Amazon Slaughter

20

"Holy goddamn," Gadgets swore. "The Atomic Yellow Peril."

Lyons stared out at the moonlit rain forest floating past them, alone with his thoughts. Shirtless, his upper body black with genipap, he wore his gray combat pants to cover the bandage on his piranha wound. Blancanales flicked the rewind switch of the tape unit and listened to snatches of the Stony Man C1A-NSA report. After a few replays, he let Gadgets tape his acknowledgment and outgoing report. Passing the signal through the scrambler, Gadgets transmitted the message in a highspeed screech of electronic noise.

Looking aft, Blancanales checked the river. The patrol boats towed the paddle-wheeler backward downstream. Brazilian farmers in army uniforms manned the helms. If observed from the air, the men and boats would appear to be slaver-commanded.

Hammers rang on sheet metal, power drills whined as the ironsmith and his helpers fabricated boiler-plate armor for the PT boats' gunners. Other men on the paddle-wheeler's cargo deck gave the aluminum dinghies and canoe a last coat of black paint. In the ship's cabins, the Indians caught a few hours' sleep before the assault on the slaver camps.

A hand radio squawked. Gadgets monitored a report to Lieutenant Silveres from the work crew returning with the weapons and cruiser captured from the slavers.

After the Portuguese-speaking settler cut off, the lieutenant translated.

"They have the weapons. They come downstream. No problems."

"At dawn." Lyons finally spoke. "At dawn we hit them. Like this."

Spreading out paper on a table stained by the blood of the captain, Able Team plotted the destruction of Wei Ho.

Only an hour remained until the first gray light of dawn. Mist swirled around the lights of the ancient vessel. Carl Lyons, Pol Blancanales and Gadgets Schwarz stepped from the rail of the paddle-wheeler's cargo decks to the decks of the patrol boats and the captured slaver cruiser.

Gadgets and Blancanales checked the mountings of the heavy weapons on the cruiser, congratulating the workmen on their quick installation. The slavers' cruiser/troop boat now carried two M-60s and two MK-19 40mm full-auto grenade launchers. A group of Brazilian settlers, some of the men army veterans, manned the weapons. Lieutenant Silveres, weak but able to translate, would man the ship's communications, monitoring the slaver transmissions and relaying radio instructions from the assault force to his gunners.

On one of the patrol boats, Lyons moved through the assembled Indian warriors in a last check of their weapons and spirits. They laughed and joked with him, flourishing their Remingtons and G-3s. He counted their bandoliers of 12-gauge shells, mentally calculating their rate of fire versus the ammunition they carried. He knew this would be their heaviest action yet. Then he saw some men packing nylon rucksack, heavy with double-ought shells.

They knew what they were up against, Lyons nodded to himself. No doubt about it.

The black-painted men inspected him also, joking to one another, touching the battle rig Lyons wore. Still shirtless, his body blacked with genipap, he wore all his weapons: the shoulder-holstered Python, the Beretta, the Atchisson slung over his shoulder. Bandoliers crossed his chest, making him look like a Mexican bandit. His radio hung on his Beretta's web belt with magazine pouches. A fragmentation grenade weighed down each thigh pocket. He wore his black-canvas-and-nylon jungle boots, a double-edged fighting knife taped inside his left boot top. He moved slowly with the weight of the weapons, the deck creaking under his boots.

"Boats look good," Gadgets called across to him. He pointed at the black dinghies and canoe bobbing beside the PT boat.

"Tell those farmers one last time," Lyons shouted. "No heroes, no widows. They stay safe. We promised their wives."

Lieutenant Silveres called out to the farmers on the other two patrol boats. Workmen had added steel gunner shields and an extra M-60 to each of the fast fiberglass boats. The men shouted out answers. "They understand."

"Then let's move!"

Motors rumbled, coughing puffs of black diesel soot into the night. Wives and families and friends called out from the rails of the paddle-wheeler and waved as the four river craft pulled away. In a minute, they left the voices and waves of the people far behind.

Lyons keyed his hand radio. "Lieutenant! Call that steamboat, tell them to get it moving. Can't have them anywhere near..."

Even as he spoke, the paddle-wheeler's whistle shrieked a farewell. The side blades churned the river, taking the families south, where they would wait in concealment for their men to return.

Engine rpm vibrating the river cruiser, Blancanales and Lieutenant Silveres stepped into the cabin. Colonel Gomez sat bound to a chair.

"You will die, stupids," the colonel raved. "The Chinese gang kill you all. Gringos and Indians, stupids."

"To you, traitor," the lieutenant told him, "what happens at dawn does not matter. You will die. Perhaps today, perhaps tomorrow, in front of a firing squad. Perhaps they hang you. You betrayed our country for gold."

The colonel spat at the lieutenant. The wounded young officer paled with anger. He sat down abruptly, for his blood loss had left him weak. Blancanales stepped up to the colonel, slammed the heel of his hand into the prisoner's solar plexus. Doubling over, Colonel Gomez choked and gasped.

Blancanales jerked the colonel's head back by his pomaded hair. "Don't spit. It is not polite. If you follow our instructions, you will live to have a trial. If you try to warn the other mercenaries, we will kill you. It makes no difference to us if you live or die."

Struggling to breathe, his eyes streaming tears, the colonel nodded his head.

Slipping out a knife, Silveres reached for the prisoner. Blancanales caught his hand.

"I do not mean to kill him. But he shames that uniform."

