls..."

"Forget that. You'll need me. I'll set up the recorder."

"Good enough. Thomas, tell your men. We take the boats and helicopter with knives and machetes. When we have the radios, we take the riverboat."

Like shadows within shadows, the warriors slipped through the last tangles of the rain forest and snaked down the embankment. Finally they saw the riverboat close up. What they saw stopped them.