Amazon Slaughter

2

On the video projection screen, the white of a storm a thousand miles wide swirled over the Atlantic Ocean and the coast of Brazil. Hundreds of miles into the continent, as the vast, river-veined geography turned beneath the satellite camera, the storm feathered to specks that left another thousand miles of Amazon jungle under a cloudless tropical sky. Sunlight flashed from a twenty-mile-wide tributary of the river.

Raising his voice over the whine of the air force jet's engines, Hal Brognola, Mack Bolan's chief liaison officer for the president's secret antiterrorist force known as Stony Man, touched a pointer to the video screen.

"Notice this one cloud," he said, pointing to a smear of white several hundred miles east of the snow-crowned Andes. No other clouds marked that expanse of green.

"Spectrographic analysis revealed it wasn't water vapor." Brognola pressed a control button. The natural greens and blues disappeared, replaced by phosphorescent reds, blues, purples. "This is computer-enhanced videography. Notice that little cloud now..."

The one point glowed brilliant yellow. As Brognola was speaking, the yellow point had expanded, the camera zooming in until the yellow smear, now streaked and dappled with orange and red, filled the screen. Brognola pointed to the white center.

"Right there, 1000° Fahrenheit. The National Security Agency parked the satellite over this hot spot, monitored it..."

The three men of Able Team were leaning back in their leather-upholstered chairs and glancing at the maps of Brazil they held. Gadgets Schwarz interrupted.

"What was the spectroanalysis?"

"Sodium oxides. Principally sodium hydroxide. Now the photos."

Gadgets stammered, blurted out: "Man, that... it... those oxides could only... Oh, shit. That's got to be wrong. That means..."

"It was radioactive..."

"Radioactive?" Carl Lyons asked. "Like atomic?"

Brognola pressed the remote control again. Black-and-white images filled the screen. With the pointer, he traced a line across the mottled ground. A break in the jungle showed here and there along it. The breaks suggested a road.

"Did the Brazilians test a bomb or something?" Rosario Blancanales asked. "Or is that Bolivian territory?"

"Not a bomb," Gadgets answered, his voice quiet.

"The site appears to be in Brazil, but only just. It's only a few miles from territory that Bolivia claims," said Hal.

"How much radioactivity?" Gadgets asked.

"What is this, a guessing game?" Lyons demanded. "Was it a bomb or not?"

"A bomb factory," Gadgets answered. "How much radioactivity, Hal?"

"We don't know..."

"A bomb factory?" Lyons asked. "What was it that happened? A nuke went off?"

"What about local people?" Blancanales broke in. "Any information on what happened to them?"

"And who set up the factory?" Lyons pressed. "The Brazilians? I didn't know they had the..."

"Gentlemen," Brognola smiled. "If we knew the answers to these questions, you three men would not be en route to the Amazon. Allow me to return to the briefing. A spy satellite has given us a few photos, but not much..."

Indicating roads and clearings and structures with the pointer, Brognola flashed a series of grainy blowups on the video screen. "They seem to have gone through the jungle in such a way as to maximize their overhead cover. If we hadn't spotted the sodium hydroxide and the heat, we couldn't have found the installation.

"When Schwarz described the setup as a bomb factory, he was not entirely correct, I think. What we believe they're manufacturing is plutonium."

"But they could take the plutonium to make a bomb," Gadgets added. "Every terrorist, every fanatic in the world has got the how-to books, but none of them has the plutonium. Yet."

"It could be that this group..." Brognola nodded, tapping the satellite photo on the screen "...has the technology and financing to take the next logical step... or insane step... and fabricate nuclear weapons."

"But how do we know they can make plutonium?" Blancanales countered. "All we've got are those satellite photos."

"It's the sodium hydroxide, Rosario," muttered Gadgets. "It means a whole lot of sodium hit the environment. And the only reason to have that much metallic sodium in one place is a plutonium breeder reactor. A plutonium breeder uses liquid metallic sodium as a coolant. Most reactors use water as a coolant. The water flows around the core, draws off the heat and becomes steam. The steam runs the turbines to make electrical power. But a breeder needs sodium coolant, both to cool it and to moderate the plutonium fission process. Keeps it from going 'boom.' The sodium surrounds and cools the core. It keeps the rate of reaction down. Then it goes through a heat exchanger to heat up the water. The steam makes electrical power. And as a by-product, instead of a pile of used-up uranium 235, you've got more plutonium than you started with."

"Could this be some kind of supersecret Brazilian power plant?" Lyons asked. "I mean, the government there isn't going to let a gang of crazies set up a nuke factory."

"There is no government where you're going," Brognola answered. "No roads, no towns, nothing. All the maps are approximate. What information we have mentions headhunters and cannibals."

"Is there no other explanation for what the satellite pictures show?" Blancanales asked.

"That's why you three are going!" A voice boomed from the back of the plane. Andrez Konzaki, the Stony Man weaponsmith, was seated behind a conference table. "Why don't you let Hal finish your briefing? Both of us have to get off in Miami, and I need to talk to you, too. That gives us thirty-five minutes more. No more wasting time, hey?"

Lyons gave the ex-marine a quick salute. "Yes, sir! No more questions from me."

Brognola dropped a thick folder of maps and photocopies in front of each member of Able Team. "The briefing on the satellite intelligence is over. Here's miscellaneous information on the region. The Indians, the land, the natural hazards. Radiation hazards and decontamination procedures. This jet will take you to an airfield in Peru. You'll transfer to a DC-3 for the hop over the Andes. Our CIA liaison has arranged a team of Indians to take you into the area.