Grasping the insignia on the colonel's fatigue sleeve, Lieutenant Silveres cut the unit patch away. He stripped the fatigues of all rank and unit identification. He threw the bits of cloth and metal to the floor. "Judas. Traitor."

Their wakes white on the black waters of the river, the river craft left the Mamore and pushed upstream against the slow current of the tributary. The endless rain forest slid past, the masses of high trees deep shadows against the star-shot violet of the infinite night sky. To the east, the sky began to pale.

Lyons paced the deck of the PT boat, turning over in his head every detail of the coming assault. The interrogations of several mercenaries had provided good information on the layout and defenses of the slaver complexes.

The slaver city sprawled along several miles of river, compounds and equipment yards and the reactor sites interconnected by an asphalt all-weather road. In the first complex, Cambodian and Thai mercenaries occupied a compound a hundred yards from the riverbank. They guarded Wei Ho's domed garden and compound, several hundred yards farther inland. An asphalt road connected the two compounds. A mile upstream, there were equipment yards, a narrow airfield, and apartments for the technicians. Another mile upstream, a camp of European and American mercenaries guarded the slave compound.

Three miles of swamp and forest separated the slaves from the first of three atomic reactors, Unit One, gutted by the "accident." The other two Units were miles farther upriver. But the assault force would avoid the atomic reactors. They would attack Wei Ho.

The Indians broke into a sing-song chant. Squatting shoulder to shoulder against the gunwales of the PT boat, they swayed and nodded their heads to the simple rhythm. Lyons leaned against the cabin and scanned the darkness ahead of them. Nothing. He listened to the warriors' song. He asked Thomas, "What is the song you're singing?"

Thomas smiled, shook his head. "Make no sense in English. Very old song."

"Is it a prayer? Like in church?"

"No, only song."

"Tell me. I want to know," Lyons insisted.

"It about women drinking... drinking much and want man to lie down with them... but men drink too much and can't get up... so the women get no love..."

Lyons burst out laughing. "Sure it makes sense in English."

His laugh died. Light glowed on the far shore of the river. Lyons motioned at the Indians. They were silent. He keyed his hand radio. "Wizard. Political. Lieutenant."

Their voices answered. "The city?"

"You got it."

Above Lyons, a hand radio squawked in Portuguese as the lieutenant issued instructions to the helmsman and the two Brazilians who manned the M-60s. The PT boat slowed as the dark form of the river cruiser came up to their side. The hulls bumped. Gadgets and Blancanales stepped down to the smaller boat.

Blancanales waved goodbye to the farmers manning the weapons. He called out to Lieutenant Silveres, "Vaya con Dios, hermano. "

"Good luck to you, Yankees."

The cruiser and the two other PT boats continued up-river. The helmsman of their boat stayed back. Able Team and their Indian allies watched the river and the distant forest. The Brazilian gunners went to their weapons, waited. Above the river the stars had faded. The eastern sky was turning gray.

The helmsman called down to Able Team in broken Spanish. "Vamos, gringos. Ahora. "

Veering for the opposite riverbank, the patrol boat cut through darkness and low mist. Lyons signaled Thomas. Gadgets and Blancanales gave their battle rigs a last pat-down check. Thomas crowded his men against the stern.

Lines of lights, fuzzed by early morning mist, marked a dock. The helmsman kept his distance, dropping the rpm to a whisper and drifted past. Then he eased the throttle open to imperceptibly gain speed.

The drone of a diesel generator carried from the shore. Lyons peered into the chill darkness, watching for the second pier.

"Alla," the helmsman whispered, his voice like a shout to the tensed warriors.

Faint glowing spots emerged from the lightening night. Lyons hand-signaled the others. The PT boat stopped dead in the water as the assault force climbed from the rails. The men lowered themselves into the small boats.

Hands clutched ropes as men fumbled to their places in the dark. Lyons found his seat in a dinghy, felt the tiny boat sway and bob when the last man crowded aboard. Aluminum scraped fiberglass as the men with oars pushed away from the PT boat. The engine chugged again. The hull slipped away in the darkness.

Oars pulled at the black mirror of the river. Mist billowed and swirled. The men rowed quickly, carefully, never splashing, never banging the oars against the boats.

A black rectangle loomed against the gray sky. Pressing themselves low in the boat, the men looked up at the vertical wall of steel containers on a barge. A ray of lighted mist projected from the window of a toolshed on the docks.

Touching the earphone from his hand radio, Lyons keyed his transmit and whispered, "The current's carried us downstream. We might have a hot landing."

"Check," Blancanales answered.

"Maybe," Gadgets acknowledged from the canoe.

The oarsmen kept their strokes steady, silent. Lights on the riverbank made gray mist glow yellow. Lyons scanned the water behind them, caught two shadows sliding over the water: the other dinghy and the canoe.

Sand scraped the aluminum keel. Jamming the oars into the shallow water, the rowers steadied the dinghy as the other men slipped into the water. Lyons dragged his feet through the shallows, not risking a splash. Easing himself prone on the beach, he waited, listening. The other men fanned out around him. Ahead of them, a tangle of reeds stood motionless in the windless predawn.

A truck's engine revved somewhere. The drone of the diesel generator drifted to them from time to time. The second dinghy and the canoe slid onto the beach. Boots and sandals crushed the sand.

Lyons waited until all the movement behind him went still, then crept through the high reeds. He heard grasses swish against moving men. At the top of the riverbank, Lyons and the Xavantes came to raw mud and gravel. Staying low in the reeds, he scanned the cleared ground.

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.