"You'll carry very basic antiradiation gear. Remember, your assignment is only to gather information. If the area is radioactive, you will withdraw. We'll have a satellite directly over your area of operation. Schwarz will have an instantaneous link to Stony Man. As the situation evolves, your mission directive may change. They're yours, Andrez. We have twenty-nine minutes before Miami."

Lyons went to the back of the executive jet's luxurious compartment, where the square-shouldered, bull-necked Konzaki had spread equipment over the conference table. "Now we start on the important stuff. What've you got for us?"

"Standard weapons..."

"The Atchisson! All right! Are the bugs worked out yet?"

"It wouldn't be going with you otherwise."

Lyons picked up the black-metal-and-plastic assault shotgun. Looking like an oversize M-16, the selective-fire shotgun chambered both standard and Magnum 12-gauge shot shells from a 7-round box magazine or a 20-round drum magazine.

"What is that monster?" Gadgets asked.

"That's the LCKD," Konzaki told him. "Short for 'Lyons's Crowd-Killing Device.' Just a joke, guys. It's an Atchisson Assault 12. It'll be on the market soon. I remanufactured the pressings in titanium to bring down the weight. Added the carrying handle, M-16 style."

"Who's carrying the ammunition for that thing?" Blancanales asked. "Looks like it could go through a hundred rounds a minute."

"It could," Konzaki answered. "But the forestock's plastic would burst into flames. I packed twelve magazines of double-ought and number two shot mix. The British developed that mix in Malaysia; it works great in the jungle. And two magazines of one-ounce rifled slugs with Kevlar-defeating steel dart cores."

"How much does all of that weigh?" Blancanales pressed.

"It's mine," Lyons told his teammates. "I'll carry it. You two take those Matty Mattels." He pointed to the rifles on the table, a CAR-15 and an M-16/M-203 over-and-under assault rifle/grenade launcher.

"Yeah, you'll carry the monster," Gadgets joked, "but who'll carry you? And what happens if there's more than one firefight? You'll be out of ammunition."

Konzaki answered for Lyons. "The Agency files noted that 12-gauge shotguns are the most common hunting weapons in Brazil and Bolivia. There will be ammunition available. But I don't think you'll need it. Consider the numbers. I hand-packed the shot rounds. By cutting the wadding and using Magnum cases with a standard charge of powder, I got eight double-oughts and fifty number twos into each round. On full auto, Lyons can put out more than four hundred pellets in one and a half seconds. You get ambushed, that weapon can get you out. There it is."

"Fire superiority," Lyons grinned.

"Okay," Blancanales agreed, "but you carry it. What goes on with these rifles? Anything special?"

"Luminous night-sights, titanium weight reduction, selective-fire sears — one-shot, three-shot, or full auto," Konzaki said, turning to the field rifles. "And they have barrels bored for the new NATO slug — one twist in seven inches instead of the old one-in-twelve. It'll give you better accuracy at extreme ranges, less wind drift and enhanced flesh-destroying characteristics."

"Tell us more," Blancanales said.

"Well, you know all about what happens when a 5.56mm slug hits a body. The new NATO slug spins almost twice as fast. And it has more weight. Sixty-five grains instead of the old forty-grain weight. The NATO slug also has a steel core. It will defeat all soft body armor. I loaded the magazines with steel cores and hunting slugs. Every other round is a hollowpoint."

"No Geneva Convention where we're going," Lyons commented.

Konzaki glanced at his watch, continued. "And each one of you will have a Beretta 93-R."

He pointed to three web belts carrying holsters and magazine pouches. Blancanales unsnapped a holster flap, slipped out the Parkerized-black pistol. Representing the cutting edge of Beretta's technology, the auto-pistol featured semi-auto or three-shot bursts. An oversize trigger guard and a fold-down grip provided for a two-handed hold. Fitted with a suppressor and firing custom-loaded 9mm cartridges, it killed without a sound.

"We had some problems with that subsonic ammunition," Blancanales told Konzaki. "I had to shoot one biker five times to drop him."

"Yes. You told me. So I flew out to the Coast for the autopsies on the Outlaws. Of the three slugs in the chest of that creep, one went through his wallet and lodged in rib cartilage. The other two shattered ribs, passed through his lungs and lodged against the back of his rib cage. Though he was definitely out of the action, I considered that substandard performance. Now the subsonics have steel cores. The steel cores do nothing for the shock power, but they have superior penetration characteristics. You can expect through-and-through torso wounds on your targets. But just barely. Ultimately, accuracy is the determining factor."

Lyons opened his jacket to touch his Colt Python. "I'm taking my Magnum. Those little Italian toys make me nervous."

"Whatever's appropriate, Mr. Lyons. Different weapons for different situations."

They felt the jet bank into a turn. Brognola packed his videotape and maps into his attache case, joined the others around the conference table.

"We'll be landing at Miami in one minute. You gentlemen will be in Peru sometime tonight. One thing I want to stress: this is a soft probe. We need information. Not a body count."

The three warriors of Mack Bolan's Able Team glanced at the weapons and ammunition covering the tables, the full-auto shotgun, the assault rifles, the silenced Beretta pistols. Lyons and Gadgets and Blancanales looked to one another, exchanged shakes of the head.

"Sure, Hal," said Lyons, smiling. "Anything you say."